The next big battle

[pixelthis]

Since mr P banned me from his thread.
They are talking about getting rid of broadcast TV!
Saw a few ads on TV about fighting the move away from broadcast,
then heard a report about it this morning.
SEEMS SOME THINK that all of this bandwidth would be better served by
nerds downloading the latest shooter on their smart fones.
But what are the alkies going to watch between the five minutes from waking up
to getting to the liquor cabinet?
Will the rednecks go crazy fiddling with the coathanger hanging outside their
doublewide looking for a nonexistent signal?
The nets and local broadcasters will still be there, poor relations with their govt mandated spot on cable, but its a long way from their once dominant spot.
The heck with em.
They fought MTS STEREO.
They fought HD TV .
Anything that cost a few bucks, THEY FOUGHT.
And they turned up the vollume during commercials, waking you from that sound sleep that their programming lulled you into.
Who needs em?
I got Outer space astronauts on SYFY .:1:

[manlystanley]

Will the rednecks go crazy fiddling with the coathanger hanging outside their
doublewide looking for a nonexistent signal?
.:1:


Your way behind the times:

-- We rednecks have moved way beyond coat hangers. We're now into buying wire and stringing it between trees. Besides making better reception, it adds some excitement whenever thunder storms move through.

-- Doublewides?? Who can afford one of those? That's what we aspire to. Most of us use broken down mobile homes that are towed into place. With the price of gas they are more plentiful then before.


Best Regards,
Stan




Best Regards,
Stan

[Hyfi]

I still use Broadcast tv and vowed never to pay for it until it was unavailable. Screw cable and dish! When cable first came out, it was touted to be so great due to no commercials. Now cable has just as many or more commercials than OTA.

[Mr Peabody]

I didn't ban you from the thread just making predictions :)

They will never get that past. Look how many local stations and employees would lose their jobs, not to mention the vital service our local stations bring. How else would we get local news and events? Not to mention how many people can't afford cable or satelite. There are still some independent stations around. Ours used to be great but now subscribe to programming from WB or whatever that other brand of programming is.

Where did you see this? It don't make sense. Why would the feds spend billions on converter boxes so people can have OTA then attempt to turn it off? Of course, government and good sense seldom meet.

[pixelthis]

I didn't ban you from the thread just making predictions :)

They will never get that past. Look how many local stations and employees would lose their jobs, not to mention the vital service our local stations bring. How else would we get local news and events? Not to mention how many people can't afford cable or satelite. There are still some independent stations around. Ours used to be great but now subscribe to programming from WB or whatever that other brand of programming is.

Where did you see this? It don't make sense. Why would the feds spend billions on converter boxes so people can have OTA then attempt to turn it off? Of course, government and good sense seldom meet.


They are not doing away with local broadcasters, just the OVER THE AIR PART.
Now really, when was the last time you watched the locals over the air?
Its a lot more important that Todd and Buffy be able to download drinking apps
to their smart fones.
I mean, we gotta get our priorities straight.
AND IN THIS DAY AND AGE, ALL OF THAT BANDWIDTH FOR FREE?
Knew that couldnt last.:1

[pixelthis]

As for where I saw it, in two places, an AD on the local Fox affiliate(an expensive
ad) and a report on the WSJ newshour on the RADIO.
Remember radio?:1:

[pixelthis]

And what do you mean just for making predictions??
Hmmm?:1:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Pix, I know what you are trying to say, but there are some inaccuracies in your post.





Since mr P banned me from his thread.
They are talking about getting rid of broadcast TV!
Saw a few ads on TV about fighting the move away from broadcast,
then heard a report about it this morning.
SEEMS SOME THINK that all of this bandwidth would be better served by
nerds downloading the latest shooter on their smart fones.

It is not they are trying to get rid of broadcast television, it is a combination of two realities coming to pass. The first issue is business model. Free broadcast TV is supported by advertising dollars, and that money is moving away from broadcast television and towards the web. The networks are following that money and the business model of the cable companies as the current broadcast business model is breaking down. I would say in less than ten years, you will have to pay a fee for ALL content you watch, and it will probably be on the web instead of over the air. Secondly, congress wants the spectrum that broadcast currently sits on for wireless technology after transitioning broadcast over to digital to lessen its footprint "in the air". Google and Microsoft want this spectrum, and let's face it, they have more money than the networks do, and quite frankly more power as well. The FCC approves of this move, and the stupid thing is the FCC was created to mandate broadcasters, and this action could mean a huge loss of power and visibility. In others words, they are voting against their own interests, much like most Americans do.



The nets and local broadcasters will still be there, poor relations with their govt mandated spot on cable, but its a long way from their once dominant spot.
The heck with em.

It is not the fault of the networks, its the feds and the American public that is driving this change. People just like you who stream through Hulu and the various other sites. You folks are fueling this change.



They fought MTS STEREO.

No they didn't. They really wanted stereo so they could compete with the theaters at that time. Stereo was a cheap upgrade


They fought HD TV .
Anything that cost a few bucks, THEY FOUGHT.

No, they fought being mandated to change without funding to do it. The upgrade to DTV (not everyone is HD) costs between hundreds of thousand for local stations (where the market could not support it financially) to millions for network owned and affiliates. Local stations and the Networks didn't have the cash to do this transition when it was mandated, so they didn't want something imposed on them that they could not afford. I think every American should understand that completely



And they turned up the vollume during commercials, waking you from that sound sleep that their programming lulled you into.
Who needs em?
I got Outer space astronauts on SYFY .:1:

No they do not turn up the volume on commercials. Program material is not as compressed dynamically as commercials are. There are spaces of silence, and lower level sounds can easily be discerned. Commercials are heavily compressed with the volume pumped up as close to digital zero as it can be for maximum impact. They advertisers like it that way. All broadcasting antennas have limiters to prevent overload, so the volume has a maximum gain imposed on it. Commercials are loud because the programming on before and after is not heavily compressed with its volume pumped up to the hilt. Commercials are not shot and mixed by the networks, they are mixed by post houses like mine, and the audio engineer has been given instructions to compress and push the volume.

[Mr Peabody]

It seems there would have to be OTA for emergency and public service. As I stated look at all the converter boxes sold. There are still many who use OTA. During the occasional bad storm when satelite signal is lost I will use OTA. I still think if this comes to light where people wake up to what's happening it will never pass.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

It seems there would have to be OTA for emergency and public service. As I stated look at all the converter boxes sold. There are still many who use OTA. During the occasional bad storm when satelite signal is lost I will use OTA. I still think if this comes to light where people wake up to what's happening it will never pass.

Unfortunately the people will not have a choice in this one Mr. P. This change is not up for vote, it is a money thing. The thing is, unless the local station broadcast news 24/7, there isn't going to be much programming for them. Public stations may be the last man standing in this, as the networks are already making plans for this transition. If you look at the battle between Fox and Time/Warner cable, Fox wants to charge cable for all of its programming - a lot more. You will see quite a few more battles just like this in the coming future as advertising money dries up for broadcast television. Without advertising money, the Networks will be unable to continue broadcasting. Public television is funded more and more by the public, and less and less from the federal government. So for public broadcasting, you are essentially paying for programming even though it is free sort of speak to the public.

You know our government is not always very smart. Those converter boxes just mean that when all is done, what is left will be digital and that is it. The feds cannot stop the networks from moving to the cable model, as a matter of fact, they are encouraging it so they can get the sell the broadcast frequencies that are left. It is worth billions, and Google or Microsoft will pay for it no problem. Rumor has it that Google wants it so they can create their own wireless network system.

[Mr Peabody]

I don't understand what you mean. If CBS sells Tide a spot during David Letterman, that spot gets seen by CBS affiliates OTA as well as that same station on cable and satelite. Satelite still don't have the bandwidth to carry all local programming. It seems to me if you turn off OTA it would limit further the number of people capable of seeing the commercial. Also, it would seem to me less likely OTA commercials would be skipped by people using Tivo or DVR devices. OTA is a bit more involved to record, or at least not as convenient.

[Woochifer]

Unfortunately the people will not have a choice in this one Mr. P. This change is not up for vote, it is a money thing. The thing is, unless the local station broadcast news 24/7, there isn't going to be much programming for them. Public stations may be the last man standing in this, as the networks are already making plans for this transition. If you look at the battle between Fox and Time/Warner cable, Fox wants to charge cable for all of its programming - a lot more. You will see quite a few more battles just like this in the coming future as advertising money dries up for broadcast television. Without advertising money, the Networks will be unable to continue broadcasting. Public television is funded more and more by the public, and less and less from the federal government. So for public broadcasting, you are essentially paying for programming even though it is free sort of speak to the public.

The other ball in play is the upcoming consolidation in the industry. The lines between service providers, content producers, and broadcasters are blurring. And all of these interconnected alliances are creating conflicts of interest everywhere.

If the pending Comcast/NBCU merger goes through, then you'll see an avalanche of mergers in its wake and that will create a mess of major proportions with no benefit whatsoever to consumers. The telcos, satellite companies, broadcasters, cable providers, and online players are all pawns in a big chess game.

The spat between TW and Fox is not unique. Just look at the still unresolved dispute between Directv and Versus (which is owned by cable provider Comcast, which also owns several cable channels and now wants to acquire NBC and its family of cable channels), or the earlier standoff between Dish Network and Viacom/CBS. These pissing matches have done nothing except blackout slates of channels and result in higher service rates.

Directv's already getting prepped for a spinoff, and the likely buyer will be either AT&T or Verizon. And what's to stop another media conglomerate from also trying to acquire a service provider (like Dish Network for example)?

Problem with all of the media mergers is that the businesses are no longer operated as standalone functionaries, but as cogs in a bigger entangled corporate machinery where every successive merger creates profits for the shareholders while saddling the business down with a higher debt load.

[Woochifer]

I don't understand what you mean. If CBS sells Tide a spot during David Letterman, that spot gets seen by CBS affiliates OTA as well as that same station on cable and satelite. Satelite still don't have the bandwidth to carry all local programming. It seems to me if you turn off OTA it would limit further the number of people capable of seeing the commercial. Also, it would seem to me less likely OTA commercials would be skipped by people using Tivo or DVR devices. OTA is a bit more involved to record, or at least not as convenient.

You're not seeing the big picture. TV stations no longer generate a profit strictly through ad sales. They've all been overvalued and saddled down with millions in debt in the mergers and acquisitions orgy that transpired after the ownership rules got relaxed in the mid-90s.

Right now, cable companies pay for the right to carry local station broadcasts. That's what keeps these stations afloat. If cable went away, the stations would go bankrupt. It's that simple. If OTA signals went away, viewers would flock to cable or satellite providers

Conversely, the TV stations also know that cable depends on the inclusion of local broadcasts. Without local TV broadcasts, viewers would cancel their cable service in droves. This is the tension that's leading to these standoffs like the one between Time Warner Cable and Fox.

Less than 20% of TV households get their programming via OTA antennas. Over 80% of TV households subscribe to either cable or satellite or fiber for their programming. The advent of digital TV multicasting has led to a slight resurgence of OTA usage, but it has not led to a notable decrease in the cable/satellite usage.

[Mr Peabody]

15 or 20% of the population is a big number to cut programming to and I wonder how many of that percent could afford cable/satelite if they wanted it or was left with that as an only alternative.

This almost sounds like another housing melt down but for TV broadcasters. TV started with OTA it would be weird not to have it around and to fall back on.

[Hyfi]

During the occasional bad storm when satelite signal is lost I will use OTA. I still think if this comes to light where people wake up to what's happening it will never pass.

First of all, during a bad storm, depending on where your OTA signal is coming from, you will have the same exact issue as Satellite. I have one major station that sucks in storms and several smaller stations that disappear when it drizzles.

Second, it doesn't matter who wakes up because "The People" never have a real say in these decisions.


15 or 20% of the population is a big number to cut programming to and I wonder how many of that percent could afford cable/satelite if they wanted it or was left with that as an only alternative.

The number of households that did not already have Digital TVs was at least that or more and guess what, nobody cared. They only really extended the deadline because the Gov F'ed up the amount of coupon cards they needed to have.

I'm sure every politician already has cable or sat so they don't give a rats ass about those who don't. They will cram this through if only to make money from the taxes applied to your monthly contract.

I still only use OTA but do not watch too many shows. Most of them I can watch over the internet the next day. Here is a website I just heard about yesterday on NPR which helps you find over the net alternatives for cable-sat.
http://www.cancelyourcable.com/

This is seriously screwed up if they do push this through in the near future after making millions of people buy converter boxes while knowing all along they would be useless in a year or two for those using OTA.

I am also betting this will increase the pirating downloads of all TV shows that folks put up in torrents. I won't shell out $50 plus a month for a few TV shows until there are NO other alternatives.

[Mr Peabody]

I've never lost signal OTA during a storm. Sometimes depending on atmospheric conditions reception is better. With satelite or cable you just get a black screen, or maybe an error message.

[Feanor]

....

Right now, cable companies pay for the right to carry local station broadcasts. That's what keeps these stations afloat. If cable went away, the stations would go bankrupt. It's that simple. If OTA signals went away, viewers would flock to cable or satellite providers

...
That's interesting. Of course, you're talking State-side; here in Canada the CabSats don't pay for local stations. Up here the networks who provide local content want the CabSats to pay for local as they do for specialty channels. The CRTC regulator proposed that the Cabsats pay ~$10/mo. for local channels. The CabSats spent millions of dollars fighting this; they portrayed it as a "tax on consumers" rather that a charge to themselves. Of course it actually would behave like tax rather than a charge to the them since they would simply pass on the cost rather than absorb it, given there is no longer regulation or sufficient compedition to prevent that.

I pay $80/mo. for my satilite service that includes a very limited amount beyond the mandated minimum. It's a huge gouge and I am very seriously thing of cancelling the whole damned thing once I'm retired in a couple of months. I have no provision for OTA at the moment but might have to look into it.

BTW, the very same Canadian CabSats also are the main mobile 'phone providers and ISPs. Canadians pay more and get worse service for all these things than most developed countries. These corporate interest are extremely rich needless to say. Personally I'm extremely fed up and PO'd with the whole situation :mad5: but of course there's effectively FA, (oh sorry, nothing personal, FA), that can done about it.

Given consolidation trends, American should stand by to be screwed over by corporate interests just as badly as Canadians already are. Long live capitalists and their ball-crushing grip on our politicians and regulators.

[Woochifer]

15 or 20% of the population is a big number to cut programming to and I wonder how many of that percent could afford cable/satelite if they wanted it or was left with that as an only alternative.

Nearly every cable system has some sort of "lifeline" service that replicates the OTA channel selection for less than $20/month (my parents pay $13/month for their service). People who don't subscribe to cable or satellite generally do so because they choose to.


I still only use OTA but do not watch too many shows. Most of them I can watch over the internet the next day. Here is a website I just heard about yesterday on NPR which helps you find over the net alternatives for cable-sat.
http://www.cancelyourcable.com/

That puts you way in the minority. Internet TV viewing gets a lot of hype and a lot of hits, but it doesn't sustain long-term viewership. The average viewer will watch TV for multiple hours a day, but online video viewership averages only a few minutes a day. The simple reality is that most people don't like watching TV on computers and don't have or want their TV networked.

The OTA broadcast networks have been moving more towards live programming and unscripted programs because those show create instant demand and their shelf life has already expired by the next day when people talk about it over the water coolers. People who watch stuff like sports or reality TV or American Idol will not wait until the following day. Despite the advent of the internet and DVRs and VCRs and other time shifting devices, over 70% of TV viewing is still in real time. And it's that need for immediate gratification that will keep broadcasters viable at least for the near future.


This is seriously screwed up if they do push this through in the near future after making millions of people buy converter boxes while knowing all along they would be useless in a year or two for those using OTA.

I doubt that OTA signals will be going anywhere for at least a decade, certainly not "in a year or two."

[Hyfi]

Nearly every cable system has some sort of "lifeline" service that replicates the OTA channel selection for less than $20/month (my parents pay $13/month for their service). People who don't subscribe to cable or satellite generally do so because they choose to.



That puts you way in the minority. Internet TV viewing gets a lot of hype and a lot of hits, but it doesn't sustain long-term viewership. The average viewer will watch TV for multiple hours a day, but online video viewership averages only a few minutes a day. The simple reality is that most people don't like watching TV on computers and don't have or want their TV networked.

The OTA broadcast networks have been moving more towards live programming and unscripted programs because those show create instant demand and their shelf life has already expired by the next day when people talk about it over the water coolers. People who watch stuff like sports or reality TV or American Idol will not wait until the following day. Despite the advent of the internet and DVRs and VCRs and other time shifting devices, over 70% of TV viewing is still in real time. And it's that need for immediate gratification that will keep broadcasters viable at least for the near future.



I doubt that OTA signals will be going anywhere for at least a decade, certainly not "in a year or two."

Points taken. My personal opinion is that people who hang on every episode of American Idol or any other so called reality show should look into getting a life of their own. Sports on the other hand is a different story due to betting and all the people who live in Fantasy Land.

[nightflier]

Here's a question: if I pay for cable service, why should I have to sit through commercials? Maybe it's time someone did get fed up with this fact-of-cable too.

Also, everyone is so gung ho about the downfall of advertising, but aren't we at the bottom of a recession? Sure things look bleak now, but as Warren Buffet says, the American economy always recovers. When the economy crawls back, so will advertising, and OTA. I'm no fan of advertising, but I can't deny that so much of our economy depends on it.

[Hyfi]

Here's a question: if I pay for cable service, why should I have to sit through commercials? Maybe it's time someone did get fed up with this fact-of-cable too.

Also, everyone is so gung ho about the downfall of advertising, but aren't we at the bottom of a recession? Sure things look bleak now, but as Warren Buffet says, the American economy always recovers. When the economy crawls back, so will advertising, and OTA. I'm no fan of advertising, but I can't deny that so much of our economy depends on it.

Go back and look at my 1st response. That was the big deal when cable first hit the scene. Then after they hooked everyone, there is now more commercials than on OTA in some cases. If you are paying for Content, you should not have to watch the Advertising, they should already be making enough money from the customers. But, thanks to corporate greed, they take your money and still advertise.

[Smokey]

The thing is, unless the local stations broadcast news 24/7, there isn't going to be much programming for them. Public stations may be the last man standing in this, as the networks are already making plans for this transition.

What about local religion stations :D

I have about 16 OTA channles which four of them carry religion programs. I am sure if all of local OTA stations disapear, those four channels will keep trucking forever. All they have to do is to say that Jesus want these local stations to broadcast forever (or plant a seed in their future), and watch money pouring in.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Here's a question: if I pay for cable service, why should I have to sit through commercials? Maybe it's time someone did get fed up with this fact-of-cable too.

They could remove commercials very easily, but then your cable bill will go through the roof. Those commercials are keeping your cable bill in the nose bleed territory and out of the wallet is exploding territory. Their programming costs have gone through the roof over the last decade, and they need commercials to offset the cost.


Also, everyone is so gung ho about the downfall of advertising, but aren't we at the bottom of a recession? Sure things look bleak now, but as Warren Buffet says, the American economy always recovers. When the economy crawls back, so will advertising, and OTA. I'm no fan of advertising, but I can't deny that so much of our economy depends on it.

Advertising has been moving away from broadcast for nearly a decade, but the last two years has seen a quick acceleration of that trend. It does not have anything to do with the recession because overall advertising spending has not decreased, it has just moved from one place to another. To make up for the loss, the networks are starting to ask for more money from the cable companies that carry their programming. Once the networks hit the wall with trying to offset the loss of advertising dollars by charging more, they will end up leaving broadcast for the web or cable entirely.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

What about local religion stations :D

I have about 16 OTA channles which four of them carry religion programs. I am sure if all of local OTA stations disapear, those four channels will keep trucking forever. All they have to do is to say that Jesus want these local stations to broadcast forever (or plant a seed in their future), and watch money pouring in.

My comments are referring to the major networks, not smaller independent stations that produce their own programming. Religious stations usually rely on donations and offerings to support their station. The usually do not rely on commercials to keep the station broadcasting.

[frenchmon]

I've never lost signal OTA during a storm. Sometimes depending on atmospheric conditions reception is better. With satelite or cable you just get a black screen, or maybe an error message.


The solution.....Uverse


frenchmon

[manlystanley]

Analysis Plus Clear Oval speaker cable.Tweeks---->Isolation "ceramic blocks for CDP and SACDP, Stands filled with cat litter Dedicated two channel/library room with refection points treated.

Frenchmon,

Did you try other fillings besides cat litter? Perhaps 'used' cat litter would have a more useful density?? :-)

Best Regards,
Stan

[Mr Peabody]

Yeah, but U-verse isn't free either. You are right though that it is the best reception option. Well.... I don't know they could be prone to some of the same outage issues as cable.

[nightflier]

Well I neither watch much OTA TV, nor do I own cable. It's actually kind of funny the way they keep trying to sell me on these packages mailings, door tags, and the occasion solicitor (who gets the door slammed on him/her promptly). They must have some kind of database in which I must be at the top of the list of detractors, rebels, and non-conformists. It's probably integrated with the other databases that have me on their lists: store-discount cards, toll-road-meters, magazine subscriptions, and the charities I refuse to donate to. Pretty soon they'll be able to build a psychological profile of me just from the records of things they can't track and that I won't purchase. Is it 1984 yet?

For my part, I'm mostly renting and buying movies, and I fast-forward through all the crap at the beginning of the movies too. Now most movies don't allow that any more either (Disney's real big on that kind of force-feeding), so now I usually put the disk in the player first, go get my beer and snacks, and then turn on the TV and sound. If I do want to see previews, I'll select them after I'm done watching the movie.

For my news & info, I read. Most of what's on TV isn't news anyhow - it's just pointless drivel to get me to buy more products. As for magazines & newspapers, I skip right over the adds, and tear them out if I intend on keeping the mag. Anyhow, that's what a table of contents is for (when I can find it). If the rag is too ad-bloated, I usually loose interest and let the subscription run out.

I've given up on a whole host of websites I used to frequent to (about.com, anything from Microsoft, and the major newspapers too). My browser usually does a decent job filtering out the crapola, but if it's all over the place, then I'll find my info elsewhere. Fortunately, that's where the web is most useful: for every intrusive piece of mallware code, there's an intrepid hacker who finds a work-around and lets me plug it into my browser. Maybe that's why the media corporations hate the web so much - they can't completely control the force-feeding of junk.

[Hyfi]

Well I neither watch much OTA TV, nor do I own cable. It's actually kind of funny the way they keep trying to sell me on these packages mailings, door tags, and the occasion solicitor (who gets the door slammed on him/her promptly). They must have some kind of database in which I must be at the top of the list of detractors, rebels, and non-conformists. It's probably integrated with the other databases that have me on their lists: store-discount cards, toll-road-meters, magazine subscriptions, and the charities I refuse to donate to. Pretty soon they'll be able to build a psychological profile of me just from the records of things they can't track and that I won't purchase. Is it 1984 yet?

For my part, I'm mostly renting and buying movies, and I fast-forward through all the crap at the beginning of the movies too. Now most movies don't allow that any more either (Disney's real big on that kind of force-feeding), so now I usually put the disk in the player first, go get my beer and snacks, and then turn on the TV and sound. If I do want to see previews, I'll select them after I'm done watching the movie.

For my news & info, I read. Most of what's on TV isn't news anyhow - it's just pointless drivel to get me to buy more products. As for magazines & newspapers, I skip right over the adds, and tear them out if I intend on keeping the mag. Anyhow, that's what a table of contents is for (when I can find it). If the rag is too ad-bloated, I usually loose interest and let the subscription run out.

I've given up on a whole host of websites I used to frequent to (about.com, anything from Microsoft, and the major newspapers too). My browser usually does a decent job filtering out the crapola, but if it's all over the place, then I'll find my info elsewhere. Fortunately, that's where the web is most useful: for every intrusive piece of mallware code, there's an intrepid hacker who finds a work-around and lets me plug it into my browser. Maybe that's why the media corporations hate the web so much - they can't completely control the force-feeding of junk.

I hear ya. I get something in the mail every other day for Verizon Fios, which they should give me for free after the 1.5 year battle I had to get my property and driveway back to the condition it was in before they dug it all up. Comcast sends me crap on a daily basis. I do get some Dish stuff but nowhere near the ammont from Verizon and Comcast. Hmm maybe they could lower the price if they stopped chopping down trees and sending people the same crap every other day.

The other point you made about not being able to select Menu instead of all the previews does piss me off. I just rented UP the other day from Redbox and there is no menu or audio selections.

Side Question-
As stated in another thread about new releases being delayed for redbox over royalties or fees, and it was said that they buy them from Target or WallMart, how to they get labeled as dvdname_rental?

[pixelthis]

Pix, I know what you are trying to say, but there are some inaccuracies in your post.















No they didn't. They really wanted stereo so they could compete with the theaters at that time. Stereo was a cheap upgrade

It was a cheap upgrade, but that didnt keep them from fighting it tooth and nail.
I was there, don't try to say otherwise.



No, they fought being mandated to change without funding to do it. The upgrade to DTV (not everyone is HD) costs between hundreds of thousand for local stations (where the market could not support it financially) to millions for network owned and affiliates. Local stations and the Networks didn't have the cash to do this transition when it was mandated, so they didn't want something imposed on them that they could not afford. I think every American should understand that completely

Trying to get something for nothing is something too many Americans understand.
A broadcast liscense carries responsibilities, if broadcasters didnt want to upgrade (and most needed to upgrade obsolete equioment anyway) then they should have just walked away, let someone else take over.
DTV was and is the future, no way around that




No they do not turn up the volume on commercials. Program material is not as compressed dynamically as commercials are. There are spaces of silence, and lower level sounds can easily be discerned. Commercials are heavily compressed with the volume pumped up as close to digital zero as it can be for maximum impact. They advertisers like it that way. All broadcasting antennas have limiters to prevent overload, so the volume has a maximum gain imposed on it. Commercials are loud because the programming on before and after is not heavily compressed with its volume pumped up to the hilt. Commercials are not shot and mixed by the networks, they are mixed by post houses like mine, and the audio engineer has been given instructions to compress and push the volume.

In the book WINNING THROUGH INTIMIDATION Robert Ringer, talking about a tour he took through a local TV station, mentioned how the tour guide answered that question when it was posed to her.
She said that it wasnt even possible.
When leaving the control room Ringer asked a tech if he could do it and he said "sure,
just turn this knob".
THIS IS SUCH A COMMON PROBLEM that several receivers have a mode that fixes it.
And anybody with ears can tell it.
There is no technical reason like you cite, if there were then you're saying it is unfixable?
SURE, and the check is in the mail.
It is an easy fix to run the vollume through a master gain circuit to even out the vollume.
If they don't do it because the advertisers like it that way...
IT IS STILL THEIR FAULT.:1:

[pixelthis]

BTW you can add the local NBC station to the list of those showing this commercial.
It looks nice but is actually cheaper than it looks.
Really, tho, we have a lot more infrastructure than when broadcasting started, it has really become obslolete.
Its no longer a VHF signal with a FM mono audio carrier.
Its UHF HDTV with subcarriers and DD sound.
Time to say goodnight.:1:

[Mr Peabody]

Hyfi, it's Red Box, you paid $1.00 per movie, and you have expectations? :)

[pixelthis]

ANYWAY..
back to the future.
At CES they have pocket TV, and not those old lcd casios.
There are two competing formats, DTV AND FLO.
They convert broadcast tv to wi-fi, and it plays on your blackberry, smartfone etc, on
a OLED SCREEN with a great picture.
Thats the presentation, anyway.

[nightflier]

ANYWAY..
back to the future.
At CES they have pocket TV, and not those old lcd casios.
There are two competing formats, DTV AND FLO.
They convert broadcast tv to wi-fi, and it plays on your blackberry, smartfone etc, on
a OLED SCREEN with a great picture.
Thats the presentation, anyway.

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

In the book WINNING THROUGH INTIMIDATION Robert Ringer, talking about a tour he took through a local TV station, mentioned how the tour guide answered that question when it was posed to her.
She said that it wasnt even possible.
When leaving the control room Ringer asked a tech if he could do it and he said "sure,
just turn this knob".
THIS IS SUCH A COMMON PROBLEM that several receivers have a mode that fixes it.
And anybody with ears can tell it.
There is no technical reason like you cite, if there were then you're saying it is unfixable?
SURE, and the check is in the mail.
It is an easy fix to run the vollume through a master gain circuit to even out the vollume.
If they don't do it because the advertisers like it that way...
IT IS STILL THEIR FAULT.:1:

Pix, you really shouldn't argue about things you have no first hand information about. I have mixed commercials for broadcast, and I can tell you first hand what producers tell us. They want the dynamic range compressed to the hilt, and keep the volume as close to digital reference as possible without clipping the signal. I also mix television programming, and I use only as much compression as it takes to meet SMPTE standards for broadcast audio. Is the problem fixable, yes it is. You tell producers that their requests are going to annoy viewers instead of getting their attention, back off the compression and gain, and mix the commercial at the same levels you mix regular programming. That will cure the problem without the Dolby loudness metering system. If you doubt my explaination, I suggest you purchase Sound Forge 8 and do an analysis of the audio of a commercial versus program audio and you can plainly see the flattening of the wave forms on the commercials (the compression) versus the less flattened wave forms of the program audio.

Televisions stations have become so automated there is nobody sitting around riding the gain on program material which includes commercials. Commercial spots and programming are on servers with the times they run slaved to a master clock. There are no audio dials or sliders in the process, its all automated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17229281/ns/business-consumer_news/

http://www.dxaudio.com/page1/files/39d6c1ab50c43e064d4ebe5a67f6a070-3.html

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

Sorry, but the prepondurance of evidence does not support your comments. What is happening is not a trend towards movies on small screens, but a trend to add mobility to digital content. Survey after survey points to the television as the main viewing device for movies, and that trend has not changed one bit. What is viewed on the small screened video devices according to surveys are youTube videos, and television shows rented from Itunes, not movies at all.

Movies are shot for the big screen, and have copious amounts of detail in the foreground and background that are totally lost on a 4.5" screen. They are QC checked on a large screen, not a small screen. Nobody sits in their living room(where movies are watched by the majority of the population) with a cell phone watching movies. Nobody is going to sit for 2-2.5 hours staring at their cell phone or netbook. The latest survey I have seen points to the reality that people that use portable viewing displays watch an average of less than 20 minutes of video on that device per day. That would point to short videos or television programming, not movies. Just over 3% of mobile subscribers watch video on their phones, according to comScore, so not many folks are watching anything on their phones.

The only trend we are seeing here is a broadening of choices to view broadcast and online content, not movies. Movies are less than 10% of the overall content a broadcaster shows daily. With more and more displays being produced that can be connected to either a network, or directly to the net itself, there is no reason to believe OTA changes reflect that more than folks viewing content on small screen devices.

The trend in movies is to shoot, scan, author, and compress at higher resolutions (with 4k on the horizon) to be viewed on larger screens, not smaller ones. 3D is huge at CES, and 3D requires larger screens to be most effective. Both of these trends in movie production and reproduction are beyond the capabilities of portable video devices.

Here is an interesting read:

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-comes-the-youtube-hulu-cable-collision-course-2009-4

You get blasted because your comments are not based on facts, but gut feelings, desires, and out right fantasy.

[nightflier]

Well, we'll just have to wait and see. What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups. I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it. You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content. Finally, I'm kind of surprised you don't see the Comcast-NBC-Universal deal as a hedge play in response to these trends - that's been the mantra for all those who oppose the merger.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Well, we'll just have to wait and see. What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups. I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it. You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content. Finally, I'm kind of surprised you don't see the Comcast-NBC-Universal deal as a hedge play in response to these trends - that's been the mantra for all those who oppose the merger.

Wrong again NF. 3D is going to eventually be offered at all price points. The information I have is from studies done last year, and nobody can know what is happening this year. You have offered nothing to support your comments but your gut, and it has a 100% failure rate so far.

I believe my comments included broadcast television and online video content, so free content is covered. Beside what you call free isn't free at all. You need a internet connection to access youTube. It is not free. If you use wifi, it is not free except in certain places.

As far as what Gen -X wants....let's put it this way. They can want all they want, but they are probably not going to get it.

As far as the Comcast NBC deal, we'll see what happens with that. I however cannot see it being any different than Disney/ABC deal. Its just another marriage of a content producer and a content provider. It might not really help Comcast that much because they are developing an extremely negative reputation as a cable company. Their prices are too high, and they are on the verge of pricing themselves out of the market of the very people they are trying to reach. Comcast will only have a 51% stake in the deal, so it is not certain that the whole deal will be any good for them. Investors think they are paying too much, and there's going to be a well-defined set of regulations around how Comcast is going to treat others in the media industry, how they're going to treat consumers. So I think that will restrict at least initially how big of an impact this deal will have on the media industry.

[Mr Peabody]

I wonder if all the small devices could just be other companies wanting a piece of the Ipod pie?

[nightflier]

Wrong again NF. 3D is going to eventually be offered at all price points. The information I have is from studies done last year, and nobody can know what is happening this year. You have offered nothing to support your comments but your gut, and it has a 100% failure rate so far.

You're saying I'm wrong about something that hasn't even come to pass yet - you really shouldn't pass judgment so soon. Let's just wait this out. I think all your fancy figures of glories past will not stand up to this much change in this industry. All the comments I'm reading point towards miniaturization and yes, Mr. P, that is also because many other players want a piece of the iPod pie. The tide is shifting and you can try to beat it back with a spoon if you like, but you'll look pretty silly....

[Woochifer]

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

"All indicators"? You mean, the increasing average screen sizes for the TVs that actually get sold? How does that indicate that "small screens is indeed the future" when the screen sizes for what people actually purchase and use keep getting larger? If you don't see the trending towards bigger screens, then you're just not paying attention or simply ignoring any and all info that contradicts your web-centric bias.

Your backhanded slight on "last year's sales figures" seems to indicate that you'd rather keep perpetuating uninformed presumptions than rely on facts. To each their own, I guess.

As T already pointed out, data on actual viewing habits indicate that people who watch online video (which constitutes less than 60% of households) average less than 20 minutes a day. Contrast this with the average daily viewing time for live TV, which continues to increase and has now gone over 5 hours a day.

Your habits (i.e., relying on OTA broadcasts, not subscribing to any TV services, relying on online video for programming, etc.) are not reflective of the population as a whole, yet you project your preferences as if they are a generalization of the market. They are not. Why not just acknowledge your iconoclast status and leave it at that, rather than trying to convince people that your habits somehow portend things to come for everybody else.


What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups.

What makes you think that 3D wouldn't be right at home in a large HT setup, given that the demo units at CES are at least 50" sets?


I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it.

You can't figure out where the growth will come from without knowing what the baseline is doing. That data on viewing habits includes all forms of online video, and it shows that the general population remains uninterested in shifting all or most of their TV viewing online.

The network features getting added at CES are basically TV manufacturers trying to prop up the price points on HDTVs, which have plunged into the commodity range. 3D serves the same purpose.

A lot of techies are only looking at what they want to see in the future, without acknowledging the present or the direction that trends are going. The tech press' constant harping on Blu-ray (i.e., predicting that BD will fail, when its sales growth is more than double that of the digital distribution that they claim is taking over) is but the latest example of their usual blindered myopia.


You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content.

Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

YOU don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.

[Woochifer]

You're saying I'm wrong about something that hasn't even come to pass yet - you really shouldn't pass judgment so soon. Let's just wait this out. I think all your fancy figures of glories past will not stand up to this much change in this industry. All the comments I'm reading point towards miniaturization and yes, Mr. P, that is also because many other players want a piece of the iPod pie. The tide is shifting and you can try to beat it back with a spoon if you like, but you'll look pretty silly....

Mixed metaphors are just as bad as mixing alcohol. The audio and video markets have been going in divergent directions for decades. Audio has been moving towards increased mobility, while video has been going towards larger and larger screen sizes and higher resoltion. The tide that you keep talking about hasn't amounted to anything significant despite all the hype. "fancy figures of glories past" is a rather curious way of characterizing facts and actual viewing habits.

[Feanor]

...
Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

YOU [nightflier] don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.
Undoubtedly you are correct, Wooch.

On the other hand I hope for, if I don't necessarily expect, more Internet content.

With retirement looming, I'm looking for ways to reduce our routine expenses. C$80/month for our satellite service that comprises only a little more than the minimum, mandated content, is simply too much for the value delivered. ($80 might be small change to you, SirT, and nightflier (for that matter), but it is lot of money to me.)

80% of my personal viewing is news: mainly CBC, BBC, and CNN, plus Steward & Colbert. All of the TV content and more is available on the Internet. Other than these, I watch a few documentaries.

Why pay for news and Steward/Colbert when I can get them on Internet? Why pay for documentaries when some are available online from the producers for free -- and, (sad to say maybe), most of the rest available via Bit Torrent?

[pixelthis]

Pix, you really shouldn't argue about things you have no first hand information about. I have mixed commercials for broadcast, and I can tell you first hand what producers tell us. They want the dynamic range compressed to the hilt, and keep the volume as close to digital reference as possible without clipping the signal. I also mix television programming, and I use only as much compression as it takes to meet SMPTE standards for broadcast audio. Is the problem fixable, yes it is. You tell producers that their requests are going to annoy viewers instead of getting their attention, back off the compression and gain, and mix the commercial at the same levels you mix regular programming. That will cure the problem without the Dolby loudness metering system. If you doubt my explaination, I suggest you purchase Sound Forge 8 and do an analysis of the audio of a commercial versus program audio and you can plainly see the flattening of the wave forms on the commercials (the compression) versus the less flattened wave forms of the program audio.

Televisions stations have become so automated there is nobody sitting around riding the gain on program material which includes commercials. Commercial spots and programming are on servers with the times they run slaved to a master clock. There are no audio dials or sliders in the process, its all automated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17229281/ns/business-consumer_news/

http://www.dxaudio.com/page1/files/39d6c1ab50c43e064d4ebe5a67f6a070-3.html


What is wrong with you?
You have basically said the same thing I SAID.
Just wrapped it up in a bunch of doublespeak.
I understand ity, but some wont.
BASICALLY YOU said the problem is "fixable", but they don't want to.
Which is what I SAID, BASICALLY.
But dont worry, the free market is a wonderfull thing, and "late night " watching modes,
which limit dynamic range and level sound for late night viewing , and other solutions,
fix this artificial "problem" even if the broadcasters don't want to.:1:

[nightflier]

the screen sizes for what people actually purchase and use keep getting larger? If you don't see the trending towards bigger screens, then you're just not paying attention or simply ignoring any and all info that contradicts your web-centric bias.

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.


Your backhanded slight on "last year's sales figures" seems to indicate that you'd rather keep perpetuating uninformed presumptions than rely on facts.

Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...


As T already pointed out, data on actual viewing habits indicate that people who watch online video (which constitutes less than 60% of households) average less than 20 minutes a day. Contrast this with the average daily viewing time for live TV, which continues to increase and has now gone over 5 hours a day.

Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.


Your habits (...) are not reflective of the population as a whole, yet you project your preferences as if they are a generalization of the market. They are not.

I never implied that my preferences are exemplary of the rest of the population. Where did you get that? Certainly not from what I wrote. I'm basing my observations on what I read and see.


What makes you think that 3D wouldn't be right at home in a large HT setup, given that the demo units at CES are at least 50" sets?

I never said they would not be at home on large sets. Another attempt at putting words in my mouth. What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere. You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens. Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.


You can't figure out where the growth will come from without knowing what the baseline is doing. That data on viewing habits includes all forms of online video, and it shows that the general population remains uninterested in shifting all or most of their TV viewing online.

Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.


The network features getting added at CES are basically TV manufacturers trying to prop up the price points on HDTVs, which have plunged into the commodity range. 3D serves the same purpose.

You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.


A lot of techies are only looking at what they want to see in the future, without acknowledging the present or the direction that trends are going. The tech press' constant harping on Blu-ray (i.e., predicting that BD will fail, when its sales growth is more than double that of the digital distribution that they claim is taking over) is but the latest example of their usual blindered myopia.

Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.


Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.


YOU don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.

My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time. What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that. There is a battle raging out there between the cellular network and the wired network. What is of interest to the media companies is that they simply cannot control content on the wired one, but they have an opportunity here to control it on the cellular one. That is the carrot that the cellular carriers are offering to them.

Now I am of the opinion that the cellular network will become an extension of the now ubiquitous wired network (the Internet) and so whatever control they hope to offer, is going to be transitory. But if the cellular network remains completely private and separate with (heavily guarded) points of access to the Internet, where things like Net Neutrality have no meaning, then that's a different story. I really don't know what is going to happen in this battle, but there is absolutely no denying that it is raging. You can choose to see it or you can be like the proverbial three monkeys.

[Woochifer]

Undoubtedly you are correct, Wooch.

On the other hand I hope for, if I don't necessarily expect, more Internet content.

With retirement looming, I'm looking for ways to reduce our routine expenses. C$80/month for our satellite service that comprises only a little more than the minimum, mandated content, is simply too much for the value delivered. ($80 might be small change to you, SirT, and nightflier (for that matter), but it is lot of money to me.)

I can sympathize with that given that we've been trimming back as well. The telecomm situation in Canada is really warped. In the U.S., cable TV is treated like a public utility and nearly all communities are required to offer some form of low cost "lifeline" service for basic programming.

This comes at a price though in that cable companies typically get a local monopoly in return for offering the lifeline service and maintaining public access channels. In years past, you did have multiple cable operators in adjacent cities and they would compete for the franchise rights whenever existing deals expired. That was good for consumers and helped to control costs, even if the service was spotty and fragmented. Nowadays, the cable companies have been consolidating and now blatantly collude to control regional markets. For example, in California, Time Warner and Comcast horse traded their local franchises so that Time Warner now controls nearly all of the L.A. region, while Comcast controls almost the entire SF Bay Area.

On top of this quasi collusion, the programming costs keep escalating and the consolidation certainly hasn't helped consumers. My understanding is that the carriage costs for ESPN alone in the U.S. is about $4 per household, and other networks want similarly high fees. Consumers have wanted a la carte channel selections for years, but that's not coming anytime soon because the entire telecomm sector's business model is now built around bundling. The existing bundling that goes on with TV, phone, mobile, and internet services is expected to extend into content as well in the upcoming years.


80% of my personal viewing is news: mainly CBC, BBC, and CNN, plus Steward & Colbert. All of the TV content and more is available on the Internet. Other than these, I watch a few documentaries.

Not ALL of the TV content is currently available, given that networks don't stream their live feeds online (CNN's live online feed is not the same thing as their TV broadcast). My point about bundling is that online programming is now squarely in the crosshairs of service providers that want to corral online content into their paid subscription bundles.

For example, Hulu is actively shopping its service around to cable, satellite, and telco companies. Basically, those service providers would pay Hulu a carriage fee (similar to how broadcast networks operate) and Hulu would wall off a portion of the content exclusively for subscribers. ESPN360 shows online streams of live games, but it only works with those ISPs that have paid ESPN a carriage fee. Yet,the picture quality of the feed pales in comparison with even ESPN's standard def channel, and picture quality still matters to most people.


Why pay for news and Steward/Colbert when I can get them on Internet? Why pay for documentaries when some are available online from the producers for free -- and, (sad to say maybe), most of the rest available via Bit Torrent?

The simple answer to why pay is because a couch potato wants to watch a big TV from his/her comfy chair, not some small screen on a computer desk or a laptop. Because they want to watch something that looks halfway decent (the existing broadband service for most households is barely adequate for even a highly compressed and pixelated standard def image in real time). Because there is a lot of programming that is not available online. etc etc etc

Surveys of viewing habits indicate that people primarily watch online video only for short periods of time. That's fine for YouTube clips, news segments, and even half hour sitcoms. But, for a long form program or something with a lot of visual content, it just doesn't work.

The online options also leave a lot to be desired, especially for the technically challenged. Media PCs have been available for the better part of a decade and they've failed miserably. The reason is simply that people do not want the same experience in their home entertainment that they get with their computer (i.e., long boot up times, system crashes, complexity galore, etc.), and most people do not have a network connection to their TV.

[Woochifer]

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.

Oh please, now you're really reaching. Cell phones are nice for viewing short video clips and short form programs ... that is for that small minority of people who carry smartphones (as opposed to conventional cell phones that don't play video or access the web).

And your claim about smart phone numbers being "staggering" in comparison to TVs is rather laughable, unless you were saying that they were staggeringly LESS than TVs. Consider that the market penetration for TVs is over 90%, and cell phone service is roughly around 80% (incidentally about the same as cable/satellite service).

Already, you're behind the curve, and data from last year indicates that the sales split for smartphones according to Gartner was just 14% of the total cell phone sales. Even if you presume that all smartphone owners use those devices for video viewing (and that's a very laughable presumption), you're still talking about minor numbers at best. If you expect some tidal shift in viewing habits because of smartphones, you need much a bigger base than that. And that's overlooking the smartphones' natural disadvantage of smaller screen size and lower resolution.


Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...

To you it's "factually old" but it remains factual, which is a lot more than your fantastical prognostications based on nothing more than bias and wishful thinking.


Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.

And statistics are based on a much larger sample than your sample of YOUR personal preferences and viewing habits, and those of people in your social circle.

You obviously don't understand much about market research otherwise you'd know that households represent more than 97% of the U.S. population, and it's the primary unit of analysis in most market studies and federal data sources on consumer expenditures.

You can quibble about the methodology all you want, but the results from multiple survey and tracking sources have been consistent. The average consumer watches TV programs on TVs, and the availability of online video has not changed this. I don't know why this is news to you.

If there's been a tidal shift from cable/satellite/fiber to online video, we would have seen a massive rise in subscription cancellations. That has not happened.


I never said they would not be at home on large sets.

Then what were you getting at when you said that "the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups."? This makes no sense at any level.


What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere. You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens. Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.

Yeah, and concurrently at CES you see 3D and massive flat screen TVs everywhere. Most of the news accounts I've seen about CES include something about 3D. Your point right at the outset was that these small cell phone screens were the trend for movie viewing. I don't see that at all.

Personal video is a buzzword, but to me it implies viewing short form clips, not full length movies. The big picture that you keep missing is that the average consumer does not watch movies on small portable devices and the interest in doing so remains a very limited niche. All you have to do is look at the low redemption rates for the digital movie copies that get bundled with DVDs and BDs.

Your continued dismissal of the growth in TV screen sizes is rather telling because it directly contradicts the tech press' meme that people are shifting their viewing habits over to small screens.


Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.

These arent "my" surveys and "my" sales figures. The Nielson tracking data and last year's Ball State study used two very different sampling methodologies, yet they both came up with similar results on online and mobile video viewing -- combined less than 20 minutes a day on average. Sales figures are what they are. I've posted them on this site periodically. To me, the trends that tell the direction of the market are where the big picture starts. Market changes don't happen in the abstract and don't occur overnight. Ignoring the current baseline is rather foolish if you're trying to project forward. You seem to be working backwards by coming up with the conclusion first. I don't care if you accept my opinion, but you seem more determined to malign the factual data that I use, since you have yet to offer up anything comparable that supports your view.


You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.

I've always downplayed the effect of "feature creep" whether that was with home theater receivers or what's now happening with HDTVs, so don't tell me what I know or don't know.

The primary reason for adding new features to any commodified product is to prop up the price point, and there has always been a herd mentality in the consumer electronics industry. If one receiver manufacturer adds auto EQ calibration, then inevitably everybody else will too. If one TV manufacturer adds 240 Hz refresh to their TV and prices it at a certain point, other manufacturers will follow suit. If one TV manufacturer adds Netflix streaming to their $2,000 HDTV, then others will inevitably follow as well. If one manufacturer announces 3D compatibility, then others will follow shortly.

It doesn't mean that consumers will actually use the feature, because higher price points bundle together multiple enhancements. I mean, is the consumer purchasing the more expensive model because it has better video processing or because it includes a built-in DVR or because it uses a more advanced panel technology or because it consumes less energy or because it looks better/thinner? With flat panel TV prices bottoming into commodity territory, manufacturers have no choice but to include and market the latest features in hopes that consumers are willing to pay more to get those features.


Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.

The issue I have is not with the people who create the technology (it's their job to try to come up with the next big thing), but with the lackeys in the tech press who persistently overestimate consumer tolerance for short-term change. They glom onto the latest shiny object and proclaim that it will revolutionize consumer behavior. And inevitably they are wrong most of the time, because they are more about hype and serving their own interests and preferences than analyzing what an average consumer actually purchases. Taken as a whole, consumer expenditure patterns are rather mundane and predictable, and don't fundamentally shift from one year to the next. But that doesn't make for an interesting read, especially for jaded "journalists" who like to consider themselves cutting edge.

Just recall all of the hype during the dotcom boom where the tech press was proclaiming that retail stores were obsolete and online shopping would take over. Someone should have done some basic market research on remote retailing before saying something that dumb. More than a decade later, the entire remote retail sector remains less than 10%, which is not that much more than the market share that mail order and catalog operations commanded prior to the dotcom emergence.


There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.

Or so you say. If people are so bored, why would they watch more TV than ever? If you say that TV is background noise, then how is it any different now than 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when the average daily TV viewing time was closer to 4 hours? Your points are illogical because TVs were installed in bars and other places back then too.

And how does online video resolve any of this, given that much of the heavily viewed content is ported over from those same boring content providers? Boring content doesn't suddenly become exciting because it gets streamed over the internet and displayed on a puny screen.

You can keep on speculating about complaints that never get heard. I'd rather make judgments based on actual consumer behavior, which has been steady increases in cable/satellite/fiber subscriptions and subsequent increases in the average TV viewing time. Do you actually think those two trends aren't somehow interconnected? Until you see a sudden spike in TV subscription cancellations and declines in TV viewing time, there's not much to discuss.


My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

And people who subscribe to cable or satellite services are not suddenly moving over to their computer to do their TV viewing, when there's likely a big HDTV in the living room with more comfortable seating in front of it. Every study out there consistently indicates that the biggest and most centrally located TV in the house commands the vast majority of the viewing time.

Nobody's disputing the popularity of online video (didn't I indicate already that just under 60% of households view online video?). But, despite the number of hits, the duration of the viewing time remains just a fraction of what TV viewing time is. You can parse this all you want (and inevitably you will because you have nothing factual to contradict this), but nothing out there suggests that online video is anywhere close to supplanting the TV and broadcasting as the primary viewing mechanism for TV programs.


Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time.

Sure, they're providing the content because somebody's willing to buy it, since when were the media outlets going to say no to more revenue for their programming? But, the availability of the feature doesn't mean that it will be broadly used or supplant home viewing. Just think of all the features on a typical cell phone - you think everybody uses every function or even most of them?


What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that.

So how do you explain the top two U.S. cellular providers, AT&T and Verizon, also providing broadband internet while investing billions of dollars building up their U-Verse and FiOS TV services? Incidentally, AT&T is both my cell phone and wired internet provider. But, what good are facts in an ideological rant?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.

No current trend points in that direction or even alludes to it. Currently you have less than 3% of folks with the ability to download movies and television to their phone actually doing it. This figure is the same as last years. There has been no trend whatsoever of people actually using their phone as a movie viewing device, and this activity may never really take off. Having the movie fill our field of vision is where the movie watching experience is currently headed. The only video I have ever watched on my cell phone are short videos that my friends send me when they are in a special place, and I am at work. Just because a phone has video capability does not mean everyone will use it. At this time only 3% are, and they are watching less than 20 minutes on average a day of content.




Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...

Yes but you are trying to present the future (as you see it) as fact, and it hasn't even happened yet. Sales figures when compiled over time show trends. This is how analyst and marketing folks evaluate and indentify trends. What they don't do is look at a featured product and assume every feature will be used 100%. Photo's and moving images have been apart of cell phone technology for the last several years. Taking photo and exchanging them via the cell phone is a trend with a sharp upward curve. Watching full length movies is so rare on cell phones that there is no way to evaluate a trend. It is just that insignificant of a practice.




Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.

Your gut, and what you see is also a sample, a rather small and colored sampled at that. Secondly the net folks do know what folks are watching on their computers or smaller screens because they can see and "listen" to the packets your data generates. A ISP provider knows video from text, and email from audio just be looking at those packets.




I never implied that my preferences are exemplary of the rest of the population. Where did you get that? Certainly not from what I wrote. I'm basing my observations on what I read and see.

And it is rather obvious that you are seeing what you want to see, and reading far too many computer mags, the very ones that predicted that BR would tank, and the format war would leave an opening for digital downloading to take over.




I never said they would not be at home on large sets. Another attempt at putting words in my mouth. What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere.

Yes, but so is 3D television and Blu-ray players, along with thousands of other products. Everything you see at CES does not make it to market, nor are they always sucessful in penetrating the main stream.



You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens.

Then you are hearing what you want to hear. I am hearing 3D televisions and Blu ray players, ultra flat televisions, wireless speakers, radio controlled air craft using Ipod touch as the controller, and many more things than just "personal video". As a matter of fact both of my sons are there now ( I am working on a mixing project so I could not go), and they say that 3D televisions and Blu ray players and programming is sucking the air out of the CES room.



Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.

My sons accounting differs from yours, and they are actually there all over the place. I think your idea of the bigger story is mostly made up.




Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.

I guess we both can accept an alternate point of view if A) it wasn't a bunch of over blown personal fantasy b) based more on fact and reality rather than gut and plain fiction, or C) not tainted by selective hearing and sight.




You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.

And you are overplaying more than you should, but I don't think you know that.




Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.

The line ain't so old my friend. The teckies rags have been recently bashing and dismissing BR in the very face of 100% growth. And American teckies cannot take credit for things developed by Japanese techies. American techies are responsible for almost nothing that sits in my hometheater, and have not been leading much of anything since it invented cell phone technology in 1973. They didn't invent VHS, DVD, laserdisc, CD, MP3, Ipods, HD DVD or Bluray.

I just love how you American techies love to lump yourselves with and ride on the coat tails of the Japanese teckies when the two do not even think or work alike.




There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.

Cell phones are also everywhere, so it could also be called background noise right? Cell phone users appear to be bored with every cell phone except the Iphone, so dispite all of the choices, people seemed to be bored with them as well.




My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

If someone looked carefully, nothing is truely free.


And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

Nothing on cable is free is it. Even the internet costs even if what you find there is free. So your free content arguement closely scrutinized is total nonsense.


Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time. What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that. There is a battle raging out there between the cellular network and the wired network. What is of interest to the media companies is that they simply cannot control content on the wired one, but they have an opportunity here to control it on the cellular one. That is the carrot that the cellular carriers are offering to them.

This is pure BS. Media companies want to sell to any entity that will buy its content, not just cell phone providers. Media providers make more money selling their content to cable companies than they will selling to cellular carriers, which is why media companies are stiking deals left and right with cable companies. I have yet to see a contract between Disney and T-mobile, AT&T wireless, Verizon wireless, or any other cell provider.


Now I am of the opinion that the cellular network will become an extension of the now ubiquitous wired network (the Internet) and so whatever control they hope to offer, is going to be transitory. But if the cellular network remains completely private and separate with (heavily guarded) points of access to the Internet, where things like Net Neutrality have no meaning, then that's a different story. I really don't know what is going to happen in this battle, but there is absolutely no denying that it is raging. You can choose to see it or you can be like the proverbial three monkeys.

One could also be more real about what they see, instead of coloring it with what they think they see. You have been a failure with the former, and a champ with the latter.

[nightflier]

Cell phones are nice for viewing short video clips and short form programs ... that is for that small minority of people who carry smartphones (as opposed to conventional cell phones that don't play video or access the web).

Boy, what a Luddite comment. With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here. Your comments are also a bit misleading about the actual numbers. SmartPhone sale figures were about 40% of total cell phone sales in 2009, according to Nielsen ratings (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117275) (I know how you two love these), and are expected to surpass cell phones well before 2011. Now you can downplay this and say that these people don't use their cell phones for video, but we do know that some 70% do use them for music, and video shouldn't be far behind. According to Nielsen:

"Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

And while there's a lot of hooplay at CES this year over 3D, you must have missed LG's booth altogether. They have phones currently available that stream OTA broadcasts, have MicroSD slots for storing gigabytes of video, and can even display the video feed on a wall. Now LG isn't the biggest player in this market, but I can assure you that Apple, Sony/Ericsson, and Nokia aren't ignoring them.


And your claim about smart phone numbers being "staggering" in comparison to TVs is rather laughable, unless you were saying that they were staggeringly LESS than TVs. Consider that the market penetration for TVs is over 90%, and cell phone service is roughly around 80% (incidentally about the same as cable/satellite service).

Well in my haste to respond I didn't check my figures, so no, it's not staggering, but don't start patting yourself on the back yet. When you add the number of cell phone screens to the number of computer screens, and other personal/portable devices and you consider this world-wide, the number of TV screens is probably less. But let's take this a step further. Americans have multiple TVs in their homes, and it's unlikely they'd be watching them at the same time, but each person typically has their own cell phone, laptop, or other portable screen. That vast majority of TVs is starting to look a little less certain, now, isn't it?


Already, you're behind the curve, and data from last year indicates that the sales split for smartphones according to Gartner was just 14% of the total cell phone sales.

Nielsen's numbers disagree with that 14% figure.


Even if you presume that all smartphone owners use those devices for video viewing (and that's a very laughable presumption), you're still talking about minor numbers at best.

I never said they are doing this now, I am speculating that they will. I'm trying to talk about about the future, not the past, like you two.


If you expect some tidal shift in viewing habits because of smartphones, you need much a bigger base than that. And that's overlooking the smartphones' natural disadvantage of smaller screen size and lower resolution.

In the portable consumer electronics segment of this industry, a very small base can grow a lot faster than the large screen segment. This is because people typically keep a large, expensive TV for years, but they typically swap less expensive portable devices much faster. You know this very well, so don't downplay it.


And statistics are based on a much larger sample than your sample of YOUR personal preferences and viewing habits, and those of people in your social circle.

Statistics can be manipulated to fit a particular economic agenda. It's been shown over & over again. And your stats come from the very same industry (well to be specific, the "independent bodies" that track these stats are funded by this industry, but we're splitting hairs then). While I use stats too, I also take a look at other indicators from other industries and competing points of view to get a better picture of what's really going on. You two rely almost exclusively on your "official" sources, so that is why you're missing the bigger picture here.

And for the last time, this is not based on my "social circle" whatever you think that may be. I read, a lot. So stop trying to minimize a differing perspective. Just because it doesn't agree with yours doesn't make it invalid or cause for such childish insults. Really, it doesn't help your argument in the least bit.


You obviously don't understand much about market research otherwise you'd know that households represent more than 97% of the U.S. population, and it's the primary unit of analysis in most market studies and federal data sources on consumer expenditures.

If it is "the primary unit of analysis" for these conclusions about TV watching, that explains soooo much.


You can quibble about the methodology all you want, but the results from multiple survey and tracking sources have been consistent.

Well if they don't consider the well documented and academically supported critiques of statistical analysis in their margin of error, then no wonder they can't seem to get a fix on what's happening with smaller electronics, the internet, piracy, and a whole host of other less measurable factors. And if you rely solely on their figures, that explains a whole lot about why you're missing it too.


If there's been a tidal shift from cable/satellite/fiber to online video, we would have seen a massive rise in subscription cancellations. That has not happened.

This comment makes absolutely no sense. It's not a one or the other proposition. Why would they cancel their subscriptions? As long a s one member of the household still watches cable, there's no reason to think that this household would cancel its subscription. Why can't we consider the very real possibility that some people in the household use both downloads and cable for their entertainment? This kind of conclusion is so typical of a black & white only world view.


Then what were you getting at when you said that "the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups."? This makes no sense at any level.

The people who are being targeted are young kids. They can't afford 3D. Their parents who pay the bills and who have much busier lives to be able to watch that much TV, aren't as interested in another techno-fad. Some of them will buy it for their kids, and an even smaller number will buy it for themselves, but you're forgetting the millions who recently bought a new TV. Remember TVs are not replaced that often. Now portable/personal devices, that's a whole different story; they are upgraded much more often, and I expect that 3D will make a big splash there.

Another detail that someone mentioned to me was that with portable devices, the idea of wearing special glasses becomes much more palatable. After all, the viewer is already wearing headphones, so an integrated headphone/glasses device is much more convenient. At home with the large TV, the wearing of special glasses is considered one of the biggest headaches of 3D - it just doesn't lend itself as well to that environment. Yes, I know Samsung and others are working on glasses-free TVs, but that's a much smaller share of the market.

[QUOTE=Woochifer]Yeah, and concurrently at CES you see 3D and massive flat screen TVs everywhere. Most of the news accounts I've seen about CES include something about 3D. Your point right at the outset was that these small cell phone screens were the trend for movie viewing. I don't see that at all.

Well I did. As I explained, the 3D TVs are great for the wow factor, but just to get people in the booth. 3D may very well be the next big fad, fine, but we're not there yet. What we do have is millions of people with portable devices that can view video. I expect that video phones are just a short time away, and video, OTA, well that's already there, especially since most SmartPhones today are wifi enabled. Blueberry, LG, and Sony/Ericsson reps were just as excited about their cell phone plans and these all included video as the biggest new trend in cell phones.


Personal video is a buzzword, but to me it implies viewing short form clips, not full length movies. The big picture that you keep missing is that the average consumer does not watch movies on small portable devices and the interest in doing so remains a very limited niche. All you have to do is look at the low redemption rates for the digital movie copies that get bundled with DVDs and BDs.

The ability to pause & rewind changes all that. The lack of interest for digital copies on disk is because by then the people have already seen it and the need to watch it again isn't that great. The phenomenon you're missing is the podcast factor. Why just listen to an audio broadcast that's downloaded, when one can watch the video instead? Free content, everything from pirated movies to favorite TV shows will also be viewable on cell phones and personal devices. And unlike larger & larger TVs, this doesn't need to be BR quality content or have 7.1 DTS-MA audio, so the files can be much smaller & compressed.


Your continued dismissal of the growth in TV screen sizes is rather telling because it directly contradicts the tech press' meme that people are shifting their viewing habits over to small screens.

I'm not dismissing it outright, I'm just not considering it as heavily because this economy does not support this growth. In a contracting economy, people want simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear. While last year's big TV screen sales were probably still impressive, I don't think this trend will continue unabated. The effects of a recession take several years to be felt, and when it comes to consumer electronics (a diversionary purchase), it can take even longer. But just as people are ditching large Escalades, houses, and multiple grocery carts at Costco, so too will they see less and less appeal for large TVs.


I've always downplayed the effect of "feature creep" whether that was with home theater receivers or what's now happening with HDTVs, so don't tell me what I know or don't know....The primary reason for adding new features to any commodified product is to prop up the price point, and there has always been a herd mentality in the consumer electronics industry. If one receiver manufacturer adds auto EQ calibration, then inevitably everybody else will too. If one TV manufacturer adds 240 Hz refresh to their TV and prices it at a certain point, other manufacturers will follow suit. If one TV manufacturer adds Netflix streaming to their $2,000 HDTV, then others will inevitably follow as well. If one manufacturer announces 3D compatibility, then others will follow shortly.

Well feature creep sells new gadgets, especially those that are less expensive than bigger and bigger TVs. Maybe you should start paying attention to these features that companies are adding to their smaller electronics. 3D will not just be a factor for large screens, it will be a factor on small screens too.


The issue I have is not with the people who create the technology (it's their job to try to come up with the next big thing), but with the lackeys in the tech press who persistently overestimate consumer tolerance for short-term change. They glom onto the latest shiny object and proclaim that it will revolutionize consumer behavior. And inevitably they are wrong most of the time, because they are more about hype and serving their own interests and preferences than analyzing what an average consumer actually purchases. Taken as a whole, consumer expenditure patterns are rather mundane and predictable, and don't fundamentally shift from one year to the next. But that doesn't make for an interesting read, especially for jaded "journalists" who like to consider themselves cutting edge.

Funny, for a minute there I thought you were talking about 3D.


Just recall all of the hype during the dotcom boom where the tech press was proclaiming that retail stores were obsolete and online shopping would take over. Someone should have done some basic market research on remote retailing before saying something that dumb.

Nice hyperbole. Those predictions were made before the bubble burst. The economic correction changed all that and a whole lot of other things too. Had the economic trend continued, who knows what would have happened with retail stores. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, duh.


More than a decade later, the entire remote retail sector remains less than 10%, which is not that much more than the market share that mail order and catalog operations commanded prior to the dotcom emergence.

10%? More hyperbole. Yes, online sales of some items like cars and clothing are probably not as great as in-store sales, but others (that probably represent a much smaller percent of whatever minute specific you're tracking) are much greater. Take online music sales for example, I hardly think that represents an insignificant amount. What about software sales? Service contracts? and pretty much anything intangible? That 10% figure is a huge exaggeration to prove a self-interested point, and you know it. And we're in a recession right now - who knows where things would be if we were at the top of a bull market?


If people are so bored, why would they watch more TV than ever? If you say that TV is background noise, then how is it any different now than 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when the average daily TV viewing time was closer to 4 hours? Your points are illogical because TVs were installed in bars and other places back then too.

20-30 years ago, people watched attentively. Today they watch much more passively while doing other stuff, both at home and in bars. What you're measuring is how long the TV is on in the home today, but that gives you very little information about what that household is watching and who in that household is watching it. Didn't I already explain this? Geeez.


And how does online video resolve any of this, given that much of the heavily viewed content is ported over from those same boring content providers? Boring content doesn't suddenly become exciting because it gets streamed over the internet and displayed on a puny screen.

Actually it does. People who watch on a smaller screen typically watch alone. They often use headphones, and the screens are too small to share. This makes their viewing much more attentive.


Until you see a sudden spike in TV subscription cancellations and declines in TV viewing time, there's not much to discuss.

Like a broken record. Online viewing and subscription cancellations have very little to do with each other. We already covered this.


And people who subscribe to cable or satellite services are not suddenly moving over to their computer to do their TV viewing, when there's likely a big HDTV in the living room with more comfortable seating in front of it. Every study out there consistently indicates that the biggest and most centrally located TV in the house commands the vast majority of the viewing time.

TV watching in a home is different than personal viewing. I already covered this, see above.


Nobody's disputing the popularity of online video (didn't I indicate already that just under 60% of households view online video?). But, despite the number of hits, the duration of the viewing time remains just a fraction of what TV viewing time is....nothing out there suggests that online video is anywhere close to supplanting the TV and broadcasting as the primary viewing mechanism for TV programs.

I'm not saying it will supplant it - they can co-exist. Why does everything have to be so black & white? This seems to be some kind of mental disorder you and your buddy share, but it's probably the reason you're missing so much. Online video will coincide for some time to come, but for now, online viewing is a different type of viewing and that is the big difference you seem to want to ignore.


But, the availability of the feature doesn't mean that it will be broadly used or supplant home viewing. Just think of all the features on a typical cell phone - you think everybody uses every function or even most of them?

Again, for the umpteenth time - it's not supplanting it. It's coexisting and taking eye-ball time away from it. That's my point. And yes, cell phones have lots of features, some of them rarely used, but video will be a core feature - you can bank on that.


So how do you explain the top two U.S. cellular providers, AT&T and Verizon, also providing broadband internet while investing billions of dollars building up their U-Verse and FiOS TV services? Incidentally, AT&T is both my cell phone and wired internet provider.

Yes, but they are also competing with cable for the TV broadcasting & video. I should not have said they were not interested in it, of course they are, but that they were less interested in that then providing internet and TV/video over cellular because they can make far more money that way and cut the cable providers out completely.

[Woochifer]

Boy, what a Luddite comment. With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here. Your comments are also a bit misleading about the actual numbers. SmartPhone sale figures were about 40% of total cell phone sales in 2009, according to Nielsen ratings (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117275) (I know how you two love these), and are expected to surpass cell phones well before 2011. Now you can downplay this and say that these people don't use their cell phones for video, but we do know that some 70% do use them for music, and video shouldn't be far behind. According to Nielsen:

"Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

And while there's a lot of hooplay at CES this year over 3D, you must have missed LG's booth altogether. They have phones currently available that stream OTA broadcasts, have MicroSD slots for storing gigabytes of video, and can even display the video feed on a wall. Now LG isn't the biggest player in this market, but I can assure you that Apple, Sony/Ericsson, and Nokia aren't ignoring them.

And you seem to be so caught up in reading those techie blogs, that you still don't get how consumer behavior actually evolves. Doesn't matter if your technoelitism regards me as a luddite. I prefer to stay in the rhelm of reality. Note that in that same article:

As of the second quarter, Nielsen has previously reported that some 15 million U.S. mobile subscribers watch video on their phones for an average of three hours, 15 minutes each month.


That works out to an average of about 7 minutes a day for those mobile subscribers that actually watch video. Between 50% and 60% of households are already watching online video at home, and that viewing time is similarly low.

A phone that can stream OTA broadcasts? Color me underwhelmed, given that handheld TVs have been around since the days of the Sony Watchman and those Casio LCD TVs.

You can keep right on listing all the features, but the bottomline is that the capability of a device doing something does not mean that the consumer is fundamentally shifting their behavior. Those same Nielson surveys indicate that the average viewing time for live TV (i.e., viewed on TVs) has increased to over 151 hours per month.


Well in my haste to respond I didn't check my figures, so no, it's not staggering, but don't start patting yourself on the back yet. When you add the number of cell phone screens to the number of computer screens, and other personal/portable devices and you consider this world-wide, the number of TV screens is probably less. But let's take this a step further. Americans have multiple TVs in their homes, and it's unlikely they'd be watching them at the same time, but each person typically has their own cell phone, laptop, or other portable screen. That vast majority of TVs is starting to look a little less certain, now, isn't it?

Again, you keep missing the target.

It's not about the number of screens out there, but which screens get the most usage for displaying video. Survey after survey indicates that it's the TV with the biggest screen and the most central location within a house that gets the most viewing time. TVs have a 90+% market penetration, while cell phones have the same ~80% market penetration that cable/satellite TV service has.

Just because people can own multiple devices that display video does not mean that their viewing time is split evenly.


Nielsen's numbers disagree with that 14% figure.

And the Gartner numbers disagree with the 40% figure.


I never said they are doing this now, I am speculating that they will. I'm trying to talk about about the future, not the past, like you two.

Speculating is the operative term here. Talking about the future is rather pointless if you lack even a cursory understanding of the past and the present. Better to know where you've been if you're trying to figure out where you're going.


In the portable consumer electronics segment of this industry, a very small base can grow a lot faster than the large screen segment. This is because people typically keep a large, expensive TV for years, but they typically swap less expensive portable devices much faster. You know this very well, so don't downplay it.

Again, stop presuming what I know or don't know.

It doesn't matter how the cell phone features evolve if it doesn't create a fundamental change in consumer behavior. The evidence of consumers shifting to HD and larger sized TVs has been bourne out in all sorts of credible market data -- based on uptake on HD subscriptions, HDTV market penetration, and Blu-ray sales. The evidence of shifts to mobile video is less than convincing.


Statistics can be manipulated to fit a particular economic agenda. It's been shown over & over again. And your stats come from the very same industry (well to be specific, the "independent bodies" that track these stats are funded by this industry, but we're splitting hairs then). While I use stats too, I also take a look at other indicators from other industries and competing points of view to get a better picture of what's really going on. You two rely almost exclusively on your "official" sources, so that is why you're missing the bigger picture here.

And your presumptions about consumer behavior seems cribbed straight out of the fanboy blogs that have been wrong time after time. That's the problem with trying to shoehorn an enterprise computing mindset into analyzing consumer markets.


And for the last time, this is not based on my "social circle" whatever you think that may be. I read, a lot. So stop trying to minimize a differing perspective. Just because it doesn't agree with yours doesn't make it invalid or cause for such childish insults. Really, it doesn't help your argument in the least bit.

:rolleyes: Has nothing to do with a differing perspective, and more to do with reality vs fantasy.


If it is "the primary unit of analysis" for these conclusions about TV watching, that explains soooo much.

What, that you are clueless about how consumer market research works? Try looking at how the data is collected. It's about creating a uniform basis for researching market changes, taking into account age demographics, income sources, living arrangements, etc. Since I've done many many retail market studies (working on two of them right now), I can tell you first hand how nonsensical it would be to try and estimate everything on a per capita basis.


Well if they don't consider the well documented and academically supported critiques of statistical analysis in their margin of error, then no wonder they can't seem to get a fix on what's happening with smaller electronics, the internet, piracy, and a whole host of other less measurable factors. And if you rely solely on their figures, that explains a whole lot about why you're missing it too.

If you ever read the actual reports that come from these market research firms, they go into detail about the error rates and the methodology. It's transparent and well documented.

All of your points about this purported shift to small screens are anecdotal and not based on anything other than what you wish to see. All of your methodological nitpicking simply cannot explain away all of the consistent findings that TV viewing is on the increase, TV screen sizes are getting bigger, the biggest TV in the house gets the most viewing time, and the vast majority of viewing time remains with TVs. I don't know why this is so controversial with you. We're talking about average consumers, not techies.


This comment makes absolutely no sense. It's not a one or the other proposition. Why would they cancel their subscriptions? As long a s one member of the household still watches cable, there's no reason to think that this household would cancel its subscription. Why can't we consider the very real possibility that some people in the household use both downloads and cable for their entertainment? This kind of conclusion is so typical of a black & white only world view.

Why don't you try telling this to your friends in the tech press who've been writing article after article about how now's the time to cancel your cable because of online video?

If the shift to online video is as pervasive as you seem to think it is, of course it would lead to a rise in cancellations for cable/satellite/fiber service. Why would people pay for programming if they actually watch all or most of it online? The answer is that they don't.


The people who are being targeted are young kids. They can't afford 3D. Their parents who pay the bills and who have much busier lives to be able to watch that much TV, aren't as interested in another techno-fad.

That's a load of crap. All you have to do is look at the box office returns for 3D movies over the last couple of years. It's not just the young kids that are turning out in huge numbers for those movies. Avatar is a game changer because it's a mainstream audience actively seeking out 3D screenings of that movie. 75% of the box office for that movie is for 3D. You don't get those kinds of numbers from just young kids.


Some of them will buy it for their kids, and an even smaller number will buy it for themselves, but you're forgetting the millions who recently bought a new TV. Remember TVs are not replaced that often. Now portable/personal devices, that's a whole different story; they are upgraded much more often, and I expect that 3D will make a big splash there.

Since you're so focused on the future, you don't think that the TV that a family buys a few years from now won't have 3D capability?

Portable devices are upgraded more often because people get one for almost free when they re-up their two-year contracts. That doesn't mean that they will actually make use of all the features on their new phones. Maybe it's news to you, but most people buy cell phones to actually use as phones.


Another detail that someone mentioned to me was that with portable devices, the idea of wearing special glasses becomes much more palatable. After all, the viewer is already wearing headphones, so an integrated headphone/glasses device is much more convenient. At home with the large TV, the wearing of special glasses is considered one of the biggest headaches of 3D - it just doesn't lend itself as well to that environment. Yes, I know Samsung and others are working on glasses-free TVs, but that's a much smaller share of the market.

Now you're really reaching. When I'm out and about (which is when people are likeliest to view video on a mobile device), I'd be LESS inclined to want to carry around a special pair of glasses with me. I didn't see anything about 3D on portable devices at CES, so your prognostications are rather pointless.

If 3D is now emerging as a market force in movie theaters, in spite of the 3D glasses, why would it be more of a market hindrance in the home market?


Well I did. As I explained, the 3D TVs are great for the wow factor, but just to get people in the booth. 3D may very well be the next big fad, fine, but we're not there yet. What we do have is millions of people with portable devices that can view video.

You're way behind the times here. 3D is well beyond the wow factor. More and more movies are getting produced in 3D because audiences have proven that they will turn out and pay more to see 3D screenings. It's not a novelty anymore.

Like I said before, just because you got millions of video-capable devices out there doesn't mean that people will use the capability or use it for extended periods of time. I've already said that people will use portable devices for viewing video clips or short form programs. The evidence that large numbers of viewers will use it as their primary device for movie viewing doesn't exist.


The ability to pause & rewind changes all that. The lack of interest for digital copies on disk is because by then the people have already seen it and the need to watch it again isn't that great.

The lack of interest for digital copies is simply because most movie viewing doesn't take place on portable devices or computers. It's the same reason why the uptake on UMD movies for the Playstation Portable was so pitifully low, despite the fact that 60 million PSPs have been sold.


The phenomenon you're missing is the podcast factor. Why just listen to an audio broadcast that's downloaded, when one can watch the video instead?

Because podcasts fit right in with the portability of audio. Unlike video, audio has been trending towards portability for decades. The sales trends for devices and formats alike support the conclusion that people want their audio content on the go. The trends on the video have been the opposite -- bigger screens, higher resolution. Portability of video content has been a small niche and continues to have limited appeal except for short-term viewing, while portability of audio content has been the mainstream for decades.


Free content, everything from pirated movies to favorite TV shows will also be viewable on cell phones and personal devices. And unlike larger & larger TVs, this doesn't need to be BR quality content or have 7.1 DTS-MA audio, so the files can be much smaller & compressed.

Might be good enough for hackers or people who wouldn't have paid for their movies anyway, but the sales trends indicate that the growing demand is for HD resolution.


I'm not dismissing it outright, I'm just not considering it as heavily because this economy does not support this growth. In a contracting economy, people want simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear. While last year's big TV screen sales were probably still impressive, I don't think this trend will continue unabated. The effects of a recession take several years to be felt, and when it comes to consumer electronics (a diversionary purchase), it can take even longer. But just as people are ditching large Escalades, houses, and multiple grocery carts at Costco, so too will they see less and less appeal for large TVs.

Where do you come to this conclusion? Recessions will cause shifts in consumer spending, but they are not as drastic as you portray them. Year-to-year changes in household spending patterns are more affected by income than anything. In case you missed it, the retail performance in the holiday shopping season ran ahead of expectations, and sales of consumer electronics also showed healthy growth.

HDTV sales have been on the increase, average screen sizes continue to increase, and Blu-ray sales have continued to grow exponentially. Why would people want "simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear" when HDTV prices have plunged into commodity territory? For the same price as an unlocked Nexus One phone, you can now buy a 42" HDTV. Your conclusion that people want smaller TVs is once again not based on fact.


Well feature creep sells new gadgets, especially those that are less expensive than bigger and bigger TVs. Maybe you should start paying attention to these features that companies are adding to their smaller electronics. 3D will not just be a factor for large screens, it will be a factor on small screens too.

Nope, feature creep props up price points. Big difference. What also sells gadgets is price drops. Just look at the PS3, which had a huge holiday sales season after the price point fell to $300.


Nice hyperbole. Those predictions were made before the bubble burst. The economic correction changed all that and a whole lot of other things too. Had the economic trend continued, who knows what would have happened with retail stores. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, duh.

No hyperbole because it's the plain truth. The bubble burst because the vast market that those tech writers thought would materialize never existed in the first place. The simple fact is that online retailing is just another form of remote retailing, which already had a history of trend data that anybody with an internet connection back then could have looked up. I did exactly that because self-proclaimed techies would challenge me in public meetings. In the end, I was proven right but anyone who chose to do some research and analyze the data objectively would have arrived at the same conclusion that I did.

The bubble burst because it had to. You had hundreds of billions of dollars invested in startup companies competing for less than 10% of the overall retail market. Retail stores commanded and continue to command more than 90% of retail shopping dollars. Delusional tech writers were treating e-tailers like high value added technology companies, when in reality they were nothing more than low margin retail operations -- basically a more efficient and multifaceted successor to catalog and traditional mail order operations.


10%? More hyperbole. Yes, online sales of some items like cars and clothing are probably not as great as in-store sales, but others (that probably represent a much smaller percent of whatever minute specific you're tracking) are much greater. Take online music sales for example, I hardly think that represents an insignificant amount. What about software sales? Service contracts? and pretty much anything intangible? That 10% figure is a huge exaggeration to prove a self-interested point, and you know it. And we're in a recession right now - who knows where things would be if we were at the top of a bull market?

In the context of online shopping, 10% would actually be a generous amount. Note that I said less than 10% of the overall RETAIL market, and that's accounting for ALL forms of remote retailing that also include catalog sales and all forms of mail and phone order sales. Retail is not the same as service or business-to-business transactions. Again, we're talking about consumer behavior, and retailers which by definition are selling tangible goods. You can nitpick the specifics all you want, but it's not hyperbole because that's the actual sales data. Your comments reflect a rather superficial understanding of how retail sales trends actually are. Try going beyond the headlines and look at the fundamentals of how consumers spend money. You'll see shifts during a recession, but they are not nearly as dramatic as you think they are. Year to year retail sales declines peaked around 3%, and that's actually considered a huge decline. The spate of store closures and retail bankruptcies simply illustrates just how thin the operating margins are for retail.

If you think online retailing has taken over the retail market, show me some evidence. The annual U.S. sales for Wal Mart alone are more than TRIPLE what the ENTIRE e-commerce retail sector takes in annually. The annual sales for Best Buy alone are more than DOUBLE what Amazon takes in. The Department of Commerce's latest e-commerce tracking trend for November 2009 puts e-commerce at 3.7% of total retail sales. It might have had a bigger impact on specific categories, but overall it's doing nothing more than following the historical trends for remote retailing.


20-30 years ago, people watched attentively. Today they watch much more passively while doing other stuff, both at home and in bars. What you're measuring is how long the TV is on in the home today, but that gives you very little information about what that household is watching and who in that household is watching it. Didn't I already explain this? Geeez.

Nothing more than an unsubstantiated presumption on your part. You have no evidence whatsoever that people watch less attentively now than before. I'd rather focus on what can be accurately compared and that's the increasing viewing time. To me, the two overriding long-term trends are increased programming choices and increased viewing time. To presume that one does not correlate with the other is simply silly.


Actually it does. People who watch on a smaller screen typically watch alone. They often use headphones, and the screens are too small to share. This makes their viewing much more attentive.

151 hours vs. 3 hours per month. No amount of parsing and impugning on your part can negate the magnitude of that difference in viewing time.


TV watching in a home is different than personal viewing. I already covered this, see above.

Yeah, personal viewing is done in short bursts and every study done to date confirms this. Home viewing is done for hours at a time. No evidence whatsoever that hordes of people will shift their movie viewing to their portable devices.


I'm not saying it will supplant it - they can co-exist. Why does everything have to be so black & white? This seems to be some kind of mental disorder you and your buddy share, but it's probably the reason you're missing so much. Online video will coincide for some time to come, but for now, online viewing is a different type of viewing and that is the big difference you seem to want to ignore.

Mental disorder to pay attention to facts and to seek evidence before arriving at conclusions? Mmm hmmm :out:


Again, for the umpteenth time - it's not supplanting it. It's coexisting and taking eye-ball time away from it. That's my point. And yes, cell phones have lots of features, some of them rarely used, but video will be a core feature - you can bank on that.

Yet, the eyeball time for TV just keeps increasing.


Yes, but they are also competing with cable for the TV broadcasting & video. I should not have said they were not interested in it, of course they are, but that they were less interested in that then providing internet and TV/video over cellular because they can make far more money that way and cut the cable providers out completely.

You shouldn't have said it because it was a point very easily disproven.

[E-Stat]

With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here.
Just curious, how many hours a month do you view movies and shows on the micro screen?

rw

[GMichael]

Just curious, how many hours a month do you view movies and shows on the micro screen?

rw

Why does that sound dirty to me?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Just curious, how many hours a month do you view movies and shows on the micro screen?

rw

I would like to see this answer as well.

I am in disbelief that a person would actually believe that human behavior drastically changes on a dime because of a particular electronic device. It doesn't work that way.

I am in disbelief that a person would advance a theory or thought about trends (in a vaccum) that completely dismisses previous behavior and sales trends. Nobody in their right mind would do this, but this individual is.

I am in disbelief that a person would dismiss all evidence pointing in one direction to advance a behavior that points in the opposite direction with no proof that supports that change.

I am in disbelief that an individual is passing future behavior of consumers as present fact when the future has not even happened. This defies logic.

This disconnect is very striking, and why this person's prognosticating gets so easily dismissed.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Why does that sound dirty to me?

Disconnect your mind, and send it directly to the cleaners young man

[E-Stat]

I would like to see this answer as well.
While I'm anything but a "mainstream" sort of consumer and as such not a trendsetter, I really cannot imagine choosing to watch a tiny screen for long periods of time. Perhaps for urban commuters during train/subway downtime...

My vision of the future is more like what was conveyed in the move "Total Recall". If you've seen the movie, an entire wall of Schwarzeneggar's apartment was available for video - segmented into different channels if desired. Large doesn't have to be intrusive - which is the great thing about the trend towards thinner and thinner monitors. As an aside, the wife and I are having our bathroom remodeled and like our last house, we're installing a flat TV with swivel-pivot wall mount - largely for her viewing pleasure in the morning while getting ready.

rw

[pixelthis]

Just curious, how many hours a month do you view movies and shows on the micro screen?

rw


Depends on how many quaters I have...:1:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

While I'm anything but a "mainstream" sort of consumer and as such not a trendsetter, I really cannot imagine choosing to watch a tiny screen for long periods of time. Perhaps for urban commuters during train/subway downtime...

My vision of the future is more like what was conveyed in the move "Total Recall". If you've seen the movie, an entire wall of Schwarzeneggar's apartment was available for video - segmented into different channels if desired. Large doesn't have to be intrusive - which is the great thing about the trend towards thinner and thinner monitors. As an aside, the wife and I are having our bathroom remodeled and like our last house, we're installing a flat TV with swivel-pivot wall mount - largely for her viewing pleasure in the morning while getting ready.

rw

While you may not consider yourself mainstream, your way of thinking is. The Total Recall analogy perfectly describes where we are headed.

[Woochifer]

While I'm anything but a "mainstream" sort of consumer and as such not a trendsetter, I really cannot imagine choosing to watch a tiny screen for long periods of time. Perhaps for urban commuters during train/subway downtime...

That's why the average daily viewing time for people who watch mobile video is less than 7 minutes, and why it's so different from audio, which has gone very much towards the mobility and portable side.

Audio is something that truly can be consumed while on the go. Load up an iPod with tunes and podcasts, and you can listen just about anywhere -- while walking, shopping, driving with an auxiliary connector, working in the office with a docked device, etc.

Video requires more focused attention, so it's not something that can be consumed while engaged in a lot of other activities outside the house. For most people on the go, unless they take public transit or air flights, they won't have large blocks of downtime that they can use to watch movies or TV shows through their mobile devices. If they're shopping, they won't be watching a movie on their phone. If they're driving, they'd better not be watching a movie on the phone. etc etc etc And if someone's at home, why would they watch something on their phone when they can watch it on a larger TV? That's why smartphones are widely used for e-mail, messaging, and web browsing -- activities that can be done during short blocks of downtime.


My vision of the future is more like what was conveyed in the move "Total Recall". If you've seen the movie, an entire wall of Schwarzeneggar's apartment was available for video - segmented into different channels if desired. Large doesn't have to be intrusive - which is the great thing about the trend towards thinner and thinner monitors.

Lost in the all the 3D hoopla at CES this year was OLED. But, Samsung demoed a pretty radical OLED display featuring a transparent screen. At 15", it looks more destined for notebooks in the short-term, but with larger sizes in the future the prospect of thin, see-through TVs in the future makes that vision of Total Recall a lot more plausible.

[nightflier]

Just curious, how many hours a month do you view movies and shows on the micro screen? rw

If you include the time we spend video conferencing, probably 2-3 hours per day, and on some days much more. We do a considerable amount of text-to-speech and back processing, and we also pod/videocast content; most of this is higher quality than your typical YouTube fare, so we can synch it up to TVs, projectors, and the other computers screens in our company and in our homes (I consciously don't bring my work home, but that's me). Anyhow, we certainly use video more than most, so I really don't want to use myself as an example nor do I want to presuppose that this is the norm. On the other hand I work with many people who do the same: scientists, businessmen, academics, engineers, etc. and so I won't completely negate it's applicability, either. Perhaps this is not as mainstream yet, but for us it's very much part of our daily work, and we tend to agree that this is where the future is headed.

I also want to emphasize that their perspective is entirely too US-centric and does not at all apply to a more world-wide perspective. It's actually ironic that when I caught them making ridiculous claims about techies in general, and I then mentioned that my contacts in Japan did not at all agree with their model, they quickly backtracked with the fantasy that somehow Japanese techies should be considered separately. This ongoing segmentation and compartementalization in their debating style is typical, but has a deeper basis, I think.

When needed, they confuse and mix up references from different economic / market sectors, geographic regions, cultures, and technological fields to prove a point that just happens to coincide with a self-serving goal. After all, they both work in the industry that they are reporting on and cannot see the world outside of it. Granted, I work with digital video quite a bit and have for years, but I would hope that I am not letting that comprise my entire perspective. For them, anything too gray, vague, unmeasurable, is immediately dismissed as not fitting the black & white mold. But in my field, computers, it is is actually by looking at these less tangible areas that we find answers that often give us the competitive edge over our competitors. I suppose our field lives in the gray and the uncertain, and this is rather unsettling for them and is likely the source for so much resentment and criticism.

Perhaps being or pointing out what is the biggest, the best, the largest, or the most popular isn't everything we should be paying attention to. And that's been my point all along.

[E-Stat]

If you include the time we spend video conferencing, probably 2-3 hours per day, and on some days much more.
You spend that many hours viewing content on a phone? Sorry to hear that!

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

If you include the time we spend video conferencing, probably 2-3 hours per day, and on some days much more. We do a considerable amount of text-to-speech and back processing, and we also pod/videocast content; most of this is higher quality than your typical YouTube fare, so we can synch it up to TVs, projectors, and the other computers screens in our company and in our homes (I consciously don't bring my work home, but that's me). Anyhow, we certainly use video more than most, so I really don't want to use myself as an example nor do I want to presuppose that this is the norm. On the other hand I work with many people who do the same: scientists, businessmen, academics, engineers, etc. and so I won't completely negate it's applicability, either. Perhaps this is not as mainstream yet, but for us it's very much part of our daily work, and we tend to agree that this is where the future is headed.

We are not talking work here NF, we are talking entertainment and leisure time. We are talking about movies, and you are talking about work. So Wooch is right, you are using yourself as an example, and not your average consumer. Now your argument loses more credibility.


I also want to emphasize that their perspective is entirely too US-centric and does not at all apply to a more world-wide perspective. It's actually ironic that when I caught them making ridiculous claims about techies in general, and I then mentioned that my contacts in Japan did not at all agree with their model, they quickly backtracked with the fantasy that somehow Japanese techies should be considered separately. This ongoing segmentation and compartementalization in their debating style is typical, but has a deeper basis, I think.

Either you are a patent liar, or you are living in an alternate universe that interprets English in a unique way. In the context of the discussion we were talking about the fact that the Japanese has invented almost all of the consumer electronic devices we use for home video. They brought us VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, HD-DVD and Bluray. What has the American technology sector brought? Not one dang thing. What you are attempting to do is ride the coattails of the Japanese, when the American sector has not contributed a damn thing to my hometheater. They should be considered separately because their business model is different, the way they think is different, and the way they operate as a whole is completely different. Case and point (and extremely relevant in this greedy climate we live in) The Japanese do not set their eyes solely on immediate profits. They have long term goals with an eye to the future, they desire to be the best in technology. America is looking for the next best money maker, why reinvent something to make it better if it only makes $1 million dollars, it needs to make a few million dollars to usually be considered. They have a need to develop new technology to fuel their economy and help the hunger crave of Americans (and the world for that matter) for newer better things. American technology sector on the other hand is not trying to survive, they are trying to get richer and sometimes this blinds people on what can and will work. Culturally, the Japanese tech worker works harder, and has a better work ethic. These facts have been documented over and over again, so this whole idea that a Japanese techie is the same as an American one, is pure BS.


When needed, they confuse and mix up references from different economic / market sectors, geographic regions, cultures, and technological fields to prove a point that just happens to coincide with a self-serving goal. After all, they both work in the industry that they are reporting on and cannot see the world outside of it. Granted, I work with digital video quite a bit and have for years, but I would hope that I am not letting that comprise my entire perspective.

Well you are, and what is interesting is you don't seem to know it. You are not advancing anything but pure BS, fantasy, and just plain making crap up on the fly. There is no reason or fact to what you post, it is just your gut feeling. I believe it was you who said that Apple TV, Roku and other streaming devices would dominate hometheaters in the future. Guess what, they have all fallen flat on their collective faces, and the Blu ray player ended up being the dominate streaming box. What about your other prediction that the format war would leave an opening for downloads to dominate the video market. It didn't happen did it?
Your comments here time and time again fly in the face or reality over and over again.


For them, anything too gray, vague, unmeasurable, is immediately dismissed as not fitting the black & white mold. But in my field, computers, it is is actually by looking at these less tangible areas that we find answers that often give us the competitive edge over our competitors. I suppose our field lives in the gray and the uncertain, and this is rather unsettling for them and is likely the source for so much resentment and criticism.

The computer field is not the video field. So what you deem right in the computer field, is dead wrong for the video industry. The video industry is driven by tangibles such as profit and loss, and sales. Maybe the industry you work in does not use these guidelines, but the video industry does. What gives you a competitive edge in the computer industry, does not work for the film or video industry. Why would what you do in the computer industry be so unsettling to the film industry? This is more BS, THEY ARE DIFFERENT FIELDS!!! Nobody in the film industry cares about what you guys do in the computer industry, we are busy running our own businesses. That statement is stupid but typical. You seem to think that computer industry is flawless, all while computer sales are in the tank. 2009 was the worst sales period for the computer industry EVER, so you guys are not what I would be looking at as the pinnacle of success.



Perhaps being or pointing out what is the biggest, the best, the largest, or the most popular isn't everything we should be paying attention to. And that's been my point all along.

Your point has not been this at all. Your point has been to parrot techie journalist in their plight to make the computer industry relevant within the film and video industry. Perhaps being or pointing out what is the smallest, most portable, or what is most popular among the computer geek crowd is not what is interesting to the general public. The general public has voted they want bigger, better and the largest, while the computer geeks want the most portable and smaller. I own a smartphone, but it will not be a replacement, or even an extension of my television. The only videos I watch on it are the ones that others send me, and they are never more than a few seconds long. This is how the public uses smartphones, not as movie viewing devices. If I want directions, I use my smartphone. If I want to make a call(even at home) I use my smartphone. If I want to listen to music while waiting for BART, I will use my smartphone or Ipod. When I want to watch a movie, I go to my home theater, not my phone. Based on the statistics, that is how most Americans use their cell and smartphones.

[Mr Peabody]

NF, what do you do text to speech? Do you develope it or utilize it in your job?

[GMichael]

If you include the time we spend video conferencing, probably 2-3 hours per day, and on some days much more. We do a considerable amount of text-to-speech and back processing, and we also pod/videocast content; most of this is higher quality than your typical YouTube fare, so we can synch it up to TVs, projectors, and the other computers screens in our company and in our homes (I consciously don't bring my work home, but that's me). Anyhow, we certainly use video more than most, so I really don't want to use myself as an example nor do I want to presuppose that this is the norm. On the other hand I work with many people who do the same: scientists, businessmen, academics, engineers, etc. and so I won't completely negate it's applicability, either. Perhaps this is not as mainstream yet, but for us it's very much part of our daily work, and we tend to agree that this is where the future is headed.

I also want to emphasize that their perspective is entirely too US-centric and does not at all apply to a more world-wide perspective. It's actually ironic that when I caught them making ridiculous claims about techies in general, and I then mentioned that my contacts in Japan did not at all agree with their model, they quickly backtracked with the fantasy that somehow Japanese techies should be considered separately. This ongoing segmentation and compartementalization in their debating style is typical, but has a deeper basis, I think.

When needed, they confuse and mix up references from different economic / market sectors, geographic regions, cultures, and technological fields to prove a point that just happens to coincide with a self-serving goal. After all, they both work in the industry that they are reporting on and cannot see the world outside of it. Granted, I work with digital video quite a bit and have for years, but I would hope that I am not letting that comprise my entire perspective. For them, anything too gray, vague, unmeasurable, is immediately dismissed as not fitting the black & white mold. But in my field, computers, it is is actually by looking at these less tangible areas that we find answers that often give us the competitive edge over our competitors. I suppose our field lives in the gray and the uncertain, and this is rather unsettling for them and is likely the source for so much resentment and criticism.

Perhaps being or pointing out what is the biggest, the best, the largest, or the most popular isn't everything we should be paying attention to. And that's been my point all along.

Do you watch many movies on your phone?

[audio amateur]

I understand what NF is saying. More and more, you see people watching movies, yes movies on a handheld apparitus, whether it be iphone cell phone laptop and what have you; usually on the go of course. Some people commute for quite a while, so if theyre not reading a book, why not? This will only be more common as cell phone screens get bigger and better.
It seems the US phone market isn't quite like it is here, it always looks like US phones are a couple years lagging, but I could be wrong. It's the impression i get when i'm in the US, which means Americans might not be watching as much video on their portable screens as they are in Europe (because of the less capable phones). But then Americans usually commute longer.

Of course it's not the same experience as it is with a massive home screen, but it's still happening. Whether or not it's more popular or will be than home viewing, I can't say. Probably not, but who knows...

[nightflier]

Lil't, I'm quite surprised you praise Japanese techies for not being driven by market forces, yet, you base your entire argument, and I'm going to guess, your entire existence, on market forces. How hypocritical is that?

And your insistence on the Japanese techies being separate is completely ludicrous. I am currently working on a project with a team of programmers in China and Japan as I'm writing this. One of our team members is in Sweden, so you are completely out of touch with what's happening with the computer / high-tech industry. Funny side note is that I just translated your post to the Japanese team and they think you are a stereotyping racist (at least that's how the translation came through, I'm sure it wasn't meant as harsh as that, but certainly funny).

On a more serious note, I completely disagree that every single American worker is a money-grubbing profit-above-all kind of low-life, as you are wont to describe us. I can of course only speak for my own colleagues, but at least in our field (the one you so like to deride), that is the exception rather than the norm. Techies, and especially programmers, consider themselves in a much more democratic and egalitarian light. As a matter of fact, that is what makes us who we are, it drives us, and, I dare say, it is the reason why the Internet is not entirely a corporate pay-as-you-go Sinclairian Jungle. It is the reason why we have Open Source, Net Neutrality, and such less tangible terms you can't wrap your head around like Netiquette (certainly not something you adhere to here). Ah, if only you could control my comments the way your company wants to control content.

I can assure you that if Disney was running things, this wouldn't be the case. Did he ever mention Disney's fascist roots? About how Walt liked to hire former Nazi war criminals, even bringing a former Auschwitz vivisection doctor of POWs to help proselytize children to the Disney culture? How's that for a great business model? Yeah, I'm perfectly fine working in my own industry - it has some bad people too, but nothing on that scale.

E-Stat, most of the video I use is on one of my computer screens.

GMichael, yes I watch video on my phone, although they aren't often entertainment, more like training, news and work-related stuff. I would tell you that I have a few movies on SD as well, but I'm sure lil't would report me to the MPAA, or some other proto-fascist kill-all-fun group he's associated with that he can sick on me. So no, on the record, I do not store any commercial video on any digital memory storage device.

MrP., develop it and we use what we produce, but I can't discuss this in more detail.

AA, you took the words out of my mouth. What is crucially different in Europe and Asia is that people commute on public transportation at rates that are nothing like here. This gives them much more time to watch video on portable devices - they certainly aren't going to lug around their TVs for that, lol. Funny side note: I recently had to join my director for a conference in San Diego. I figured, great, I'll get some time to chat him up about some personnel issues since it's a long & boring drive. Not entirely. I had to add figures to a presentation that we were editing on the video screens in the car. Fortunately, my assistant did most of it, but yes, editing with a cell phone is no fun, so I realize that the technology needs some improvements, but that's what my company does, so I guess the good news in all this is that my job is pretty secure.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I understand what NF is saying. More and more, you see people watching movies, yes movies on a handheld apparitus, whether it be iphone cell phone laptop and what have you; usually on the go of course. Some people commute for quite a while, so if theyre not reading a book, why not? This will only be more common as cell phone screens get bigger and better.

Here is the rub, cell phone screens are not getting larger, at least not the ones we see here.



It seems the US phone market isn't quite like it is here, it always looks like US phones are a couple years lagging, but I could be wrong. It's the impression i get when i'm in the US, which means Americans might not be watching as much video on their portable screens as they are in Europe (because of the less capable phones). But then Americans usually commute longer.

As a person who travels to Europe alot, you guys are a lot further ahead technology wise than we are. From everything from public transportation to health care and technology, Europeans are just more sophisticated in their thinking and usage. However, from what I have seen on our public transportation in the Bay Area not too far from Silicon Valley, you see a wide variety of things used for entertainment like the kindle(of which I see people using alot), and cell phones are mostly used for email and playing games while riding. Mostly people here get more shut eye, or read the paper on public transportation while listening to Ipods. What you don't see(at least on BART) is people looking at video, and I didn't see much of that in LA subway system either. I asked my kids who are heavy smartphone users(they have the iPhone), and they, nor their friends watch much video on their phones either. It is mostly texting, and little video clips they make themselves.


Of course it's not the same experience as it is with a massive home screen, but it's still happening. Whether or not it's more popular or will be than home viewing, I can't say. Probably not, but who knows...

Studies on cell and smartphone usage here show decisively that the home is the number one place for viewing televsion and movies, and that is by a wide margin.

[poppachubby]

I understand what NF is saying. More and more, you see people watching movies, yes movies on a handheld apparitus, whether it be iphone cell phone laptop and what have you; usually on the go of course. Some people commute for quite a while, so if theyre not reading a book, why not? This will only be more common as cell phone screens get bigger and better.
It seems the US phone market isn't quite like it is here, it always looks like US phones are a couple years lagging, but I could be wrong. It's the impression i get when i'm in the US, which means Americans might not be watching as much video on their portable screens as they are in Europe (because of the less capable phones). But then Americans usually commute longer.

Of course it's not the same experience as it is with a massive home screen, but it's still happening. Whether or not it's more popular or will be than home viewing, I can't say. Probably not, but who knows...

Going back several years, 10 perhaps, I spent a good deal of time in Europe; Eindhoven, Liverpool and Roma. I was blown away by the cell phone technology and its availability. Not sure where things stand now, but I'm sure that Europe is ahead of Canada anyhow.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Lil't, I'm quite surprised you praise Japanese techies for not being driven by market forces, yet, you base your entire argument, and I'm going to guess, your entire existence, on market forces. How hypocritical is that?

Nightliar, this issue has be debated an argued to death. The reason the CE companies have been so successful is because they(unlike the American technology sector) think in the long term. This is well documented. They also have a stronger work ethic, think more nationalistic, and have more pride in their accomplishments.


And your insistence on the Japanese techies being separate is completely ludicrous. I am currently working on a project with a team of programmers in China and Japan as I'm writing this. One of our team members is in Sweden, so you are completely out of touch with what's happening with the computer / high-tech industry. Funny side note is that I just translated your post to the Japanese team and they think you are a stereotyping racist (at least that's how the translation came through, I'm sure it wasn't meant as harsh as that, but certainly funny).

Just another lie, and don't believe you for a second. You lie much too quickly to cover your absent minded hide.


On a more serious note, I completely disagree that every single American worker is a money-grubbing profit-above-all kind of low-life, as you are wont to describe us.

I see your reading and comprehension skills are breaking down AGAIN! I did not say EVERY American worker, I said the American Computer industry. Not every American works in the computer industry do they?


I can of course only speak for my own colleagues, but at least in our field (the one you so like to deride), that is the exception rather than the norm.

More BS. The very reason those in the film industry cannot stand those in the American computer industry comes from the fact they don't love film(or video), and it is just a commondity the computer industry uses to sell their ware(hello Apple and Microsoft). The film industry has a very close partnership with the Japanese CE industry, because they work to make films look good as it can on home video, not try to compress the life out of it, and show it on a tiny screen that shows no detail of the production.




Techies, and especially programmers, consider themselves in a much more democratic and egalitarian light. As a matter of fact, that is what makes us who we are, it drives us, and, I dare say, it is the reason why the Internet is not entirely a corporate pay-as-you-go Sinclairian Jungle. It is the reason why we have Open Source, Net Neutrality, and such less tangible terms you can't wrap your head around like Netiquette (certainly not something you adhere to here). Ah, if only you could control my comments the way your company wants to control content.

We don't wrap our heads around your version of Open Source, or Net Neutrality. You see, it cost to get a computer, and computer manufacturers want to get paid for their wares. They make software, and just like in the film industry, they guard their IP like a nazi would. However while teckies sit at the computers they purchased (or built from purchased parts) and work on the software(they could have purchased or stolen), they do not mind paying the computer industry, but stealing content from the film industry. So no, I do not agree with your pie in the sky assesment of the American techie.


I can assure you that if Disney was running things, this wouldn't be the case. Did he ever mention Disney's fascist roots? About how Walt liked to hire former Nazi war criminals, even bringing a former Auschwitz vivisection doctor of POWs to help proselytize children to the Disney culture? How's that for a great business model? Yeah, I'm perfectly fine working in my own industry - it has some bad people too, but nothing on that scale.

Do you really want to go down this path? Let us point out that Google presence in a certain country has cost political oppostion leaders their lives. Or how about anti trust issues of Microsoft in Europe. Do you want to discuss how Microsoft knowingly sold defective X-boxes because it cost them too much money to stop manufacturing the boxes and fix the issue. Or how about the fact the computer industry is the largest exporters of American jobs, and the largest importer of cheap foreign workers.

Disney has never done anything as evil as the computer industry has, or effected nearly the amount of people. Besides Mr. Disengenious, The Mr. Disney you speak of is no longer alive, and has not been for decades. However, the computer industry is doing their eveil in real time NOW!


AA, you took the words out of my mouth. What is crucially different in Europe and Asia is that people commute on public transportation at rates that are nothing like here. This gives them much more time to watch video on portable devices - they certainly aren't going to lug around their TVs for that, lol. Funny side note: I recently had to join my director for a conference in San Diego. I figured, great, I'll get some time to chat him up about some personnel issues since it's a long & boring drive. Not entirely. I had to add figures to a presentation that we were editing on the video screens in the car. Fortunately, my assistant did most of it, but yes, editing with a cell phone is no fun, so I realize that the technology needs some improvements, but that's what my company does, so I guess the good news in all this is that my job is pretty secure.

Blah, Blah, Blah, we weren't discussing the viewing practices of Europeans, we are talking about Americans. Your constant spinning is making me nauseous. Now you are including the worlds viewing habits in a discussion on American viewing habit to attempt to butruss your point. Such weak knee'd tactic shows the lameness and desperation of you just trying to be right in this debate.

[audio amateur]

Going back several years, 10 perhaps, I spent a good deal of time in Europe; Eindhoven, Liverpool and Roma. I was blown away by the cell phone technology and its availability. Not sure where things stand now, but I'm sure that Europe is ahead of Canada anyhow.
10 years ago they were still black and white, lol.

[audio amateur]

I can assure you that if Disney was running things, this wouldn't be the case. Did he ever mention Disney's fascist roots? About how Walt liked to hire former Nazi war criminals, even bringing a former Auschwitz vivisection doctor of POWs to help proselytize children to the Disney culture? How's that for a great business model?
Is that for real or another trick from someone who had issues with Disney? Sounds aweful...


AA, you took the words out of my mouth. What is crucially different in Europe and Asia is that people commute on public transportation at rates that are nothing like here. Very true. But then as I previously mentionned, an American's commute is often longer than the average European, simply because everything there is so spread out.

How's the car hunt going?

[poppachubby]

10 years ago they were still black and white, lol.

Heh, I wasn't speaking to video capability. Just cell phones in general.

[GMichael]

GMichael, yes I watch video on my phone, although they aren't often entertainment, more like training, news and work-related stuff. I would tell you that I have a few movies on SD as well, but I'm sure lil't would report me to the MPAA, or some other proto-fascist kill-all-fun group he's associated with that he can sick on me. So no, on the record, I do not store any commercial video on any digital memory storage device.

.

Can you really enjoy a movie (not that you admit to watching movies) like that? Where do you keep the sub?

Work related and training I can see, as well as news or short U-tube type vids. What good is an action flick without the big explosions though? And what's a big explosion without a sub to shake your chest? Are they going to go the way of the "Bone-phone"?

[nightflier]

Is that for real or another trick from someone who had issues with Disney? Sounds aweful...

That Walt had fascist leanings is no secret, but the company as a whole has had a very disturbing past and this permeates everything they do today. lil't will try to whitewash this, but they did hire a number of former Nazis to drive the company's marketing programs. I'll do some digging and find the exact name of that SS officer who was convicted of vivisecting allied POWs (as well as Jewish, Communist, and black prisoners). Despite all that, he was made head of the youth marketing division. The Disney company's ties to Nazi-ism are well documented in a number of books.

But what I'm getting at is the mind-set of the argumentation here; it is exemplary of the corporate culture at Disney and this corporate culture is still, today, very much extremely right-wing. I'll be the first to rail against corporate abuses in my own industry (and I have), but Disney is really way off the deep end. The fact that they make movies targeted at children and families, does not at all contradict their corporate culture, as a matter of fact it's a fundamental piece of the process - you can use your imagination to consider where this leads. Walmart, McDonald's, IBP, ADM, and a whole host of the most abusive corporations took their models from Disney.

So while large computer companies sometimes do engage in anti-competitive practices (Microsoft and Google certainly have their own skeletons), this is still an issue of degrees. Disney equally engages in anti-competitive practices but they just haven't been caught yet. But in addition, this company has a very sordid and shameful past that still permeates its corporate structure today. I consider it particularly galling when an employee of this corporation stands on a soapbox and suggests that his company has the moral high ground.

And regarding our Japanese team, they said lil't is a big fat jack-a$$ (and the translator got that spot on).

[E-Stat]

E-Stat, most of the video I use is on one of my computer screens.
What does that have to do with the discussion as to what people will be doing with cell phones?

"With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here."

rw

[nightflier]

Can you really enjoy a movie (not that you admit to watching movies) like that? Where do you keep the sub?

Hypothetically, if I was a college student living in a dorm in a crowded suite, yes, because that would be the only means I would have of watching the movie. And before someone assumes that I would be watching a pirated movie (on account of being a college student and all), let's not forget that plugging in a player to a portable device isn't rocket science either. Likewise, most computers have DVD players as well.

For my own use and preference, that's not how I would prefer to view it, but then again, if I was on a plane, or away from home, then I'd have little choice in the matter.

By the way, someone mentioned that movie sales for the PSP were a flop, well of course. Think of the hurdles: the movies were over priced, they only played on Sony-branded devices, the selection was abysmal, free content was easily available everywhere, and there weren't that many PSPs out there. This argument always gets pranced out for these discussions, and no one ever mentions that this analysis is based only on sales figures. Big DUH! Why pay for movies when the net is crawling with free ones that would play just fine on the PSP? I'm not condoning piracy in any way, but that's why the "sales figures" were so low. Calling the technology a failure based on this fact, smacks of the same myopic analysis of this whole industry, one that only looks at one small self-serving factor.

[nightflier]

What does that have to do with the discussion as to what people will be doing with cell phones?

We were talking about small and portable screens, I'm including the screen on my laptop into the discussion, not just the screens on cell phones.

[E-Stat]

Hypothetically, if I was a college student living in a dorm in a crowded suite, yes, because that would be the only means I would have of watching the movie.
Only means? Ever heard of a laptop computer? They are even required at many colleges. I certainly would prefer watching videos on a computer than my dinky iPhone.

rw

[E-Stat]

We were talking about small and portable screens, I'm including the screen on my laptop into the discussion, not just the screens on cell phones.
Ok, I'll disregard all your previous comments about smartphones.

"You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets."

Laptops can play Blu-ray discs for that matter.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

That Walt had fascist leanings is no secret, but the company as a whole has had a very disturbing past and this permeates everything they do today. lil't will try to whitewash this, but they did hire a number of former Nazis to drive the company's marketing programs. I'll do some digging and find the exact name of that SS officer who was convicted of vivisecting allied POWs (as well as Jewish, Communist, and black prisoners). Despite all that, he was made head of the youth marketing division. The Disney company's ties to Nazi-ism are well documented in a number of books.

Spin away, your talking ancient history, and the computer industry is bilking folks RIGHT NOW. This is a true example of deflection if I ever saw one. Your are spreading pure lies here, where is your proof that Disney did any of this. Everyone knows that Disney was anti nazi, where is your proof nightliar?

This says your are a big fat liar

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1623/was-walt-disney-a-fascist

So does this

http://beyondthemouse.com/conspiracy-theory-was-walt-disney-a-nazi-sympathizer/546/

This document Walt Disney studio role in the war effort AGAINST the Nazi's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney's_World_War_II_propaganda_production


But what I'm getting at is the mind-set of the argumentation here; it is exemplary of the corporate culture at Disney and this corporate culture is still, today, very much extremely right-wing. I'll be the first to rail against corporate abuses in my own industry (and I have), but Disney is really way off the deep end. The fact that they make movies targeted at children and families, does not at all contradict their corporate culture, as a matter of fact it's a fundamental piece of the process - you can use your imagination to consider where this leads. Walmart, McDonald's, IBP, ADM, and a whole host of the most abusive corporations took their models from Disney.

The is BS if I ever read it. Your are repeating internet lies fool


So while large computer companies sometimes do engage in anti-competitive practices (Microsoft and Google certainly have their own skeletons), this is still an issue of degrees. Disney equally engages in anti-competitive practices but they just haven't been caught yet. But in addition, this company has a very sordid and shameful past that still permeates its corporate structure today. I consider it particularly galling when an employee of this corporation stands on a soapbox and suggests that his company has the moral high ground.

So you are saying that Disney anti competitive practices are worse than Microsoft and Googles? Unfreakin believable!!! Disney didn't backrupt Netscape did it? No, Microsoft did. Disney didn't threaten American computer manufacturers that if they bundled Netscape into their computers, they would not get its support did it? Nope, Microsoft did Disney is not facing or has faced anti trust litigation against it in Europe has it. Nope Microsoft is Does Disney have a monopoly on PC os system? Nope Microsoft does Does it abuse the fact that it is on 95% of the computers in the world? Nope Microsoft does. Did Disney hand over the records of some users of its social-networking service, Orkut, to the Brazilian government? Nope Google did Does Disney know more about you than the secret services? Nope, but Google does. Does Disney snoop and read your emails? Nope Google does Did Disney scan millions of books without the authors permission? No, but Google did. Did Disney invent a secondary search feature that and impose it on retail and media sites, undermining those site owners’ control of their users’ experience? Nope but Google did.

So your attempt at making the mouse more evil than the computer guys is a pure unadulterated lie. You have no proof that Disney did any of the things that you state, but I have plenty of proof of what I state.

So liar, where is your proof?




And regarding our Japanese team, they said lil't is a big fat jack-a$$ (and the translator got that spot on).

Being that you lie so easily, I doubt that you are even working with a "Japanese team". If your argument was so strong, you wouldn't need a bunch of "imaginary" people to support your fantasies.

Me thinks that you are suffering from a major case of "Harvey's" disease on steroids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(film)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

We were talking about small and portable screens, I'm including the screen on my laptop into the discussion, not just the screens on cell phones.

Most folks use their laptops for work, not as a mini movie theater. Any more lies you want to tell?

[Mr Peabody]

Nice try Sir T, every one knows those mouse ear hats were more than just a hat! They were used for mind control of those little kids. They probably make you wear one too which would explain a lot.

And, you all have it wrong, just do what I do, I have two I-phones and sync the same program on each and hold one over the left eye and one over the right eye, you can't tell the difference between that and a big screen. Sometimes if my sync isn't just perfect I even get 3D. Now I'm working on some type of sling for my arms because they get damn tired holding those phones.up.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Nice try Sir T, every one knows those mouse ear hats were more than just a hat! They were used for mind control of those little kids. They probably make you wear one too which would explain a lot.

Yeah, you are right, and I am busted. The ears house little antenna's that Disney designed so we could wirelessly beam our propaganda directly to their brains. Anyone that did not have the ears could not get our decoded message. Oh, and by the way, did you know that the in our movie Snow White and the Three Bears, the porridge was really the boiled remnants of young children that Walt lured into the studio?


And, you all have it wrong, just do what I do, I have two I-phones and sync the same program on each and hold one over the left eye and one over the right eye, you can't tell the difference between that and a big screen. Sometimes if my sync isn't just perfect I even get 3D. Now I'm working on some type of sling for my arms because they get damn tired holding those phones.up.

I have this great sound system to go with your dual iPhone setup. I purpose a system of five Bose cubes suspended in space around you with fishing wire(gotta avoid reflections and keep the mounting system"invisible" acoustically). A Bose sub woofer will sit under a pillow beneath you, and give you the same effective sensation as a tactile inducer.

There is no way Sony, Panasonic, or Pioneer could design a system with better 3D and holosonic abilities as this system!

[GMichael]

Nice try Sir T, every one knows those mouse ear hats were more than just a hat! They were used for mind control of those little kids. They probably make you wear one too which would explain a lot.

And, you all have it wrong, just do what I do, I have two I-phones and sync the same program on each and hold one over the left eye and one over the right eye, you can't tell the difference between that and a big screen. Sometimes if my sync isn't just perfect I even get 3D. Now I'm working on some type of sling for my arms because they get damn tired holding those phones.up.

ROTFLMFAO..

Thanks P. I needed that. But now I need a paper towel to clean up all the coffee I just spit out.

[GMichael]

Yeah, you are right, and I am busted. The ears house little antenna's that Disney designed so we could wirelessly beam our propaganda directly to their brains. Anyone that did not have the ears could not get our decoded message. Oh, and by the way, did you know that the in our movie Snow White and the Three Bears, the porridge was really the boiled remnants of young children that Walt lured into the studio?



I have this great sound system to go with your dual iPhone setup. I purpose a system of five Bose cubes suspended in space around you with fishing wire(gotta avoid reflections and keep the mounting system"invisible" acoustically). A Bose sub woofer will sit under a pillow beneath you, and give you the same effective sensation as a tactile inducer.

There is no way Sony, Panasonic, or Pioneer could design a system with better 3D and holosonic abilities as this system!

Could you hang these from the mouse ears so that Mr. P's arms can have a rest?

[audio amateur]

Here is the rub, cell phone screens are not getting larger, at least not the ones we see here.

Strange... Here they're definitely getting better. iphone style I guess. Touch screen technology is being used rather than keyboards simply because they have to use the whole area of the phone in order to maximize screen size.

[E-Stat]

Here they're definitely getting better. iphone style I guess.
I guess it depends upon your point of reference. My iPhone screen is 3" x 2" for a total of six square inches . My mid-sized laptop is 14" x 7.5" for a total of one hundred five square inches - or nearly twenty times the amount of screen real estate. Are your phones any bigger?

rw

[nightflier]

lil't, would you mind explaining who Heinz Haber (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Heinz-Haber) was? How about Wernher von Braun (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/features/hunt-for-nazi-scientists/wernher-von-braun/101/)? Maybe you'd like to explain why Walt hired a Chicago crime boss to violently break the Screen Cartoonists Guild strike? Maybe you'd like to explain Walt being an FBI informer and a notorious "witness" in the infamous HUAC trials?

Old history, you say? Then what about the long history of financial support for right-wing candidates by Disney executives even up to today? David Duke ring a bell? How about Michael Issa? Gilchrest? Proposition 8, here in California? Wasn't Disney Corp was one of the big backers behind Prop 13, the very reason we are now in the financial mess we're in? Doesn't Disney continue today to fight any minimum wage hikes? I'm sure these issues don't affect you with your income and status and all, but as a Democrat, you should just pause for a second, between golf rounds with your rich executive friends, and ask yourself who you work for.

[pixelthis]

lil't, would you mind explaining who Heinz Haber (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Heinz-Haber) was? How about Wernher von Braun (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/features/hunt-for-nazi-scientists/wernher-von-braun/101/)? Maybe you'd like to explain why Walt hired a Chicago crime boss to violently break the Screen Cartoonists Guild strike? Maybe you'd like to explain Walt being an FBI informer and a notorious "witness" in the infamous HUAC trials?

Old history, you say? Then what about the long history of financial support for right-wing candidates by Disney executives even up to today? David Duke ring a bell? How about Michael Issa? Gilchrest? Proposition 8, here in California? Wasn't Disney Corp was one of the big backers behind Prop 13, the very reason we are now in the financial mess we're in? Doesn't Disney continue today to fight any minimum wage hikes? I'm sure these issues don't affect you with your income and status and all, but as a Democrat, you should just pause for a second, between golf rounds with your rich executive friends, and ask yourself who you work for.


Thats a socialist for you.
You have both houses of congress, , POTUS, and you're still not happy.:1:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

lil't, would you mind explaining who Heinz Haber (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Heinz-Haber) was? How about Wernher von Braun (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/features/hunt-for-nazi-scientists/wernher-von-braun/101/)? Maybe you'd like to explain why Walt hired a Chicago crime boss to violently break the Screen Cartoonists Guild strike? Maybe you'd like to explain Walt being an FBI informer and a notorious "witness" in the infamous HUAC trials?

Why should I explain any of this, he is dead, and has been since 1966. Whatever he did has no relevance today. The same cannot be said for the business practices of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. I see you have still brushed aside responding to what I have stated, as it is relevant today. You are good at deflection, but a lousy BS'er.


Old history, you say? Then what about the long history of financial support for right-wing candidates by Disney executives even up to today?

Anyone at Disney is allowed to support whatever party they choose. If you are so concerned about financial support for right wing candidates, why are you not equally troubled that Steve Ballmar (CEO of Microsoft) is a registered Republican? Or Bill Gates contributions to the Republican party? Or Eric Schmidts of Google? You are a hypocryte, point blank. This is just more deflection.



David Duke ring a bell?

Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?. Do you have another fake conspiracy theory you want to throw out there?



How about Michael Issa? Gilchrest? Proposition 8, here in California?

These are just names to me, they mean nothing. As far as prop 8 goes, and don't think any company who does business in California wanted that to happen, so singling out Disney is at best disengenuous.


Wasn't Disney Corp was one of the big backers behind Prop 13, the very reason we are now in the financial mess we're in?

Your assesment is incorrect. The reason we are in the financial mess we are in has nothing to do with prop 13. It has to do with abuse of the proposition initiative process itself. You cannot lock down state money when state income fluctuates yearly.


Doesn't Disney continue today to fight any minimum wage hikes?

Yes, but so did Microsoft, Google, Apple, Dell, and any other large corporation that operates in this state and country. It is cowardly of you to attempt to lay blame squarely at Disney feet. Especially since the computer industry was complicit as well.


I'm sure these issues don't affect you with your income and status and all, but as a Democrat, you should just pause for a second, between golf rounds with your rich executive friends, and ask yourself who you work for.

Stupid stereotypical assumptions. I don't play golf, the majority of my friends are not rich, and you have been reading too many gossip magazines.

I don't speak for the company I work for, and I am not responsible for what the CEO does. People, Companies, and special interest groups vote their own interests.

You are a major hypocrite. You rile against not having choice, and yet the industry you work in does not support choice. Can you tell me why I can't have my new computer loaded with Linux OS instead of Windows? Can you tell me why I cannot transfer tunes on my ipod directly to a Zune player? Why do I have to use iTunes to download to my ipod? Can you tell me why I cannot search the internet without having my search habits profiled and stored? Why is Google reading my Gmail? Why doesn't Apple tell iphone users they can be tracked?

None of the offenses you list against Disney affect the "masses" today. However the computer industry has issues all over the world. Microsoft versus the United states (look it up) affected everyone who purchased a computer in this country. It was resolved in 2001, not 70 years ago. Microsoft versus the EU was just resolved last year, not 70 years ago. It effected everyone who purchased a computer in Europe. Apple issues with the batteries of ipods (only they can change them), is an issue that exist today and affects the millions who have purchased them. You are a big hypocryte willing to turn your head when your industry does harm to millions, but yet you will bring up internet rumors and attempt to pass it off as a truth when it comes to Disney.

[nightflier]

Look, lil't, I've been complaining about Microsoft's corporate policies for years. I'm no fan of Apple's or Google corporate policies, either, so calling me a hypocrite is just asinine. Just read my past posts. You on the other hand, lump all computer workers in one category (well except for the Japanese ones, but we've covered that already), and then jump through all kinds of hoops to vilify them in one stroke. It simply doesn't work that way.

What is hypocritical, rather, is your constant railing about computer companies invading your privacy when Disney does it in spades. Your rant about iTunes, is exemplary. Why can't I rip movies to a digital medium? Why do I need to keep buying the same movie over & over every time a new format comes out? Why do I have to sit through stupid advertisements and sponsorships every time I put a Disney DVD in my player? WTF is an add for the army doing on my kid's Tinkerbell movie? Disney's got it's grubby hands all over that nonsense. You are quick to scream privacy when it comes to computers, but the minute the topic inches over to movies, all of a sudden, you turn into the biggest corporate tightwad I've seen. Cute, for a little imp, but it doesn't wash.

And I guess you need some more examples of Disney's checkered past. OK, I'll list some more. Back when I was younger I remember a gem called Our Friend the Atom about how we're supposed to all "stop worrying and love the bomb." It isn't for nothing someone made a movie called Dr. Strangelove; are you too dense to see the connection? This was well after Disney died, by the way. There have been a number of recent books describing Disney's distrubing policies, both in the past and the present, but I guess you'd like to ignore those as well.

In case you still didn't know, Von Braun was the brainchild behind Tomorowland. Do you want me to tell you who built Disney's House of the future? Monsanto. Richfield Oil built Autopia. The list goes on: General Electric, McDonald Douglas, and that constant, the US Armed Forces. Disney's long history championing war, rockets, atomic energy, and such social constructs as conformity, the nuclear family, subservience to authority, and the glorification of material possessions permeates their entire message.

Their advertising is carefully selected to promote conservative ideals, the company and it's top brass overwhelmingly support conservative causes, and their products surreptitiously include symbols that perpetuate these ideals. And all this is being presented as child-safe entertainment! I mean are you seriously going to try and defend that? At what point does your conscience give you pause?

You want to talk about how Disney affects the masses today? How about the stereotyping of blacks, Asians, Latinos in all their movies? The stereotypical roles that women have? The formula plots that always have the same ending? The blind faith in the military and technology to solve the world's problems. Need some examples? Why does just about every character who happens to be black have to have exaggerated lips, nose and hair or talk slang (Blackfish, Frozone, Sunflower the Centaur, Sebastian, etc.)? Why is every villain always darker than the rest of the characters and why do they almost always have slanted eyes (Jafar, RedMan, Cruella)? Why are women always portrayed as the "weaker sex" (BoBeep, Jasmine, Cinderella, etc.)? And why are women portrayed with such overly sexualized features with large hips, unnaturally small waists, tiny mouths, and big star-struck eyes? Finally, what's with the obsession with rockets, guns, social hierarchies, and money in the more recent movies? Likewise, it's not OK to whack someone upside the head with a hammer, throw them off a cliff, or kick them in the rear with all your might, but yet, that's all too common in Disney films.

These are all messages that we pretend are OK for children, but really aren't. My guess is that they add the sex, the racism, and violence to cater to the adult audience, knowing full well that these adults will be sitting in the same theater with their kids, and you wouldn't want them to get bored. There's a serious problem with a company that has such a horrid past, refuses to acknowledge any culpability in it, and then continues to perpetuate the same disturbing messages in ways that today are still tolerated. Just as Dumbo and the Jungle Book are now widely seen as overtly racist and sexist, so too will the next generation think this of Monsters Inc. and Cars.

That you refuse to see this, and that you dismiss it outright tells me you're much more of a hypocrite than I am. And the fact that you also dismiss the militarism, the corporate support for ultra-right wing causes, and the ongoing corporatist behavior, tells me you are much more of an arch-conservative than you care to admit. Next time you stand on that soap-box to defend your supposed left-wing causes, don't be surprised if some of the more attentive denizens here point that out to you. I think you're the bigger hypocrite here.

[Woochifer]

We were talking about small and portable screens, I'm including the screen on my laptop into the discussion, not just the screens on cell phones.

Amazing that you're still trying to spin this when facts and basic common sense conspire against you.

[Woochifer]

I understand what NF is saying. More and more, you see people watching movies, yes movies on a handheld apparitus, whether it be iphone cell phone laptop and what have you; usually on the go of course. Some people commute for quite a while, so if theyre not reading a book, why not? This will only be more common as cell phone screens get bigger and better.

Are you sure those are movies that people watch on their handhelds, rather than other shorter forms of video content? And where are they when doing this? Certainly not while they're driving, while they're walking down the street, while they are engaged in something else. As I pointed out, mobile devices are increasingly used for web activity, e-mail, messaging, and of course, audio. Those types of activities can be done for short bursts of time and don't necessarily require a big screen.


Of course it's not the same experience as it is with a massive home screen, but it's still happening. Whether or not it's more popular or will be than home viewing, I can't say. Probably not, but who knows...

It's nowhere near the viewership of home viewing. Electronics firms have figured out how to pack multitudes of features into different devices, but they still haven't figured out how to conquer the sofa/easy chair. The pairing of big screen TVs with sofas represents the perfection of form and function. Compare this with sitting at a computer desk, or balancing a notebook computer on your lap, or staring down at a 4" screen to watch video. That's why TVs dominate the viewing time by such a wide margin.

[Woochifer]

By the way, someone mentioned that movie sales for the PSP were a flop, well of course.Think of the hurdles: the movies were over priced, they only played on Sony-branded devices, the selection was abysmal, free content was easily available everywhere, and there weren't that many PSPs out there.

60 million = not that many PSPs :out:


This argument always gets pranced out for these discussions, and no one ever mentions that this analysis is based only on sales figures. Big DUH! Why pay for movies when the net is crawling with free ones that would play just fine on the PSP? I'm not condoning piracy in any way, but that's why the "sales figures" were so low. Calling the technology a failure based on this fact, smacks of the same myopic analysis of this whole industry, one that only looks at one small self-serving factor.

Gosh, basing an analysis on sales figures. Never knew that was such a nonsensical concept in your bizarro world, given that revenue is what supports the content in the first place.

In contrast to the abysmal UMD movie sales, the game sales for the PSP have been very strong. Perhaps your myopia stems from the fact that people are using the devices for their primary purpose -- i.e., portable gaming. Much the same way that smartphones are primarily used as phones. Just because something has video capability does not mean that the capability is used frequently.

The technology itself isn't a failure. It's all too often just another superfluous feature that gets added, not because consumers want or use it, but because it adds another line to the feature checklist (which of course, is how to make lazy tech reviewers go giddy over something).

I mean, nearly all Blu-ray players now come with internet connections, yet only a small fraction of them are actually connected to the internet or make use of the BD Live features. Shocking but true -- people buy Blu-ray players primarily to watch Blu-ray movies!


In case you still didn't know, Von Braun was the brainchild behind Tomorowland. Do you want me to tell you who built Disney's House of the future? Monsanto. Richfield Oil built Autopia. The list goes on: General Electric, McDonald Douglas, and that constant, the US Armed Forces. Disney's long history championing war, rockets, atomic energy, and such social constructs as conformity, the nuclear family, subservience to authority, and the glorification of material possessions permeates their entire message.

Their advertising is carefully selected to promote conservative ideals,

...snip...

You want to talk about how Disney affects the masses today? How about the stereotyping of blacks, Asians, Latinos in all their movies?

...snip...

These are all messages that we pretend are OK for children, but really aren't.
That you refuse to see this, and that you dismiss it outright tells me you're much more of a hypocrite than I am. And the fact that you also dismiss the militarism, the corporate support for ultra-right wing causes, and the ongoing corporatist behavior, tells me you are much more of an arch-conservative than you care to admit. Next time you stand on that soap-box to defend your supposed left-wing causes, don't be surprised if some of the more attentive denizens here point that out to you. I think you're the bigger hypocrite here.

So when did you stop watching ABC, going to Disneyland, watching Disney movies, and supporting all of the revenue generating activities that this Nazi-rooted company provides? The next time you make mention of watching a Disney movie or watching a show on ABC would make you the bigger hypocrite.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Look, lil't, I've been complaining about Microsoft's corporate policies for years. I'm no fan of Apple's or Google corporate policies, either, so calling me a hypocrite is just asinine. Just read my past posts. You on the other hand, lump all computer workers in one category (well except for the Japanese ones, but we've covered that already), and then jump through all kinds of hoops to vilify them in one stroke. It simply doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that for you because you want to put little halo's around the heads of the computer industry, while turning the mouse into a devil. That is not going to work here.


What is hypocritical, rather, is your constant railing about computer companies invading your privacy when Disney does it in spades.

Exactly how can Disney do this, they don't gather information on your internet viewing habits do they? They are storing every site you have visited on their search engine, they don't even have one. So can you explain(rather than to just deflect and lie) about how they do this?


Your rant about iTunes, is exemplary. Why can't I rip movies to a digital medium?

Didn't you say you did already? Aren't movies already in a digital medium? Every Disney movie on Blu ray comes with a digital copy that allows you to rip into iTunes, or just store on your computer and move it to any display device. Your blowin smoke man.


Why do I need to keep buying the same movie over & over every time a new format comes out?

Last time I checked, nobody was holding a gun to your head and telling you to do so. Its your choice. You don't even have to buy ONE movie if you don't want to. However, I HAVE to use Windows, I HAVE to use Google or any other search engine, and I have no choice in that. If I use Google, I have no choice in guarding my privacy, these guys can mine any information on me they desire, and I cannot stop them, whether its Google, Bing or Yahoo.



Why do I have to sit through stupid advertisements and sponsorships every time I put a Disney DVD in my player?

You have to sit through advertisements on most movies from every studio, and I have to sit through advertisements when I watch youTube, or have to deal with stupid advertising popups from Bing and other search engines. Everyone has their cross to bear don't they?


WTF is an add for the army doing on my kid's Tinkerbell movie?

If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you buy it, don't cry about what you see on it. This is choice you have.


Disney's got it's grubby hands all over that nonsense. You are quick to scream privacy when it comes to computers, but the minute the topic inches over to movies, all of a sudden, you turn into the biggest corporate tightwad I've seen. Cute, for a little imp, but it doesn't wash.

Disney doesn't give information to communist governments that allow a person to be jailed for life, but Google did. If I complain about the computer industry, you turn into the biggest liar on the planet trying to play down the damage they do. What if it was you wife Google turned on and got put in jail, would you be so quick to play that down two standard hypocrite?


And I guess you need some more examples of Disney's checkered past. OK, I'll list some more. Back when I was younger I remember a gem called Our Friend the Atom about how we're supposed to all "stop worrying and love the bomb." It isn't for nothing someone made a movie called Dr. Strangelove; are you too dense to see the connection? This was well after Disney died, by the way. There have been a number of recent books describing Disney's distrubing policies, both in the past and the present, but I guess you'd like to ignore those as well.

Wow, you were a stupid little kid who turned into a stupid adult. The idea of the movie was to promote Nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes, not for war stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Friend_the_Atom

Dr. Strangelove was made by Stanley Kubrick for Hawk films, not Disney stupid. So there is no connection, not here, and not in that pea brain of yours either. Paranoia is not cute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

There have also been recent books on Microsoft an Google and their disturbing practices as well. I have one it is called Google Planet, shall I delve into it to refresh your memory?


In case you still didn't know, Von Braun was the brainchild behind Tomorowland. Do you want me to tell you who built Disney's House of the future? Monsanto. Richfield Oil built Autopia. The list goes on: General Electric, McDonald Douglas, and that constant, the US Armed Forces. Disney's long history championing war, rockets, atomic energy, and such social constructs as conformity, the nuclear family, subservience to authority, and the glorification of material possessions permeates their entire message.

Funny, I don't see that message in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Old Yeller, One Hundred and One Dalmations shall I go on?

Can you tell me what is wrong with Atomic energy. There are Nuclear plants all over the Globe, and you have one quite close to you as well. They don't seem evil to me, and it shouldn't to you since you get some of your electricity from one.

Google does business in the land of conformity, as does Microsoft, Dell, HP, and quite a few other computer companies. That land would be China.

I believe computer products from all of the major computer manufacturers are used for war as well, right? Not WWII, but Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010, so your beloved industry has its own war ties. Off goes the halo!

Doesn't your kid listen to you? That would make him subservient to you wouldn't it? Does not seem like Disney has a monopoly on that does it?


Their advertising is carefully selected to promote conservative ideals, the company and it's top brass overwhelmingly support conservative causes, and their products surreptitiously include symbols that perpetuate these ideals. And all this is being presented as child-safe entertainment! I mean are you seriously going to try and defend that? At what point does your conscience give you pause?

When does your conscience give you a pause, after thousands of Chinese dissidents are dead, or millions behind your pure innocent computer industry's cow towing to the almighty Chinese Government.

Their advertising is meant to promote Disney products, not ideas.

So if you don't think their entertainment is child safe, then why in the hell did you buy Tinkerbell for your kid stupid. What are you, a bad father or a stupid one? Hypocrite on steroids.


You want to talk about how Disney affects the masses today? How about the stereotyping of blacks, Asians, Latinos in all their movies?

Your right, in the past they have stereotyped. Now, can you name me one Black, Asian or Latino that is CEO of a computer hardware or software maker?


The stereotypical roles that women have?

Can you tell me how many computer hardware and software companies have women as a CEO? The last company that had one tarred and feather her on the way out the door.



The formula plots that always have the same ending?

Didn't stop you from buying Tinker bell did it hypocrite.



The blind faith in the military and technology to solve the world's problems.

That same military that you industry supplies hardware and software for?



Need some examples? Why does just about every character who happens to be black have to have exaggerated lips, nose and hair or talk slang (Blackfish, Frozone, Sunflower the Centaur, Sebastian, etc.)?

Why are there no Black CEO of any major hardware or software manufacturer?



Why is every villain always darker than the rest of the characters and why do they almost always have slanted eyes (Jafar, RedMan, Cruella)?

Why are all of the CEO's of major computer manufacturers white men?


Why are women always portrayed as the "weaker sex" (BoBeep, Jasmine, Cinderella, etc.)?

Why are women underrepresented in the higher ranks of management in the computer industry?


And why are women portrayed with such overly sexualized features with large hips, unnaturally small waists, tiny mouths, and big star-struck eyes?

Why is that the focus of your viewing?


Finally, what's with the obsession with rockets, guns, social hierarchies, and money in the more recent movies?

Why are all the computer companies rushing to a country that controls its citizen with an iron glove, keeps them ignorant of what is going on in the outside world, and allows the government to hack peoples emails which gets them jailed and sometimes killed?



Likewise, it's not OK to whack someone upside the head with a hammer, throw them off a cliff, or kick them in the rear with all your might, but yet, that's all too common in Disney films.

Likewise it is not okay to use your monopoly to kill off the competition, create closed eco-systems, spy on people surfing habits, track people via their phones without their knowledge, collect information on them, and force upgrades to their computers by not supporting what they sell?


These are all messages that we pretend are OK for children, but really aren't. My guess is that they add the sex, the racism, and violence to cater to the adult audience, knowing full well that these adults will be sitting in the same theater with their kids, and you wouldn't want them to get bored. There's a serious problem with a company that has such a horrid past, refuses to acknowledge any culpability in it, and then continues to perpetuate the same disturbing messages in ways that today are still tolerated. Just as Dumbo and the Jungle Book are now widely seen as overtly racist and sexist, so too will the next generation think this of Monsters Inc. and Cars.

And yet you still purchased our movies hypocrite. You complain about what we do, and still buy our movies. What a weak knee'd fool. If we are so evil, stop buying our products, don't go to Disneyland, don't watch the Disney or Family Channel, and just do not support us in any way. Disney does not need the money from a two faced hypocrite.


That you refuse to see this, and that you dismiss it outright tells me you're much more of a hypocrite than I am. And the fact that you also dismiss the militarism, the corporate support for ultra-right wing causes, and the ongoing corporatist behavior, tells me you are much more of an arch-conservative than you care to admit. Next time you stand on that soap-box to defend your supposed left-wing causes, don't be surprised if some of the more attentive denizens here point that out to you. I think you're the bigger hypocrite here.

Funny, you refused to see what your industry has done as well. Your industry supports the military, you CEO's are right wing supporters, support right wing causes, and have corporatist behaviors. Remove the blinders and the fake halo's nightstupid

You can call me a arch-conservative all you please, but I have not seen one thing that a arch liberal has really done to end racism, sexism, elitism, classism, or any other ism other than to pay it lip service. You are a prime example of that pointing out the evils of Disney, and turning your hypocritcal butt around and buying our products. Its all lip service and no action. Why don't you just shut the hell up and stop buying our stuff. It is really that simple.

For your information, I am a registered independent.

[Mr Peabody]

Not taking sides, just some thoughts after reading all this. First off, which corporation is the biggest villan is not the "next big battle" that brought us here. Second, show me ONE good corporation. Show me one that wouldn't run their own mama down for a buck.

Isn't the point of advertising to target an audience? They don't try to sell feminin hygene during a football game nor Trix during CSI.

Because we have a Dem in the Presidential office doesn't automatically make every one else liberal. Although I distant myself from the Republican party when they lost sanity, good debate exactly when that was, and cast my vote for Obama, it makes me angry when people don't even give him a chance before attacking, however, you can take the man out of the conservatives but you can't take the conservative out of the man.

Disney is all about the prince and princesses. Selling the fantasy. It may not be politically correct but I can't think of one movie where the princess was 250 lbs. regardless who made it. I must be nieve but I fail to see the descrimination in the movie examples given. Didn't the Lone Ranger where a white hat? Every bad guy he arrested wore a black one, I don't believe the symbolism is toward any race.

It's just a fact of life that certain races have distinct features, and there are several, I think it would be a larger insult to try to hide those features. Just for the record I also think it's stupid to have kids play a game where there is no winner. Out of left field, maybe, but I get a since of that mentality coming through here. Cartoons are meant to be funny and entertain. Tom & Jerry, violence? I think so. Made by Disney? I'll stop here because this could be quite lengthy when listing Warner Bros. toons. Things can sometimes be exaggerated, look at Mr. Maggoo.

I'm just saying a lot of points trying to be made here, and can go all ways, is a bit like saying "the Bass are making the pond smell like fish".

[audio amateur]

Are you sure those are movies that people watch on their handhelds, rather than other shorter forms of video content? And where are they when doing this? Certainly not while they're driving, while they're walking down the street, while they are engaged in something else. As I pointed out, mobile devices are increasingly used for web activity, e-mail, messaging, and of course, audio. Those types of activities can be done for short bursts of time and don't necessarily require a big screen.
Not engaged in anything. These would mostly be people travelling. Plane train bus you name it. Even kids in the back seat during a road trip or long drive somewhere. Indeed, unless you have some time in front of you, you won't be watching a film on the handheld player (phone or other).


The pairing of big screen TVs with sofas represents the perfection of form and function. Compare this with sitting at a computer desk, or balancing a notebook computer on your lap, or staring down at a 4" screen to watch video. That's why TVs dominate the viewing time by such a wide margin.
It would be stupid to assume (given the choice) that someone would rather watch a film on a 4" screen over a 40" plasma.

[Mr Peabody]

I think that's the crux of the whole thing. Hand held devices provide a mobility to video. On a long trip, plane or train, I could see some one watching a movie on a small screen. It makes time fly and small screen is better than no screen. The young find time and places to watch video we couldn't imagine.

The real battle will be who provides the content to the 40".

[audio amateur]

I guess it depends upon your point of reference. My iPhone screen is 3" x 2" for a total of six square inches . My mid-sized laptop is 14" x 7.5" for a total of one hundred five square inches - or nearly twenty times the amount of screen real estate. Are your phones any bigger?

rw
Not sure I understand, bigger than a laptop's screen? Well no, but that's not what I'm saying. NF & I are including laptops in the whole portable movie playing devices. Granted, laptop screens are quite a bit bigger.

[E-Stat]

Not sure I understand, bigger than a laptop's screen? Well no, but that's not what I'm saying. NF & I are including laptops in the whole portable movie playing devices. Granted, laptop screens are quite a bit bigger.
I guess I'm confused by comments made by both of you concerning cell phones:

NF: "You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets."

You: "Strange... Here they're definitely getting better. iphone style I guess. Touch screen technology is being used rather than keyboards simply because they have to use the whole area of the phone in order to maximize screen size."

Cell phones and laptops have significantly different screen sizes!

rw

[pixelthis]

I guess I'm confused by comments made by both of you concerning cell phones:

NF: "You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets."

You: "Strange... Here they're definitely getting better. iphone style I guess. Touch screen technology is being used rather than keyboards simply because they have to use the whole area of the phone in order to maximize screen size."

Cell phones and laptops have significantly different screen sizes!

rw

And lets not forget LG and their new projector fone, projects a 40" pic onto the wall.:1:

[audio amateur]

And lets not forget LG and their new projector fone, projects a 40" pic onto the wall.:1:
I heard about that but it was a photo camera, not a phone. It's pretty crazy what they can do now

[Mr Peabody]

I wonder how good the picture is from the LG. Maybe some day a projector will be small enoug to hardly be noticed in the living room.

[Woochifer]

I think that's the crux of the whole thing. Hand held devices provide a mobility to video. On a long trip, plane or train, I could see some one watching a movie on a small screen. It makes time fly and small screen is better than no screen. The young find time and places to watch video we couldn't imagine.

Yep, and that's why I point out that mobile video is well suited to viewing clips and short form programs. It's for that bloc of time when people are on the go. But, for the most part, people are home bodies and couch potatoes. That's why the TV represents the immovable object in this whole scenario. My opinion would be swayed if the viewing time for TV actually declined in sync with the increase of available portable viewing options. But, that has not happened, and in fact, the Nielson surveys show that the total mobile video viewing time is actually less than just the year-to-year growth in TV viewing time.

And in North America at least, the vast majority of travel is done by cars with solo drivers and no passengers. That's well suited to iPods, but not for portable video viewing. Having a portable DVD player is a godsend for traveling with a two year old. But, we use it only about every other month when we have a long car ride or plane trip. Otherwise, the rest of our daughter's viewing takes place at home on a TV.

[pixelthis]

I heard about that but it was a photo camera, not a phone. It's pretty crazy what they can do now

NOPE, a fone, although I am sure they have both available.
But teh one on the commercial was a fone.:1:

[nightflier]

Lil't, did it ever occur to you that you are railing against an entire industry, of which my company is just a small part? You're asking me to defend (not that I have, or intend to) all the corporate practices of companies I don't even work for. In contrast, I am describing the company YOU work for: Disney. This is a company that has hired former Nazi war criminals (no one is disputing that fact, although you're doing a pretty piss-poor job of whitewashing it), and is still using their "expertise" in its current product.

We can go on about how Disney uses Nazi-inspired symbolism to promote its corporate ends (The Incredibles comes to mind), but it's becoming clear you're not going to accept any of it. While it's been discussed at length in academic and scientific circles already, it's clear that you consider such sources irrelevant in face of your precious market forces. So this discussion is going no where - you can't argue with a mule, as they say. Let me just conclude my points on this with a few corrections before you vilify everything I've said, once again.

(1) I didn't purchase Tinkerbell, it was a x-mas gift, and I wasn't about to pry it from my daughter's hands once she had unwrapped it. We've had other Disney/Pixar movies in the house that friends had brought over, so we've seen our share, but that doesn't mean I like it or endorse it - I actually try and educate my children about what is wrong with this material.

(2) An advertisement for the Army is entirely out of place on this disk, just as it is on so many other Disney children's films. What kind of sick & twisted thinking when into that decision? How do I explain that to a 2-year old? So it's not OK to show guns or violence in the G-rated movie, but Disney'll make up for that kind of government meddling by putting plenty of it in the previews? Even you can see the hypocrisy in that... I hope.

(3) The objectification of women, the ridiculing of minorities, the glorification of violence, and the ideal of the colonial ethic (a Manifest Destiny of sorts) in these movies is also completely out of place. It teaches a certain core set of values that build expectations in the mindset of children that they will carry with them into adulthood. Yes, I know you ridicule this as insignificant, but let's remember that this is exactly the response people had for Disney movies that today are considered completely inappropriate - time will catch up with you on that.

(4) "Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Old Yeller, One Hundred and One Dalmations," all have questionable content that has been critiqued in various sources: overly sexualized characterization, the use of darker skin color and Asian phenotypes to depict negative characters, the expectant roles of different groups of people and women, the list goes on. Fantasia notoriously had a scene removed that even Disney's editors considered too offensive, or did you forget that? By the way, it's spelled "Dalmatian."

Now I find it quite striking that someone in your position can't see the hypocrisy in your own posts - you are either too wrapped up in your own ideology, or just plain dumb. Let's remember, I'm not defending my whole industry, just my own company and people in my industry who I believe do good work. In contrast, my comments to you are about your specific company. And despite your left-leaning posts elsewhere on this forum, it's clear to me from your defense of Disney, your derision of things you can't control, your constant hatred for anything Chinese, and your dogmatic and black-and-white approach to discussion, that you are an arch conservative underneath it all. You loathe anything you can't control, and that includes my comments, Chinese youth, foreign governments (who do the same things our government does, BTW), computer geeks, cell phone users, and pretty much the whole Internet. You're a control freak who's managed to give himself a podium in a public forum - kind of like Rush Limbaugh - and I'm wondering why you're still there. So yes, your comments here are pure hypocrisy because they don't gel with your other posts just like Disney doesn't gel with Children's entertainment.

************

Regarding the next big battle, you continually rail against small screens as insignificant because of market-share, when I've repeatedly pointed out that sales figures don't tell the whole story. Of course TVs selling for thousands have a bigger market impact than $200 devices, but it's all how you parse the numbers. The bigger story is that these smaller screens, whether on laptops, phones, or everything else in between, are selling faster, have a higher turn-over rate, and are more ubiquitous that you are willing to admit.

Your examples are also based in a North American mindset, when it's clear that this says nothing about the world at large - our commuters here are not like commuters abroad, as has been pointed out already, but the thought that we here will have to become more like them (even those dreaded Chinese), is so disturbing to you, that you can't fathom a world where we will actually on day have more people riding buses/trains than in cars. Is it so hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, we are not the most technologically advanced society anymore, and that our way of life is not sustainable in a global economy?

More to the point, unlike your railing against small screens, I don't try and claim that TVs are insignificant. As a matter of fact, I've pointed out repeatedly that they will continue to be there. My point is that smaller screens are a significant and growing factor. I guess in that way, my perspective suggests that there's room for both in this discussion, but you can't deal with that - it's all your way, or no way at all, right? Typical, and yes, also hypocritical.

[nightflier]

I guess I'm confused by comments made by both of you concerning cell phones:

NF: "You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets."



As I mentioned above, I was wrong about the number of cell phones compared to the number of TVs. Even the number of cell phone screens + laptop screens + everything else in between probably doesn't amount to more than the number of TV screens out there. That said, small screens are replaced far more often, so change there happens much faster. What may just be a smaller market because of overall sales figures, could be a whole different beast in as little as six months.

My belief is that that there is something happening on small screens, that is being underrepresented here, and sales figures don't address that. I realize that portable video this has been lauded since the the early days of V-cast, but I think this is different. It is happening matter-of-factly, without much media fanfare. People are just expecting their small devices to include it as standard. The big question is will cell phone providers be able to control it?

If the video content becomes part of the internet, then my guess is that they won't. But if it becomes part of a private cellular-wireless internet where net neutrality does not apply, then it could even become a threat to the Internet itself. That is the next big battle, IMO. Now that's not the opinion of others here, but let's be honest, who are we? Many of us have spent thousands, tens of thousands, some of us even hundreds of thousands on gear that is directly threatened by this technology. Are we really that representative of what the next generation will be spending their money on?

[audio amateur]

NOPE, a fone, although I am sure they have both available.
But teh one on the commercial was a fone.:1:
I wasn't doubting it, just saying I saw the same thing about a camera:)

[Feanor]

....

We can go on about how Disney uses Nazi-inspired symbolism to promote its corporate ends (The Incredibles comes to mind), but it's becoming clear you're not going to accept any of it. While it's been discussed at length in academic and scientific circles already, it's clear that you consider such sources irrelevant in face of your precious market forces. So this discussion is going no where - you can't argue with a mule, as they say. Let me just conclude my points on this with a few corrections before you vilify everything I've said, once again.
...
....
'Flier, I wonder if you don't have some serious paranoia going on here? Apart from the actuality of whether Disney hired ex-Nazis, the issue of the use of Nazi symbolism is bunk. Once you get into non-explicit "symbolism", the whole subject becomes too subjective to be worth a damn.

As for ex-Nazis working for Disney, does the former Nazi who's done his time deserve less of a break than any other criminal who's served his time? Is the former Nazi who wasn't convicted, or was never indicted, any less "not guilty" than any other suspect? Von Baun does come to mind, of course.

One thing I've learned from reading many books on the Nazi era is that most of the Nazis, even the worst the leaders, were not psychopathic monsters. The demonization of Nazis (even frivolously as in Inglorious Basterds), is hypocritcal and potentially dangerous. Most Nazis were people motivated by relatively routine personal bigotries plus a desire for advancement. The evil-doing of the typical Nazi Party member was mainly a reaction to the particular place & time. Rather than cry, "Arrg! Nazi, Nazi", the rest of us would do well watch out that we don't succumb to the same vices under comparable circumstances.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Lil't, did it ever occur to you that you are railing against an entire industry, of which my company is just a small part? You're asking me to defend (not that I have, or intend to) all the corporate practices of companies I don't even work for. In contrast, I am describing the company YOU work for: Disney. This is a company that has hired former Nazi war criminals (no one is disputing that fact, although you're doing a pretty piss-poor job of whitewashing it), and is still using their "expertise" in its current product.

Man you are full of it. The stench in this post is overwhelming. If what you state is fact(and I doubt it) then you are talking about something that happened in the 1930's. Can you tell me(without the overwhelming paranoia) how that is relevant today? I can tell you this, today I cannot order a laptop or PC without windows. That equal monopoly.I am forced to support software that hackers can use against me, and I have no choice in removing it without decreasing the functionality of the computer itself. I can only use Itunes on my ipod. That equals monopoly. Why can't I just load any MP3 I buy or rip directly to my ipod? This is today, TODAY, not 70 years ago.


We can go on about how Disney uses Nazi-inspired symbolism to promote its corporate ends (The Incredibles comes to mind), but it's becoming clear you're not going to accept any of it. While it's been discussed at length in academic and scientific circles already, it's clear that you consider such sources irrelevant in face of your precious market forces. So this discussion is going no where - you can't argue with a mule, as they say. Let me just conclude my points on this with a few corrections before you vilify everything I've said, once again.

I am not going to accept it because it is based on paranoia. I asked my kids if they see nazi influences in their Disney movies, and the answer was a resounding NO! I asked my neighbor kids do they see Nazi's in their Disney movie collection, and the answer was a resounding NO! With a paranoia filter in full force, you can see all kinds of conspiracies that you want to see.


(1) I didn't purchase Tinkerbell, it was a x-mas gift, and I wasn't about to pry it from my daughter's hands once she had unwrapped it. We've had other Disney/Pixar movies in the house that friends had brought over, so we've seen our share, but that doesn't mean I like it or endorse it - I actually try and educate my children about what is wrong with this material.

This is no excuse. If I had the objections you have about the content, then she would not get it no matter what. So the only thing you are telling me is that you are a bad father AND a hypocrite. You tell your kids about what is wrong with it, then you let them watch it anyway. That makes you nothing more than a spineless HYPOCRITE!!!


(2) An advertisement for the Army is entirely out of place on this disk, just as it is on so many other Disney children's films. What kind of sick & twisted thinking when into that decision? How do I explain that to a 2-year old? So it's not OK to show guns or violence in the G-rated movie, but Disney'll make up for that kind of government meddling by putting plenty of it in the previews? Even you can see the hypocrisy in that... I hope.

If you don't like it, don't let them view it HYPOCRITE!


(3) The objectification of women, the ridiculing of minorities, the glorification of violence, and the ideal of the colonial ethic (a Manifest Destiny of sorts) in these movies is also completely out of place. It teaches a certain core set of values that build expectations in the mindset of children that they will carry with them into adulthood. Yes, I know you ridicule this as insignificant, but let's remember that this is exactly the response people had for Disney movies that today are considered completely inappropriate - time will catch up with you on that.

This is pure paranoia. Do you think your kids look at the movies and see this? I think not HYPOCRITE!


(4) "Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Old Yeller, One Hundred and One Dalmations," all have questionable content that has been critiqued in various sources: overly sexualized characterization, the use of darker skin color and Asian phenotypes to depict negative characters, the expectant roles of different groups of people and women, the list goes on. Fantasia notoriously had a scene removed that even Disney's editors considered too offensive, or did you forget that? By the way, it's spelled "Dalmatian."

Once again, the computer industry has no respect for women or people with dark skin, or there would be more of the running computer companies and sitting in the board rooms of them as well. Look in your own backyard, there is enough misalignment there to keep you too busy to notice what happens in Disney movies.


Now I find it quite striking that someone in your position can't see the hypocrisy in your own posts - you are either too wrapped up in your own ideology, or just plain dumb. Let's remember, I'm not defending my whole industry, just my own company and people in my industry who I believe do good work. In contrast, my comments to you are about your specific company. And despite your left-leaning posts elsewhere on this forum, it's clear to me from your defense of Disney, your derision of things you can't control, your constant hatred for anything Chinese, and your dogmatic and black-and-white approach to discussion, that you are an arch conservative underneath it all. You loathe anything you can't control, and that includes my comments, Chinese youth, foreign governments (who do the same things our government does, BTW), computer geeks, cell phone users, and pretty much the whole Internet. You're a control freak who's managed to give himself a podium in a public forum - kind of like Rush Limbaugh - and I'm wondering why you're still there. So yes, your comments here are pure hypocrisy because they don't gel with your other posts just like Disney doesn't gel with Children's entertainment.

Man you spit out enough bull here. But this is really about deflection. You rile about Disney content, and when somebody gives you a copy of a Disney movie, you are too unprincipled to tell your daughtered that you object to the contents of the video. The only thing all this riling deflects is a bad father who does not have the principles to say no to his children when he does not like something. Rile away HYPOCRITE, I hope you feel better even if your bull$hit makes the rest of us sick to our collective stomachs.

************


Regarding the next big battle, you continually rail against small screens as insignificant because of market-share, when I've repeatedly pointed out that sales figures don't tell the whole story. Of course TVs selling for thousands have a bigger market impact than $200 devices, but it's all how you parse the numbers. The bigger story is that these smaller screens, whether on laptops, phones, or everything else in between, are selling faster, have a higher turn-over rate, and are more ubiquitous that you are willing to admit.

None of this points to any of these devices as replacements for the television. Selling something does not mean its uses change. A cellphone is still used primarily for making calls, a laptop is still primarily for work, and an ipod's primary use is still music. That has not changed, and you trying to foretell its future uses does not constitute it as fact. It is all in your imagination.


Your examples are also based in a North American mindset, when it's clear that this says nothing about the world at large - our commuters here are not like commuters abroad, as has been pointed out already, but the thought that we here will have to become more like them (even those dreaded Chinese), is so disturbing to you, that you can't fathom a world where we will actually on day have more people riding buses/trains than in cars. Is it so hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, we are not the most technologically advanced society anymore, and that our way of life is not sustainable in a global economy?

Leaning to read always helps when trying to comprehend words. I do not have issues with the Chinese, I have issues with the Chinese government. Do the "Chinese" people set their own policies? No, the Chinese government does. Remember, we are not talking about a democracy here.

No, it is not so hard to believe that we are not the most technologically advance people in the world, and now you are making my point better than ever. Since we are not the most advance technologically, then you cannot make the same argument for the advancement of technology for this country than you can make for the rest of the world. When compared to the rest of the developed countries, we sit at the bottom at internet speed(which is why downloads still have quite a ways to go to supplant the BR disc), we do not use our technology the same way as the rest of the world(which means we do not watch our films on tiny screens), we do not travel like the rest of the world(cars are our primary transportation), and quite frankly the largest LCD and Plasma screens are sold to the US, not Europe or Asia. In American, the most television sales go to screens 40" and larger(trending more larger each year). In Europe and Asia, the most popular television screens(in terms of overall sales) was between 30 and 40" and that has held steady for years now. The Consumer Electronic Companies still consider the US market as the most important market they have, and they use their home markets as test places for gadgets and equipment they expect to sell to the US. We buy the products that they put the largest markup on, and that is large screen Plasmas and LCD televisions.


More to the point, unlike your railing against small screens, I don't try and claim that TVs are insignificant. As a matter of fact, I've pointed out repeatedly that they will continue to be there. My point is that smaller screens are a significant and growing factor. I guess in that way, my perspective suggests that there's room for both in this discussion, but you can't deal with that - it's all your way, or no way at all, right? Typical, and yes, also hypocritical.

Significant and growing factor is a loooooong way from primary viewing device, or device for watching films. It may be a growing factor, but not for primary viewing. So using the words significant and growing is irrelevant in the context to which we are speaking.

I am not railing against small screens, I am railing against the constant lying and false posturing you are doing to try and make something that is used for one thing, a factor for mass usage for other things. Small screens are good for what they do, and that is for viewing short videos and the occasional TV program while on the go. But there is no trend that ANYONE can see(except those who enjoy making one up) that points to smaller screens as a device one looks at movies on. The only place that is happening is in the empty space between your two ears, and that is it.

Let's consider this. The top selling phone in Europe is the Motorola Razr V3. It has a super large 2.2 inch 176 x 220 pixel 64K color TFT display. The best selling phone is Asia is the Nokia E71 with a huge 2.36" size screen with 320x240 pixels, hardly HD resolution. These are the phones the majority of the populace are buying, and these are hardly phones worth looking at Avatar on. You'll probably get decent 3D if you use two per eye!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

'Flier, I wonder if you don't have some serious paranoia going on here? Apart from the actuality of whether Disney hired ex-Nazis, the issue of the use of Nazi symbolism is bunk. Once you get into non-explicit "symbolism", the whole subject becomes too subjective to be worth a damn.

Well, when you have the "I see dead people" syndrome, you tend to see all kinds of conspiracies in everything. NF would be a great Journalist in the everyone is a nazi McCarthy era.


As for ex-Nazis working for Disney, does the former Nazi who's done his time deserve less of a break than any other criminal who's served his time? Is the former Nazi who wasn't convicted, or was never indicted, any less "not guilty" than any other suspect? Von Baun does come to mind, of course.

When you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist, if you have been accused(not convicted or sentenced) you are still guilty for life. I guess he gets his rocks off spreading internet based lies. Walt Disney HIMSELF was not a nazi, but he gets tarred and feathers for just hiring somebody who was accused but never convicted. Funny, Microsoft WAS convicted of stealing a patent in the Word software, and were convicted of anti trust, and yet Bill Gates walks away scot free in his world.


One thing I've learned from reading many books on the Nazi era is that most of the Nazis, even the worst the leaders, were not psychopathic monsters. The demonization of Nazis (even frivolously as in Inglorious Basterds), is hypocritcal and potentially dangerous. Most Nazis were people motivated by relatively routine personal bigotries plus a desire for advancement. The evil-doing of the typical Nazi Party member was mainly a reaction to the particular place & time. Rather than cry, "Arrg! Nazi, Nazi", the rest of us would do well watch out that we don't succumb to the same vices under comparable circumstances.

Also consider that in this country during that era, so many non communists were accused of communist links and beliefs without a shred of real proof to support the accusation. Also keep in mind that internet based rumors and lies make good copy for paranoid folks.

[E-Stat]

Many of us have spent thousands, tens of thousands, some of us even hundreds of thousands on gear that is directly threatened by this technology. Are we really that representative of what the next generation will be spending their money on?
Frankly, I'm not concerned that phones will be obsoleting televisions and movie theatres. Smart phones have their place and I use my iPhone quite a bit. My wife and I text up a storm. I just don't see the enthusiasm for folks wanting to watch Avatar on a 6 square inch screen vs. a 500,000 square inch screen (The 1570 IMAX at Mall of Georgia where I first saw it).

rw

[Geoffcin]

Hey guys, I just moved this thread to the "Steel Cage" If you want to go at each other personally I'm OK with it, but please keep it off the other forums.

Thanks for understanding!

[nightflier]

If what you state is fact(and I doubt it) then you are talking about something that happened in the 1930's. Can you tell me(without the overwhelming paranoia) how that is relevant today?

No this didn't just happen in the 30's. Walt Disney's overt bigotry and sexism is evident in his output in the 30's yes, but his spying for the FBI and his testifying at the HUAC trials happened in the 50's. Over those 20 some odd years, he enjoyed the status of being Hollywood's number one bigot. In the late 50's he tried to bust unions through rather suspicious means, and ultimately failed, this was a considerable setback for him and some authors say he never quite recovered. But by that time, others in the company were making big decisions. One of the people who made decisions, what von Braun, who also had considerable input in the planning of Disneyland, including the plans for Tomorrowland. Von Braun was never convicted, true, but he also hired another former SS officer, Haber, who was convicted and served several years for performing scientific experiments on POWs and prisoners at Dachau - the kind of gruesome stuff you don't want to think about.

Look people, I'm not making this stuff up, it's part of our history. I realize you'll have to do some digging to find the actual references online: both von Braun and Haber where also used by the US military for their research so this isn't the kind of stuff that's widely published, but it's there if you dig for it.

I realize that playing the Nazi card may seem heavy handed, but my point is simply that for all the evils that lil't is pointing to in the computer industry, he's got some pretty scary skeletons in his own closet. For someone who's wont to call every boday else's kettle, black, that rather hypocritical in my book.


I can tell you this, today I cannot order a laptop or PC without windows.

Boy you really are dumb. Yes you can, here's a whole list of them (http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/desktop.html). And if that's not mainstream enough, you can buy HP and Lenovo computers fully loaded with Linux. Oh, and since I'm talking to a 5-year old, you can also uninstall Windows and install whatever OS you like, lil't.


I can only use Itunes on my ipod. That equals monopoly. Why can't I just load any MP3 I buy or rip directly to my ipod? This is today, TODAY, not 70 years ago.

There's a number of threads here, on this forum describing how to use your own software and your own MP3s on an iPod. Don't insult us.


I am not going to accept it because it is based on paranoia. I asked my kids if they see nazi influences in their Disney movies, and the answer was a resounding NO! I asked my neighbor kids do they see Nazi's in their Disney movie collection, and the answer was a resounding NO! With a paranoia filter in full force, you can see all kinds of conspiracies that you want to see.

You kids? Why don't you ask some experts instead? Look, it's been written about enough. It's just that you don't read anything marginally academic. Let it go already, this is a waste of my time.


This is no excuse. If I had the objections you have about the content, then she would not get it no matter what. So the only thing you are telling me is that you are a bad father AND a hypocrite. You tell your kids about what is wrong with it, then you let them watch it anyway. That makes you nothing more than a spineless HYPOCRITE!!!

So, you would rip the disk out of your kid's hands rather than explain what is wrong with it? Boy that explains volumes.


If you don't like it, don't let them view it HYPOCRITE!

I don't let my kids see the army ads; As soon as I see that crap, I fast forward through it. Oh, wait a minute, "Action not Allowed?" WTF does that mean? Does Disney want to force me and my kids to see this nonsense? Gee, how positively nice of them.... Any more suggestions, lil't?


This is pure paranoia. Do you think your kids look at the movies and see this? I think not HYPOCRITE!

Let's see, if kids see Ariel's proportions, do they think that's normal? Will they grow up expecting that? Gee, there's whole industries banking on it! I wonder if that's just a coincidence? More stupidity from you lil't. As a head honcho at Disney, I would think you'd be more socially responsible about this material targeted at impressionable kids. As I said before, there was a time when this was considered perfectly acceptable too:

Crows Scene from Dumbo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH4gumw8AsQ)

I suppose, you're going to try and tell me this is OK. If you do, then we've got nothing left to discuss. Oh, I'm sure you're going to dismsiss this since the movie came out in 1941, right? Well, let me also remind you that Dumbo is still sold on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Dumbo-60th-Anniversary-Sterling-Holloway/dp/B00005KARK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1263944090&sr=8-2).


Once again, the computer industry has no respect for women or people with dark skin, or there would be more of the running computer companies and sitting in the board rooms of them as well. Look in your own backyard, there is enough misalignment there to keep you too busy to notice what happens in Disney movies.

What are you smoking? Or do Asians not count anymore? Oh, I'm sorry, you want to exclude them from the argument like you did with the Japanese programmers? OK, what about Indians (the ones from India, in case you're getting confused)? What about in Latin America? Do those people qualify? At what shade do you draw the line, lil't, a brown paper-bag? How stupid do you want your argument to get? Women? perhaps not in the major corporations, but Women make up a much larger share of the heads of smaller computer companies than you would like to admit. So yes, Linda Fiorentino was handed her walking papers, but that had nothing to do with her being a woman, it had to do with gross improprieties. But there will be other women who will head large corporations too.

Look, I realize there's inequality, and there's much work still to be done. I've never defended large corporations who commit crimes and improprieties (just read my other posts), so stop trying to make that stick - it's not working. I've been a vocal critic here and elsewhere of Microsoft, Sony, Apple, HP, and a host of other companies. But your insistence on painting a whole industry with your petty little brush just doesn't work. My company isn't headed by a woman either, but they do make up a majority of the board, which I still think is a far cry from where Disney stands.

And see that's where I think you're the bigger hypocrite: your company has a well documented and long established notoriety in the film industry. That's the folks you claim to work for and that you still defend. Me, on the other hand, speak for my own company, not Google, Microsoft or the other big guys. You just can't get it through your head that you are standing much closer to the odium of your industry's abuses than I am. So stop with calling me a bigger hypocrite, it's just not applicable at all.

************

None of this points to any of these devices as replacements for the television. Selling something does not mean its uses change. A cellphone is still used primarily for making calls, a laptop is still primarily for work, and an ipod's primary use is still music. That has not changed, and you trying to foretell its future uses does not constitute it as fact. It is all in your imagination.


For the last time, and listen c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y, now: I never said that small screens will replace televisions. What I have said repeatedly is that they will coexist and grow in market share. Really, lil't, it's not all a black-n-white world out there...

[QUOTE=Sir Terrence the Terrible]I do not have issues with the Chinese, I have issues with the Chinese government. Do the "Chinese" people set their own policies? No, the Chinese government does. Remember, we are not talking about a democracy here.

What you and so many people just can't get around your heads about China is that the people and the government are not separate like that. Your prejudice against the Chinese government and the Chinese people who steal movies, cannot so simply be extracted from the Chinese people. Until you actually live in China, you may never understand this, and it's sad really, because we'll have to add that to the long list of things you cannot understand. Let me see if I can find an example, oh that's right: it's kind of like the way the Japanese programmers cannot be extracted from the community of programmers throughout the world. Oh, I better stop before your head explodes....


No, it is not so hard to believe that we are not the most technologically advance people in the world, and now you are making my point better than ever. Since we are not the most advance technologically, then you cannot make the same argument for the advancement of technology for this country than you can make for the rest of the world. When compared to the rest of the developed countries, we sit at the bottom at internet speed(which is why downloads still have quite a ways to go to supplant the BR disc)

Not only did I not say it will supplant it, but more to the point, this shows your narrow mindedness all over again: I'm talking about the way things stand globally, and you are still obsessed with looking at only the US market when it suits your argument. Stop it already, it's getting creepy.


we do not use our technology the same way as the rest of the world (which means we do not watch our films on tiny screens), we do not travel like the rest of the world(cars are our primary transportation), and quite frankly the largest LCD and Plasma screens are sold to the US, not Europe or Asia.

This will change. Just because we are so backwards as you say we are, doesn't mean we will stay there. Unlike you, I actually have faith that we will pull ourselves out of this muck. Yet it's Luddites like you who relish in keeping us in the past. Is it just so that you can prove you were right, or are you just treasonous?


In American, the most television sales go to screens 40" and larger(trending more larger each year). In Europe and Asia, the most popular television screens(in terms of overall sales) was between 30 and 40" and that has held steady for years now. The Consumer Electronic Companies still consider the US market as the most important market they have, and they use their home markets as test places for gadgets and equipment they expect to sell to the US. We buy the products that they put the largest markup on, and that is large screen Plasmas and LCD televisions.

Not only is this a perverted model that presumes the consumer is an absolute moron (not true, BTW), but it isn't sustainable. Things are going to change, lil't, as a matter of fact they are already.


I am not railing against small screens

Yes you are.


Small screens are good for what they do, and that is for viewing short videos and the occasional TV program while on the go.

Just because that's the case in your little world, does not make it so globally. Even considering that the US is the largest consumer market, that doesn't mean it will be so in the near future. Consider of the projections for the Chinese and Indian consumer market, oh that's right you can't, it's too "vague" and "out there."


But there is no trend that ANYONE can see that points to smaller screens as a device one looks at movies on.

Of course, if all you're fixated on is digital movie sales. This tired argument is really getting old.


Let's consider this. The top selling phone in Europe is the Motorola Razr V3. It has a super large 2.2 inch 176 x 220 pixel 64K color TFT display. The best selling phone is Asia is the Nokia E71 with a huge 2.36" size screen with 320x240 pixels, hardly HD resolution. These are the phones the majority of the populace are buying, and these are hardly phones worth looking at Avatar on. You'll probably get decent 3D if you use two per eye!

I never said they needed to be HD - actually, I said the exact opposite. While HD will be the standard some day, for now, video on small screens doesn't need to be HD. Are you just trying to find a new line of argumentation where there was none? Stop wasting my time. And while we're at it, stop being such a hypocrite, it weakens your argument.

[E-Stat]

Why can't I just load any MP3 I buy or rip directly to my ipod?
There is no such reason. You can use whatever you please if you know what you're doing.. None of the content I have on my iPhone was purchased from iTunes because I have no use for poor sounding highly compressed content. I begin with uncompressed WAV format and then convert to Apple lossless to save space.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

No this didn't just happen in the 30's. Walt Disney's overt bigotry and sexism is evident in his output in the 30's yes, but his spying for the FBI and his testifying at the HUAC trials happened in the 50's. Over those 20 some odd years, he enjoyed the status of being Hollywood's number one bigot. In the late 50's he tried to bust unions through rather suspicious means, and ultimately failed, this was a considerable setback for him and some authors say he never quite recovered. But by that time, others in the company were making big decisions. One of the people who made decisions, what von Braun, who also had considerable input in the planning of Disneyland, including the plans for Tomorrowland. Von Braun was never convicted, true, but he also hired another former SS officer, Haber, who was convicted and served several years for performing scientific experiments on POWs and prisoners at Dachau - the kind of gruesome stuff you don't want to think about.

1950 versus 2010. Hmmmm, that would be 60 years ago. Can you tell me the relevance today? Von Braun not convicted? That means it was not proven he was guilty of anything!

Your conspiracy myths ride hand in hand with your beliefs. Neither is true, real, or even applicable to current events.


Look people, I'm not making this stuff up, it's part of our history. I realize you'll have to do some digging to find the actual references online: both von Braun and Haber where also used by the US military for their research so this isn't the kind of stuff that's widely published, but it's there if you dig for it.

When you make accusations, it is you that need to search the internet and prove your point. I looked up what I could find, and aside from disproven internet myths, there is not direct evidence that supports your paranoia theories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Haber

According to the Wikipedia entry, Von Braun was coerced to joint he Nazi party, and did not volunteer for it. From what I know of history, alot of scientist and engineers were forced to work for the party against their will, or their careers would be distroyed. He killed no one, was not a guard at any concentration camp, and none of his work was actually used to kill any allied personell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun


I realize that playing the Nazi card may seem heavy handed, but my point is simply that for all the evils that lil't is pointing to in the computer industry, he's got some pretty scary skeletons in his own closet. For someone who's wont to call every boday else's kettle, black, that rather hypocritical in my book.

Having old skeletons in a 50-70 year old closet(which are myths so far) and having them currently dancing in front of the world in 2010 is a light year worth of distance.




Boy you really are dumb. Yes you can, here's a whole list of them (http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/desktop.html). And if that's not mainstream enough, you can buy HP and Lenovo computers fully loaded with Linux. Oh, and since I'm talking to a 5-year old, you can also uninstall Windows and install whatever OS you like, lil't.

Look stupid a$$, everyone who is computer literate knows that Linux does not work with quite a few commonly used programs. Linux is not widely supported if you can't get something to work, and if you are not a programmer or a computer genious you can't make it work when things go wrong. Everything software related is geared towards either the Apple OS, or windows.



There's a number of threads here, on this forum describing how to use your own software and your own MP3s on an iPod. Don't insult us.

And yet none work as smoothly and with as fewer steps as with the closed ecco system it currently work effectively with.




You kids? Why don't you ask some experts instead? Look, it's been written about enough. It's just that you don't read anything marginally academic. Let it go already, this is a waste of my time.

I ask my kids because they can look at something and give a plain yes or no. Their minds are not filled with silly internet myths not supported by fact clouding their minds.



So, you would rip the disk out of your kid's hands rather than explain what is wrong with it? Boy that explains volumes.

No, I would rip the disk out of my kids hand and explain why I am doing it, AND I would not let them watch it for that reason. Unlike yourself who would complain and explain, but still allow it to be watched. You are spineless, and by most standards a bad Dad and a hypocrite.




I don't let my kids see the army ads; As soon as I see that crap, I fast forward through it. Oh, wait a minute, "Action not Allowed?" WTF does that mean? Does Disney want to force me and my kids to see this nonsense? Gee, how positively nice of them.... Any more suggestions, lil't?

Yeah I have one...get a spine jelly back! If you don't like the content, and object to Army ads on video, DON'T LET THEM WATCH THE VIDEO IDIOT!




Let's see, if kids see Ariel's proportions, do they think that's normal? Will they grow up expecting that? Gee, there's whole industries banking on it! I wonder if that's just a coincidence? More stupidity from you lil't. As a head honcho at Disney, I would think you'd be more socially responsible about this material targeted at impressionable kids. As I said before, there was a time when this was considered perfectly acceptable too:

Crows Scene from Dumbo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH4gumw8AsQ)

I suppose, you're going to try and tell me this is OK. If you do, then we've got nothing left to discuss. Oh, I'm sure you're going to dismsiss this since the movie came out in 1941, right? Well, let me also remind you that Dumbo is still sold on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Dumbo-60th-Anniversary-Sterling-Holloway/dp/B00005KARK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1263944090&sr=8-2).

Let's see Dumbo. In 1941 is was perfectly acceptable for white only bathrooms, restaurants, hotels, trains, entertainment faclilites, movie theaters..shall I go on? There were a lot of things that were perfectly acceptable to do like sick dogs on protestors, and even hanging African Americans from trees. When it comes to moralities, 1941 might as well be a different planet than 2010. Yet in 2010, minorities and women are still under-represented in corner offices and board rooms of every major(and quite a few minor) computer companies in this country. Is the CEO of your company a woman or minority? Probably not.




What are you smoking? Or do Asians not count anymore? Oh, I'm sorry, you want to exclude them from the argument like you did with the Japanese programmers? OK, what about Indians (the ones from India, in case you're getting confused)? What about in Latin America? Do those people qualify? At what shade do you draw the line, lil't, a brown paper-bag? How stupid do you want your argument to get? Women? perhaps not in the major corporations, but Women make up a much larger share of the heads of smaller computer companies than you would like to admit. So yes, Linda Fiorentino was handed her walking papers, but that had nothing to do with her being a woman, it had to do with gross improprieties. But there will be other women who will head large corporations too.

Since Asians are literally driving the train in all of this, it is natural they would be in charge. Where are the Blacks, Latinos and women? Forgot about them, or are they too insignificant for your radar?


Look, I realize there's inequality, and there's much work still to be done. I've never defended large corporations who commit crimes and improprieties (just read my other posts), so stop trying to make that stick - it's not working. I've been a vocal critic here and elsewhere of Microsoft, Sony, Apple, HP, and a host of other companies. But your insistence on painting a whole industry with your petty little brush just doesn't work. My company isn't headed by a woman either, but they do make up a majority of the board, which I still think is a far cry from where Disney stands.

But yet in this case Microsoft sins are dismissed so you can highlight the (old and unproven)sins of Disney. Double standard and hypocritical. Do you have Blacks or Latinos on your perfect and sinless board? Probably not. So women have hit the glass ceiling at your place huh? They can be on the board, but not making the decisive decisions. Progressive bunch aren't you guys!


And see that's where I think you're the bigger hypocrite: your company has a well documented and long established notoriety in the film industry. That's the folks you claim to work for and that you still defend. Me, on the other hand, speak for my own company, not Google, Microsoft or the other big guys. You just can't get it through your head that you are standing much closer to the odium of your industry's abuses than I am. So stop with calling me a bigger hypocrite, it's just not applicable at all.

Funny, so does Warner, Sony, and MGM. I don't speak for my company, and quiet as it is kept unless you are the CEO, you don't speak for yours either. You re a working bee, and you don't know all that is going on in your company, and I do not know(even at my level in management) don't know all that is going on at Disney.

************


None of this points to any of these devices as replacements for the television. Selling something does not mean its uses change. A cellphone is still used primarily for making calls, a laptop is still primarily for work, and an ipod's primary use is still music. That has not changed, and you trying to foretell its future uses does not constitute it as fact. It is all in your imagination.

[QUOTE=Sir Terrence the Terrible]

[quote]For the last time, and listen c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y, now: I never said that small screens will replace televisions. What I have said repeatedly is that they will coexist and grow in market share. Really, lil't, it's not all a black-n-white world out there...

Sure they will co-exist. Cellphones will be used to make calls, Ipods to listen to music, and portable DVD players for travel of long distances(who does that everyday?).



What you and so many people just can't get around your heads about China is that the people and the government are not separate like that. Your prejudice against the Chinese government and the Chinese people who steal movies, cannot so simply be extracted from the Chinese people.

When the average Chinese person can vote for their leaders, can surf the net without blocking filteres, can protest what they don't like, can speak freely their opinions, then they cannot be extracted. As long as the reverse exists, I judge them seperately. A thief is a theif, no matter what country they are from.



Until you actually live in China, you may never understand this, and it's sad really, because we'll have to add that to the long list of things you cannot understand.

If I lived in China, I can expect extreme racism as they view people of color as inferior to their own, and whites for that matter

http://www.thechinaexpat.com/racism-in-china/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

So no thanks for he live in China argument.


Let me see if I can find an example, oh that's right: it's kind of like the way the Japanese programmers cannot be extracted from the community of programmers throughout the world. Oh, I better stop before your head explodes....

So, based on your pie in the sky analysis, the work ethic and national pride of every programmer all over the earth is exactly the same? Sorry, pull your head out of your a$$, I have already posted several links that dispute that notion.


Not only did I not say it will supplant it, but more to the point, this shows your narrow mindedness all over again: I'm talking about the way things stand globally, and you are still obsessed with looking at only the US market when it suits your argument. Stop it already, it's getting creepy.

I live in America, and so do you. What we do here in America cannot be translated into what folks do all over the world, and visa versa. When we began this discussion(and any other discussion on this issue) we are talking about what they do here, not globally, because let's face it, everyone globally does not behave the same way. South Korea has the fastest internet service in the world. Because of this downloading movies for purchase and renting is a very common practice, and movies on disc(unless it is pirated) place second fiddle to that. Internet speeds in Europe and American are comparatively slow in comparison to just about every Asian country, so we download movies at a fraction of the typical Asian consumer. We like disc, whether it is for movies or music. The Asian markets love a lot of bells and whistles on their phones, the American public likes to keep it simply and easy to use. What happens globally does not always happen here, and that is my point. You only bring in the global slant in a feeble attempt to make your point.



This will change. Just because we are so backwards as you say we are, doesn't mean we will stay there. Unlike you, I actually have faith that we will pull ourselves out of this muck. Yet it's Luddites like you who relish in keeping us in the past. Is it just so that you can prove you were right, or are you just treasonous?

This will change is crystal ball analysis. We have changed already. We want bigger screens, bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger, bigger, bigger is what we have trended in this country for years. Neither Europe nor the Asian territories have shown this trend.

Your idea of "this will change" is highlighted by the belief that everyone will be using technology in a simular fashion, and there is nothing in history that bares this out. Sorry, but you must be from a different planet other than earth martian type dude.



Not only is this a perverted model that presumes the consumer is an absolute moron (not true, BTW), but it isn't sustainable. Things are going to change, lil't, as a matter of fact they are already.

WTF it is not sustainable. You are from another planet. Of course it is sustainable, and if you expect to sell a product in this country, you would be smart to keep this in mind. I just got the sales figures for Panasonics 103" LCD that sells for $70k., and their 150" plasma that goes for over 100K. These monsters are selling in surprising numbers here in America, and doing nothing everywhere else. We want to watch our movies on bigger higher resolution screens, not eye busting tiny screens with low resolution.


Yes you are.

Just because I do not agree with you on their usage you call that riling? It is called reality, not riling your foolishness.


Just because that's the case in your little world, does not make it so globally. Even considering that the US is the largest consumer market, that doesn't mean it will be so in the near future. Consider of the projections for the Chinese and Indian consumer market, oh that's right you can't, it's too "vague" and "out there."

The projections go in two ways for China and India

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ea14130c-d46e-11de-a935-00144feabdc0.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120527474

http://www.economywatch.com/indianeconomy/indian-economy-overview.html

You ever heard the term out growing your clothes too fast when it comes to economics? It means you can grow too fast in such a short time that your infrastructure cannot support it. Both China and India are prime candidates for this phenom. China is already in the throws of it. So there is absolutely no garantee eithers growth rate is sustainable in the long run, and nobody can provide the assurance it will. Just as you state, things change.




Of course, if all you're fixated on is digital movie sales. This tired argument is really getting old.

And trying to base your assertions on non moneterized(which translates to no value) low qualtiy video is also getting old. Free video does not drive an engine, digital movie SALES do.




I never said they needed to be HD - actually, I said the exact opposite. While HD will be the standard some day, for now, video on small screens doesn't need to be HD. Are you just trying to find a new line of argumentation where there was none? Stop wasting my time. And while we're at it, stop being such a hypocrite, it weakens your argument.

You are wasting your own damn time fool, you could stop your fantasy nonsense at any time. People want HD, and if they didn't CRT televsions would still be a hot commodity today. People want 1080p, whether it comes in a 32" size, or a 60" size. I do not see anyone clamering for 2.5" screens for viewing HD content. The broadcast community has embraced HD, the film community HD, advertisers HD, Blu ray HD. The enitre viewing world wants HD.

If you don't understand that HD is already the "standard" then you need to stop debating right now.

While you make a lousy prognosticator, you are a very good parrot. Polly wants low resolution video for his low resolution screen....squawk!

[E-Stat]

And if that's not mainstream enough, you can buy HP and Lenovo computers fully loaded with Linux.
Linux is best utilized in a server environment. While the OS itself is well supported - Runs on every IBM platform including their mainframes (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/hardware/browse/linux/), it does not share the same application support when it comes to personal workstation. 95% of my customers run their 20-300 user ERP systems on Linux servers, while few if any use it for the client PCs.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Linux is best utilized in a server environment. While the OS itself is well supported - Runs on every IBM platform including their mainframes (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/hardware/browse/linux/), it does not share the same application support when it comes to personal workstation. 95% of my customers run their 20-300 user ERP systems on Linux servers, while few if any use it for the client PCs.

rw

Thanks for clearing this up! I do not know why he would mention a OS that is better served for servers, but that is the twisted argument he likes to present.

[nightflier]

Linux is best utilized in a server environment. While the OS itself is well supported - Runs on every IBM platform including their mainframes (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/hardware/browse/linux/), it does not share the same application support when it comes to personal workstation. 95% of my customers run their 20-300 user ERP systems on Linux servers, while few if any use it for the client PCs.

The marketshare of Unix OSes on the desktop is much greater than you think, especially if you include Apple's OS. More to the point, the value of the desktop OS is becoming increasingly less important as more and more applications become web-based and move to the cloud. With the devaluing of the desktop OS, also comes the reluctance of consumers to pay for it, and thus an open source OS becomes much more attractive. Furthermore, Linux is probably already running in one appliance in your life: your cable box, your house climate control, your car's nav system, your wireless router, the list goes on. The fact is Linux is growing much faster than anyone can measure because most versions are free, and there are no sales figures to point to.

But even aside from all that, Linux use is also growing on the desktop, and this is at the expense of Microsoft Windows. The idea that the Linux desktop is not a feasible alternative is very much outdated. Ubuntu and its variants like Linux Mint, pretty much make the application issue irrelevant. My father has been using it for over a year and has yet to see the command line - in return he has a virus-free system with every app he's likely to ever need that is more stable than anything he's ever had before. Linux has no marketing campaign, no Steve Balmer singing it's praises, and is in the unfortunate position of challenging a company that at one time had a 96% market share of the desktop (not anymore, BTW), and yet it is still growing in leaps and bounds while Microsoft is definitely not growing right now. And I haven't even mentioned Android...

More to the point, what lil't said was that consumers are forced to use Windows, and that is patently false. Much like most everything else he has said so far. To wit:

1. Von Braun was not coerced into joining the Nazi party - the sources that site otherwise have a specific agenda on this point. The fact is he willingly joined, and the only reason he was not convicted of his crimes (and there were many), was because the US military needed his expertise to develop rocket technology for them. He basically got a pass, but his crimes are far from innocuous. When the US military had had enough of him, Disney hired him because of his expertise in manipulating popular opinion, one of the many thing he also learned in Nazi Germany.

2. Haber was a true criminal. He also had a more sinister history. He personally took part and directed experiments on POWs and prisoners in the camps. There is an infamous photograph of him dissecting a prisoner who was visibly mangled from an experiment. This is the kind of stuff of nightmares. He served several years in prison for these crimes (many believe far too little), and was then also snatched up by the US military, probably through urging from von Braun. His experiments were equally focussed on the physical and psychological effects of manned rocket experiments. I suppose this was of interest to the US military, but the use to Disney (who also hired him after the military was done with him), is more difficult to justify. But he did work for Disney.

What is equally disturbing is that Disney spent quite some resources trying to clear their names and expunge this checkered past. Obviously there was something to hide. After being hired, both Haber and von Braun worked on the design and construction of Disneyland. If you want to know more about this, there are a number of sources and books that describe this in more detail.

3. Yes, Dumbo was released in 1941, when these scenes were not considered as offensive, but then what the hell is Disney doing by still selling this movie to children today, 2010? lil't, would you mind explaining that to us? It's pretty clear that Disney doesn't have any issues with that, even today and that is disturbing.

4. All the movies that lil't had listed as child-friendly have been criticized for their suggestive themes. As I mentioned, there are several academic articles and books that describe this in detail, but lil't would rather ignore that and just whitewash it again. Look, lil't, just because you don't see this as offensive (which is also incredibly disturbing), doesn't mean it's not. You're not the final opinion on this.

5. Why is there an Army ad on a Tinkerbell movie, lil't? This has nothing to do with whether I let my children watch the movie - and for you to keep harping on that small detail, is another deflection. Answer the question: what is this doing on this disk? What is Disney's intention, here?

6. You said that iPods don't work with MP3s, another patently false statement. When I point out that they do, you change your tune that it doesn't work as smoothly as you would like. Nice deflection, but it doesn't wash, lil't. So it the process just not dumbed down enough for you personally? It seems to be fine for millions of other users (many on this forum as well). In any case you were wrong again, you won't admit it as usual, and you're trying to weasel out of it by siting degrees. Typical.

7. Instead of just lobbing insults, another one of your tactics when the discussion doesn't go your way, why don't you explain why we can't FF through the ads on Disney DVDs? If we were talking about a free TV show that needs to generate revenue, I'd understand, but the customer paid for the darned DVD. Why is he being force fed something he doesn't want to see? I can even understand that the studios need extra sources of revenue, although I don't agree with this one bit, but then that puts them in a position to decide what the customer must see, like ads about the Army. What's next, political campaign spots? Oil company ads? The highest bidder gets the ad, right? Doesn't this bother you just a little?

8. So now Asians are not minorities anymore? Again, what about "darker" Asians, like Indians? You conveniently sidestepped my question about this, where do you draw the color line? How dark are you anyway? Darker than I? And how does the color of my skin have anything to do about what my mindset is about color? Your desperately pathetic attempt at drawing a color line where there is none is making you out to be a bigot, do you realize that?

By the way, I mentioned Latin Americans in my previous post, but I guess that didn't fit your argument, so you just wanted to say I didn't include them because...?

9. You keep attacking me for not defending my whole industry, and I'm asking you to justify the actions of the company you work for. Wouldn't it stand to reason that the actions of a whole industry are going to be far more diverse than the actions of one company, and thus much harder to discuss in a little post? I have never defended predatory corporate practices in any industry, yet you seem hell bent on pinning that on me. Why don't you do a better job of answering the questions I ask about the company you work for, rather than lobbing insults off a cliff hoping someone will hear them and actually be offended? No mater how you try and twist this around, you still come out looking like a hypocrite, isn't that ironic?

It's kind of like when I asked you to account for the way bad guys are always depicted with racist phenotypes in Disney movies. As usual, rather than answer the question, you came back with a distantly related comment about the ethnic make-up of CEOs at a few of the major corporations in the US. If I had a penny for every time I read someone pleading with Sir Terrible to just:

ANSWER THE DARNED QUESTION, ALREADY!,

I too could afford to have John Curl personally mod my cheap china-made gear to be about half as good as official John Curl designed gear.


**********************


Sure they will co-exist. Cellphones will be used to make calls, Ipods to listen to music, and portable DVD players for travel of long distances(who does that everyday?).

Boy you are dense: a mule with two a$$es, one up front, and one in the rear. You assume that these devices will be used exclusively for their one, single, primary purpose, which is absolute nonsense. I don''t know of a single person who uses a smartphone for just calls or a laptop just for word processing. What an asinine statement.


When the average Chinese person can vote for their leaders, can surf the net without blocking filteres, can protest what they don't like, can speak freely their opinions, then they cannot be extracted. As long as the reverse exists, I judge them seperately. A thief is a theif, no matter what country they are from.

The average Chinese person? Who is that? Have you met them? Have you ever been to China and met a person living there? What do you actually know about China?

You are such an absolute misanthrope towards China and the Chinese that you can't possibly understand how wrong this thinking is. I've been to China several times and what you describe is typical Western stereotyping. I am well aware of the issues you describe, but if you think for one minute that this in any way affects the majority of the people or even more ridiculously, the buying paterns of it's public, then it's quite obvious how narrow-minded your understanding of the world economy is. You're just a xenophobe trying to come off as knowledgeable. Pathetic, really - let's hope there are smarter people making decisions at Disney than you - oh, that's right, they already don't like your opinions... gee I wonder why?


I live in America, and so do you. What we do here in America cannot be translated into what folks do all over the world, and visa versa. When we began this discussion(and any other discussion on this issue) we are talking about what they do here, not globally, because let's face it, everyone globally does not behave the same way.

Correction, you xenophobe, you live in the United States, not "America." I would have expected a fellow Latino to be more conscious of this. And no, it was never the assumption that we were just talking about the US. My point is and has always been, that what is happening here is being affected by what is happening all over the world. The days of the US directing the world are over. What you fail to see on your vaulted little BART rides, is that the world is passing you by. As someone who works for Disney you should be seeing this, and yet you can't because it doesn't match with your supposed knowledge of things past.

You live in a black & white past that won't let you see that, for example, public transportation use in the US will continue to increase. The US's obsession with bigger and individualized experiences will have to give way to lesser fare. Even your comment that people here want bigger cars doesn't match the most recent data. New cars and houses are shrinking, and despite this x-mas season's little blip of growth in the average TV size sold, this is just another bubble that cannot be sustained in an increasingly global economy. I seriously doubt that people will be buying larger TVs when they have to downsize their house - it just doesn't ad up.


WTF it is not sustainable. You are from another planet. Of course it is sustainable, and if you expect to sell a product in this country, you would be smart to keep this in mind. I just got the sales figures for Panasonics 103" LCD that sells for $70k., and their 150" plasma that goes for over 100K. These monsters are selling in surprising numbers here in America, and doing nothing everywhere else. We want to watch our movies on bigger higher resolution screens, not eye busting tiny screens with low resolution.

Ok, lil't, why don't you tell us: how many of those $100K 150" plasmas were sold in the US? I mean are you really going to try and tell us that this is exemplary? Let's compare that figure to the number of Kindles or Droids sold in the US? Nice hyperbole. Do you even know what that word means? I looked it up, and there's a picture of you next to the definition!

As far as this being sustainable, it's not. It is simply not possible to continue growing the size of TVs in this economy when everything from cars, to houses, to paychecks, to family sizes is shrinking. You live in a fantasy if you think this will continue. Why do you think the TV sizes in the rest of the world have not grown? Because they are actually part of the world economy. The US isn't, and steadfastly refuses to be, but guess what? It doesn't get to determine that anymore - it will be pulled in, kicking and screaming, or just be excluded and we both know that won't happen. You will be viewing your precious movies on your smartphone sooner that you will like, and I'll be here waiting when you tell us about it.

[E-Stat]

TThe idea that the Linux desktop is not a feasible alternative is very much outdated.
It's feasible, just not prevalent. When its usage increases to 2%, get back with us.

1% as of December 2009 (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9)

rw

[nightflier]

Actually, there is a lot to wonder about that figure. My guess is that it's based on sales figures, which isn't fair to an operating system that is available both free and not. That reference you posted has been questioned on a number of sites already for this and many other reasons. Here's a good article about that:

Linux Desktop Market Share: Greater Than One Percent? (http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3818696/Linux-Desktop-Market-Share-Greater-Than-One-Percent.htm)

It describes pretty much the same thing I've tried to explain about lil't rants: that it's based on sales figures, sampled-data, a US-focused data set, and the list goes on. Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight about this, but my point is that there are some very real issues with the way that statistics are spun when the constant need for profit is a factor - surely the Market Share folks have an agenda and an intended audience. Just looking at such statistics is useful, but hardly ever acurately representitive, especially when the lion's share of the data cannot be measured (as with free software).

Besides, this report only considers the desktop, when Linux is also the dominant OS for appliances (a segment that Windows has horribly failed in), and the fastest growing OS on cell phones.

[E-Stat]

Actually, there is a lot to wonder about that figure.
Ok, unsupported speculation takes that to 1.5% or as much as 2.5%. That's insignificant even if proven to be true.

rw

[nightflier]

Well considering the Apple OS figures were way off, I'm not so sure even 2.5% is accurate. But more important than that is the growth. Linux is growing very fast in some sectors. I think once people realize that it's running their appliances and cell phones with far less issues (no BSODs, no viruses, greater longevity), the adoption rate could grow significantly more.

As I mentioned, the more things move to the cloud, the less important the OS becomes and this is perhaps even more significant. In a world where the OS has less importance and relative value to the user, then paying upwards of $150 for it becomes equally meaningless.

[E-Stat]

Well considering the Apple OS figures were way off, I'm not so sure even 2.5% is accurate.
It is pointless to debate speculation.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

The marketshare of Unix OSes on the desktop is much greater than you think, especially if you include Apple's OS. More to the point, the value of the desktop OS is becoming increasingly less important as more and more applications become web-based and move to the cloud. With the devaluing of the desktop OS, also comes the reluctance of consumers to pay for it, and thus an open source OS becomes much more attractive. Furthermore, Linux is probably already running in one appliance in your life: your cable box, your house climate control, your car's nav system, your wireless router, the list goes on. The fact is Linux is growing much faster than anyone can measure because most versions are free, and there are no sales figures to point to.

But even aside from all that, Linux use is also growing on the desktop, and this is at the expense of Microsoft Windows. The idea that the Linux desktop is not a feasible alternative is very much outdated. Ubuntu and its variants like Linux Mint, pretty much make the application issue irrelevant. My father has been using it for over a year and has yet to see the command line - in return he has a virus-free system with every app he's likely to ever need that is more stable than anything he's ever had before. Linux has no marketing campaign, no Steve Balmer singing it's praises, and is in the unfortunate position of challenging a company that at one time had a 96% market share of the desktop (not anymore, BTW), and yet it is still growing in leaps and bounds while Microsoft is definitely not growing right now. And I haven't even mentioned Android...

More to the point, what lil't said was that consumers are forced to use Windows, and that is patently false. Much like most everything else he has said so far. To wit:

1. Von Braun was not coerced into joining the Nazi party - the sources that site otherwise have a specific agenda on this point. The fact is he willingly joined, and the only reason he was not convicted of his crimes (and there were many), was because the US military needed his expertise to develop rocket technology for them. He basically got a pass, but his crimes are far from innocuous. When the US military had had enough of him, Disney hired him because of his expertise in manipulating popular opinion, one of the many thing he also learned in Nazi Germany.

2. Haber was a true criminal. He also had a more sinister history. He personally took part and directed experiments on POWs and prisoners in the camps. There is an infamous photograph of him dissecting a prisoner who was visibly mangled from an experiment. This is the kind of stuff of nightmares. He served several years in prison for these crimes (many believe far too little), and was then also snatched up by the US military, probably through urging from von Braun. His experiments were equally focussed on the physical and psychological effects of manned rocket experiments. I suppose this was of interest to the US military, but the use to Disney (who also hired him after the military was done with him), is more difficult to justify. But he did work for Disney.

What is equally disturbing is that Disney spent quite some resources trying to clear their names and expunge this checkered past. Obviously there was something to hide. After being hired, both Haber and von Braun worked on the design and construction of Disneyland. If you want to know more about this, there are a number of sources and books that describe this in more detail.

3. Yes, Dumbo was released in 1941, when these scenes were not considered as offensive, but then what the hell is Disney doing by still selling this movie to children today, 2010? lil't, would you mind explaining that to us? It's pretty clear that Disney doesn't have any issues with that, even today and that is disturbing.

4. All the movies that lil't had listed as child-friendly have been criticized for their suggestive themes. As I mentioned, there are several academic articles and books that describe this in detail, but lil't would rather ignore that and just whitewash it again. Look, lil't, just because you don't see this as offensive (which is also incredibly disturbing), doesn't mean it's not. You're not the final opinion on this.

5. Why is there an Army ad on a Tinkerbell movie, lil't? This has nothing to do with whether I let my children watch the movie - and for you to keep harping on that small detail, is another deflection. Answer the question: what is this doing on this disk? What is Disney's intention, here?

6. You said that iPods don't work with MP3s, another patently false statement. When I point out that they do, you change your tune that it doesn't work as smoothly as you would like. Nice deflection, but it doesn't wash, lil't. So it the process just not dumbed down enough for you personally? It seems to be fine for millions of other users (many on this forum as well). In any case you were wrong again, you won't admit it as usual, and you're trying to weasel out of it by siting degrees. Typical.

7. Instead of just lobbing insults, another one of your tactics when the discussion doesn't go your way, why don't you explain why we can't FF through the ads on Disney DVDs? If we were talking about a free TV show that needs to generate revenue, I'd understand, but the customer paid for the darned DVD. Why is he being force fed something he doesn't want to see? I can even understand that the studios need extra sources of revenue, although I don't agree with this one bit, but then that puts them in a position to decide what the customer must see, like ads about the Army. What's next, political campaign spots? Oil company ads? The highest bidder gets the ad, right? Doesn't this bother you just a little?

8. So now Asians are not minorities anymore? Again, what about "darker" Asians, like Indians? You conveniently sidestepped my question about this, where do you draw the color line? How dark are you anyway? Darker than I? And how does the color of my skin have anything to do about what my mindset is about color? Your desperately pathetic attempt at drawing a color line where there is none is making you out to be a bigot, do you realize that?

By the way, I mentioned Latin Americans in my previous post, but I guess that didn't fit your argument, so you just wanted to say I didn't include them because...?

9. You keep attacking me for not defending my whole industry, and I'm asking you to justify the actions of the company you work for. Wouldn't it stand to reason that the actions of a whole industry are going to be far more diverse than the actions of one company, and thus much harder to discuss in a little post? I have never defended predatory corporate practices in any industry, yet you seem hell bent on pinning that on me. Why don't you do a better job of answering the questions I ask about the company you work for, rather than lobbing insults off a cliff hoping someone will hear them and actually be offended? No mater how you try and twist this around, you still come out looking like a hypocrite, isn't that ironic?

It's kind of like when I asked you to account for the way bad guys are always depicted with racist phenotypes in Disney movies. As usual, rather than answer the question, you came back with a distantly related comment about the ethnic make-up of CEOs at a few of the major corporations in the US. If I had a penny for every time I read someone pleading with Sir Terrible to just:

ANSWER THE DARNED QUESTION, ALREADY!,

I too could afford to have John Curl personally mod my cheap china-made gear to be about half as good as official John Curl designed gear.


**********************



Boy you are dense: a mule with two a$$es, one up front, and one in the rear. You assume that these devices will be used exclusively for their one, single, primary purpose, which is absolute nonsense. I don''t know of a single person who uses a smartphone for just calls or a laptop just for word processing. What an asinine statement.



The average Chinese person? Who is that? Have you met them? Have you ever been to China and met a person living there? What do you actually know about China?

You are such an absolute misanthrope towards China and the Chinese that you can't possibly understand how wrong this thinking is. I've been to China several times and what you describe is typical Western stereotyping. I am well aware of the issues you describe, but if you think for one minute that this in any way affects the majority of the people or even more ridiculously, the buying paterns of it's public, then it's quite obvious how narrow-minded your understanding of the world economy is. You're just a xenophobe trying to come off as knowledgeable. Pathetic, really - let's hope there are smarter people making decisions at Disney than you - oh, that's right, they already don't like your opinions... gee I wonder why?



Correction, you xenophobe, you live in the United States, not "America." I would have expected a fellow Latino to be more conscious of this. And no, it was never the assumption that we were just talking about the US. My point is and has always been, that what is happening here is being affected by what is happening all over the world. The days of the US directing the world are over. What you fail to see on your vaulted little BART rides, is that the world is passing you by. As someone who works for Disney you should be seeing this, and yet you can't because it doesn't match with your supposed knowledge of things past.

You live in a black & white past that won't let you see that, for example, public transportation use in the US will continue to increase. The US's obsession with bigger and individualized experiences will have to give way to lesser fare. Even your comment that people here want bigger cars doesn't match the most recent data. New cars and houses are shrinking, and despite this x-mas season's little blip of growth in the average TV size sold, this is just another bubble that cannot be sustained in an increasingly global economy. I seriously doubt that people will be buying larger TVs when they have to downsize their house - it just doesn't ad up.



Ok, lil't, why don't you tell us: how many of those $100K 150" plasmas were sold in the US? I mean are you really going to try and tell us that this is exemplary? Let's compare that figure to the number of Kindles or Droids sold in the US? Nice hyperbole. Do you even know what that word means? I looked it up, and there's a picture of you next to the definition!

As far as this being sustainable, it's not. It is simply not possible to continue growing the size of TVs in this economy when everything from cars, to houses, to paychecks, to family sizes is shrinking. You live in a fantasy if you think this will continue. Why do you think the TV sizes in the rest of the world have not grown? Because they are actually part of the world economy. The US isn't, and steadfastly refuses to be, but guess what? It doesn't get to determine that anymore - it will be pulled in, kicking and screaming, or just be excluded and we both know that won't happen. You will be viewing your precious movies on your smartphone sooner that you will like, and I'll be here waiting when you tell us about it.

With all of this ranting, you have failed to prove your point. No links, no facts, no effective counter argument except your gut, and a $hit load of political correctness. Until you can do better than this, there is no point in continuing this debate. I want fact, FACTS, FACTS, not your gut or pie in the sky prediction not supported by ANY data.

[nightflier]

The evidence describing von Braun and Haber's crimes is in a chapter called: "Pathways to Human Experimentation, 1933-1945: Germany, Japan, and the United States" in a Journal called Osiris (http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=osiris).

A full biography of von Braun can be found here (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Wernher-von-Braun/Dennis-Piszkiewicz/e/9780275962173). It describes in detail his Nazi past, his relationship with Haber and a number of other Nazis, and then his escape from post-war prosecution into the arms of the US army. It also goes into detail about his role in the Disney family and his particular knack for selling his ideas, something that was of particular interest to the marketing efforts at Disney.

Walt's ignominious sexist, racist, anti-labor, right-wing, authoritarian past is described in detail in Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince (http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Hollywoods-Dark-Prince/dp/0061007897). There are a number of references of how Walt's conservative ideas about the family, the role of women and of minorities transcends all the way down to the present movies and how his conservative views are carried on in the Disney studios today, well after his death.

Are these enough facts for you? Or do you not read books?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

The evidence describing von Braun and Haber's crimes is in a chapter called: "Pathways to Human Experimentation, 1933-1945: Germany, Japan, and the United States" in a Journal called Osiris (http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=osiris).

A full biography of von Braun can be found here (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Wernher-von-Braun/Dennis-Piszkiewicz/e/9780275962173). It describes in detail his Nazi past, his relationship with Haber and a number of other Nazis, and then his escape from post-war prosecution into the arms of the US army. It also goes into detail about his role in the Disney family and his particular knack for selling his ideas, something that was of particular interest to the marketing efforts at Disney.

Walt's ignominious sexist, racist, anti-labor, right-wing, authoritarian past is described in detail in Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince (http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Hollywoods-Dark-Prince/dp/0061007897). There are a number of references of how Walt's conservative ideas about the family, the role of women and of minorities transcends all the way down to the present movies and how his conservative views are carried on in the Disney studios today, well after his death.

Are these enough facts for you? Or do you not read books?

Everyone knows of Walts racism, but Walt is dead. There were alot of racist people around when Walt was alive. Now he isn't.

As far as it is concerned, Von Braun may have had a checkered past, but quite frankly it is the past. Long time ago bro.

Let us talk about today. Since you want to bring issues, why are there no Black or Latinos the the boardrooms or in the CEO offices of the major computer manufacturers? Why? Women, why not? This is relevant today, not in the 1940's or 50's. TODAY!

Secondly, can you truly say that racism in China is just a western stereotype in light of this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6560168/Reality-TV-show-exposes-racism-in-China.html

or this

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125830043530149179.html

Now with your political correctness, can you really turn a blind eye and ignore this "as a fellow Latino"?

Thirdly, you still have not proven your point regarding phone usage in video. Wooch and I have pointed to study after study that shows you are dead wrong, so you switch the argument from the US to worldwide. The when I point out to you that the best selling phones(which are the ones most often used) are not conducisve to watching anything for more than a few minutes, you dimiss that as well sighting your gut feelings and beliefs. Here is what I say, F$%k your guts and beliefs. Getting back to the core argements, what proof do you have that all of these small screens will be used for movie usage. This is the core arguement, the one you have chosen to muddy with alot of BS.

Steering this pile of crap of thread back on course.....

WHERE IS YOUR PROOF TO SUPPORT YOUR GUTS AND BELIEFS ON PHONE USAGE?

[nightflier]

As I said, you don't read books. Walt's racism and prejudice is very much alive in the movies of today, and Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince makes a very good case for it, and so do a lot of literary and academic journals on the subject. But since you won't read, then what's the point of carrying this on? We'll see how politically correct your whole conversation will sound in a few years.

Regarding you silly board rooms deflection, yes, at all the big corporations they are mostly old white men. But before you start your childish I-told-you-so dance, let's remember that this is the case in every industry, especially movie studios. Maybe you forgot about all the commentary after Out Of Africa swept the Academy awards and The Color Purple got none? Or how about after Halle and Denzel got their academy awards on the same night, for portraying, yes, very negative roles on screen? This wasn't in the 1940's, either. There is racism and sexism in every industry, so what is your point exactly? That there is also racism and sexism in the corporate hi-tech world? Gee what a revelation.

And for all your hooting and hollering, I point out a small positive point that you also choose to ignore: in smaller companies, I see far more minorities than you would probably feel comfortable with (being used to that all-white Disney culture and all). No it's still not representative of the world population, but then again, I never said that it was, now did I? I have been ready to point out inequality at every level and given that you are so comfortable at Disney, I seriously doubt you would have the same integrity. What exactly are you trying to pin on me, that I somehow haven't been critical of racism and sexism here? What rear-end are you pulling this nonsense from?

FYI, I also said that programmers are more egalitarian. Yes, it's not a field where blacks and women are around every corner, but it's also not a field where this matters much to the rest of the white, Asian, and yes, even Latino programmers (there are surprisingly many Latino programmers around the world - funny how that works, huh?). The fact is, if you can program, the companies that hire don't care what you look like. I'll hire anyone that can do it well, and while there haven't been my blacks and women who have applied with me, I care foremost about their skills. Not exactly the experience applicants have when they show up at Disney's doors, I've been told!

And regarding your ongoing charge that the Chinese are racist, let's pause for a moment and stop with the finger pointing. Is there a country, people, or government that doesn't have this hanging over their heads? Or are you somehow suggesting that Asians are more racist than others? Are you really going to go down that Fu-Manchu-inspired "yellow" fear mongering? Because if you are, then I suggest you stop right there because you are making my case in leaps and bounds: that you really have not progressed beyond the mindset of the 1940's Disney. And since they keep you around, then you're also making my case that they have no problem with your underhanded racism.

Oh, that's right, you're Puerto Rican, so it's not possible for you to be racist, right. Bull, my brother. Being Latino doesn't preclude you from being a racist - I've been to Latin America many times, and I can tell you that is absolute bunk. As a matter of fact, I know a few Puerto Ricans who think pretty poorly of anything coming over from Cuba, Dominica, or heaven forbid, Haiti. Yes, that's right, Puerto Ricans can also be racist, I've seen this first hand. So stop trying to suggest that there's one ethnic group that's more racist than another. It's absolute nonsense, it's insulting, and it proves again that you're a hypocrite.

**********************

Regarding small screens, I just did a video conference call with a programming team in Boston and New York. I was on my 24" computer screen (I presume we are still considering that part of the small screens), and I was video-conferencing with people on cell phones and computer screens. One of the cell phone users was, even, on a train to New Haven. Whether you will to realize this or not, that is the future of cell phones: video. Now I won't tell you than it was good video, but it was usable. Had the call been from Scandinavia, I'm sure it would have been better.

This past weekend we went to the snow. I loaded up the iPod with a documentary about choral reefs (yes, it was a legal download, before you jump down my throat about that too), and the kids watched the whole 2 hours of it in the car on their "small" 10" screens. While I realize most Americans don't sit in the car with their kids for that long, the TV screens I do see in people's cars are usually playing some cartoon-type movie. Now before you go on about your whole small-screens-are-only-for-short-video-clips rant again, did it ever occur to you that the players in cars have a pause & resume button too? It's not necessary to watch the whole thing through in one sitting. Geez, I feel like I'm educating a child about technology....

Oh, I'm sorry, that's only my personal reference, right? Not representative, of course. Well FYI, I didn't see many people who didn't have a SmartPhone at CES, either. What I did see is everyone and their mother wanting to put part of what they experienced there on their SmartPhone, either in video or image form. What I also saw was that after every 3D wow-fest, the reps where ready to let people follow up on the technology with their cell phones.

I was at a local University last week for a presentation and over lunch I saw students everywhere with SmartPhones and laptops. I talked to quite a few students that day and because these issues were on my mind (yes you can pat yourself on the back for that), I asked them about their phones and TVs viewing. And guess what? Not one of them owned a large TV. Even at their parent's house they typically had one large TV and the rest were smaller sets, few of them HD. Meanwhile, they were pretty high-tech in their dorm-rooms switching between screens easily, some wirelessly. Most of them used their phones for 5-6 major functions, but the one thing that stuck in my mind was that they were unanimously fed up with texting - too much work, they said. They would welcome a video-alternative. Now these are tomorrow's business, entertainment, and industry leaders.

I also asked them about what they thought of the rest of the world, and while they all agreed that we were way behind, they had no doubt that we would catch up again. Unlike you, these kids have a much more positive and progressive outlook on technology and the future. They are smart, innovative, and have no problem working with others across the globe. They are far less prejudiced than your typical stuffy Disney exec. They could care less about someone's sexual orientation, marital status, religion or political philosophy. P.S. they have no problems working with Chinese techies, unlike you.

Now just because it was on my mind, I brought up the Nielsen ratings and sales figures (some from these posts - thanks) and asked them about the trends these suggest. Unanimously the students dismissed them as irrelevant. They consider Hollywood and the media giants old relics who just don't get it. While they agree that ripping is stealing, they say you folks don't understand why they do it, either. Let me educate you: your output bores them and before they will spend good money on a movie or song, they want to know that it will be worth it. They hate restrictions on sampling and mashing, they could care less that Transformers is a hugely grossing movie because they were bored with it. They actually care more about acting and performance skills than special effects and light shows. (As a side note, I asked if anyone had a record player, and a few kids actually raised their hands - it was off topic, but curiosity got the better of me).

Well, I can go on, but it reinforces much of what I've already pointed out. All your vaulted sales figures and data still misses a huge part of the picture. They are not a crystal ball into the future, and it's a future that is changing faster than you can collect the data for. Moreover, because phones and laptops are changed out much more often than TVs, this change is happening faster than you realize. Your dogged insistence in focusing on TVs that people keep for years and over-priced theaters, is the reason you're missing the bigger story here.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

As I said, you don't read books. Walt's racism and prejudice is very much alive in the movies of today, and Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince makes a very good case for it, and so do a lot of literary and academic journals on the subject. But since you won't read, then what's the point of carrying this on? We'll see how politically correct your whole conversation will sound in a few years.

Regarding you silly board rooms deflection, yes, at all the big corporations they are mostly old white men. But before you start your childish I-told-you-so dance, let's remember that this is the case in every industry, especially movie studios. Maybe you forgot about all the commentary after Out Of Africa swept the Academy awards and The Color Purple got none? Or how about after Halle and Denzel got their academy awards on the same night, for portraying, yes, very negative roles on screen? This wasn't in the 1940's, either. There is racism and sexism in every industry, so what is your point exactly? That there is also racism and sexism in the corporate hi-tech world? Gee what a revelation.

And for all your hooting and hollering, I point out a small positive point that you also choose to ignore: in smaller companies, I see far more minorities than you would probably feel comfortable with (being used to that all-white Disney culture and all). No it's still not representative of the world population, but then again, I never said that it was, now did I? I have been ready to point out inequality at every level and given that you are so comfortable at Disney, I seriously doubt you would have the same integrity. What exactly are you trying to pin on me, that I somehow haven't been critical of racism and sexism here? What rear-end are you pulling this nonsense from?

FYI, I also said that programmers are more egalitarian. Yes, it's not a field where blacks and women are around every corner, but it's also not a field where this matters much to the rest of the white, Asian, and yes, even Latino programmers (there are surprisingly many Latino programmers around the world - funny how that works, huh?). The fact is, if you can program, the companies that hire don't care what you look like. I'll hire anyone that can do it well, and while there haven't been my blacks and women who have applied with me, I care foremost about their skills. Not exactly the experience applicants have when they show up at Disney's doors, I've been told!

And regarding your ongoing charge that the Chinese are racist, let's pause for a moment and stop with the finger pointing. Is there a country, people, or government that doesn't have this hanging over their heads? Or are you somehow suggesting that Asians are more racist than others? Are you really going to go down that Fu-Manchu-inspired "yellow" fear mongering? Because if you are, then I suggest you stop right there because you are making my case in leaps and bounds: that you really have not progressed beyond the mindset of the 1940's Disney. And since they keep you around, then you're also making my case that they have no problem with your underhanded racism.

Oh, that's right, you're Puerto Rican, so it's not possible for you to be racist, right. Bull, my brother. Being Latino doesn't preclude you from being a racist - I've been to Latin America many times, and I can tell you that is absolute bunk. As a matter of fact, I know a few Puerto Ricans who think pretty poorly of anything coming over from Cuba, Dominica, or heaven forbid, Haiti. Yes, that's right, Puerto Ricans can also be racist, I've seen this first hand. So stop trying to suggest that there's one ethnic group that's more racist than another. It's absolute nonsense, it's insulting, and it proves again that you're a hypocrite.

**********************

Regarding small screens, I just did a video conference call with a programming team in Boston and New York. I was on my 24" computer screen (I presume we are still considering that part of the small screens), and I was video-conferencing with people on cell phones and computer screens. One of the cell phone users was, even, on a train to New Haven. Whether you will to realize this or not, that is the future of cell phones: video. Now I won't tell you than it was good video, but it was usable. Had the call been from Scandinavia, I'm sure it would have been better.

This past weekend we went to the snow. I loaded up the iPod with a documentary about choral reefs (yes, it was a legal download, before you jump down my throat about that too), and the kids watched the whole 2 hours of it in the car on their "small" 10" screens. While I realize most Americans don't sit in the car with their kids for that long, the TV screens I do see in people's cars are usually playing some cartoon-type movie. Now before you go on about your whole small-screens-are-only-for-short-video-clips rant again, did it ever occur to you that the players in cars have a pause & resume button too? It's not necessary to watch the whole thing through in one sitting. Geez, I feel like I'm educating a child about technology....

Oh, I'm sorry, that's only my personal reference, right? Not representative, of course. Well FYI, I didn't see many people who didn't have a SmartPhone at CES, either. What I did see is everyone and their mother wanting to put part of what they experienced there on their SmartPhone, either in video or image form. What I also saw was that after every 3D wow-fest, the reps where ready to let people follow up on the technology with their cell phones.

I was at a local University last week for a presentation and over lunch I saw students everywhere with SmartPhones and laptops. I talked to quite a few students that day and because these issues were on my mind (yes you can pat yourself on the back for that), I asked them about their phones and TVs viewing. And guess what? Not one of them owned a large TV. Even at their parent's house they typically had one large TV and the rest were smaller sets, few of them HD. Meanwhile, they were pretty high-tech in their dorm-rooms switching between screens easily, some wirelessly. Most of them used their phones for 5-6 major functions, but the one thing that stuck in my mind was that they were unanimously fed up with texting - too much work, they said. They would welcome a video-alternative. Now these are tomorrow's business, entertainment, and industry leaders.

I also asked them about what they thought of the rest of the world, and while they all agreed that we were way behind, they had no doubt that we would catch up again. Unlike you, these kids have a much more positive and progressive outlook on technology and the future. They are smart, innovative, and have no problem working with others across the globe. They are far less prejudiced than your typical stuffy Disney exec. They could care less about someone's sexual orientation, marital status, religion or political philosophy. P.S. they have no problems working with Chinese techies, unlike you.

Now just because it was on my mind, I brought up the Nielsen ratings and sales figures (some from these posts - thanks) and asked them about the trends these suggest. Unanimously the students dismissed them as irrelevant. They consider Hollywood and the media giants old relics who just don't get it. While they agree that ripping is stealing, they say you folks don't understand why they do it, either. Let me educate you: your output bores them and before they will spend good money on a movie or song, they want to know that it will be worth it. They hate restrictions on sampling and mashing, they could care less that Transformers is a hugely grossing movie because they were bored with it. They actually care more about acting and performance skills than special effects and light shows. (As a side note, I asked if anyone had a record player, and a few kids actually raised their hands - it was off topic, but curiosity got the better of me).

Well, I can go on, but it reinforces much of what I've already pointed out. All your vaulted sales figures and data still misses a huge part of the picture. They are not a crystal ball into the future, and it's a future that is changing faster than you can collect the data for. Moreover, because phones and laptops are changed out much more often than TVs, this change is happening faster than you realize. Your dogged insistence in focusing on TVs that people keep for years and over-priced theaters, is the reason you're missing the bigger story here.

Still a bunch of words with no support to hold it up. Still trudging up the old, and won't even deal with issue of today, and still not a single link, fact, or piece of information to support even his most basic of assumption.

What you did in your own little world is not reflective of what billions all over the planet do. A video conference on a 24" screen is not leisure time, nor is it watching film or television for that matter. You are mixing apples with oranges, and all you are getting is apploranges

Dude, save it. If you pour your guts out like this(with nothing to support what you say), you will not be able to eat a thing. The food will have nothing to pass though, just like there is nothing that supports this thousand word pile of $hit.

Assumption with no fact or supporting information is like an empty wagon bouncing down a rocky rough road.

Lastly, on any level, you are not"my brother". None of my brothers(all 7 of them) exibit your passive/aggressive politically correct(and useless as well) opinions.

[nightflier]

Yeah, well for those who don't know how to read a book, there's little hope in getting through to them. Sad and pathetic, lil't.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Yeah, well for those who don't know how to read a book, there's little hope in getting through to them. Sad and pathetic, lil't.

Not interested in history on this issue, current events works for me.

I think it is pathetic you can make all of these outrageous claims and not have a shred of evidence that your assumptions are actually valid. Because you haven't provided a single link or factoid, you can see folks are not buying what you are selling. You have taken this arguement on every twist and turn to convince folks what you say is valid, but you haven't provided anything that supports what you say.

Five pages and all you have given is an air sandwich.

[nightflier]

Well, lil't, since you won't read, refuse to admit anything, and are acting like a child, there's not much left to say.

The trends I see and read about are unequivocally that the use of small screens for video is growing and that disk-based media is giving way to digitally stored media, two trends you have taken every opportunity to play down, yet which continually prop up online as well as on this forum, and not just when I point them out, by the way. There's a number of ongoing discussions going on right now about these trends that you do your best to squash at every turn - your desperate efforts to no end should be telling. And don't tell me your point of view is shared by all here, I've received numerous PMs suggesting otherwise.

Additionally, you know very well that my conversations with programmers around the world as well as around the US, aren't things I can "link to," so just stop with your petty little critiques about that. Likewise my conversation with students last week should be a warning to you. By the way, we weren't just meeting with your dreaded computer geeks either, there were students in arts, social sciences, business, law and the hard sciences too. There is mounting evidence that you Hollywood corporate types just don't "get it." The writing on the wall is everywhere and yet you choose to ignore it.

I'll say this one last time: your information comes from the past and from sales figures only. This is simply not a complete picture. Now you can choose to ignore it all you want, but from what I'm reading here and everywhere else, you're the one who's missing the message. Frankly, I've made my case and I'm done talking to a stubborn old mule - I'm amazed I wasted this much time on you.

Let's come back here in a couple of years and see where we stand on screen sizes and digital video. And while we're at it, we should also then see where we stand on how Disney is perceived (and I'm not just talking about sales figures, either). My guess is that the Baby Einstein phenomenon is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Well, lil't, since you won't read, refuse to admit anything, and are acting like a child, there's not much left to say.

I am not going to waste my time reading on something that has no relevance to this discussion, or anything even related to this discussion. You have posted nothing in the way of facts, and yet you want me to read a book about something that happen way back in the 50's, while not posting a single link or factoid to support what you have stated for five pages. This is ridiculous and stupid, and quite frankly I have lost patience with your weak fact less bull. You are a freakin broken record of non facts, conspiracies, and unsubstantiated opinion.


The trends I see and read about are unequivocally that the use of small screens for video is growing and that disk-based media is giving way to digitally stored media, two trends you have taken every opportunity to play down, yet which continually prop up online as well as on this forum, and not just when I point them out, by the way. There's a number of ongoing discussions going on right now about these trends that you do your best to squash at every turn - your desperate efforts to no end should be telling. And don't tell me your point of view is shared by all here, I've received numerous PMs suggesting otherwise.

You are seeing what you want to see, and you are trying to make something from nothing. The proliferation of small screens does not mean more video is being watched on them. With only a average time of seven minutes daily of video being watched, I know of no movie(or even television show) that is that short. In Europe and Asian, the commute times are even shorter than here, so there is no time to catch a television show or movie on a small screen. There is no facts that point to what you say, and you should just admit it instead of continuing to post one flight of fancy after another.

Do you notice that you always make comment that you cannot prove. The comments of your supposed Chinese co-worker, private emails, when in the hell are you going to post something that actually proves your point, rather than just making up lies and conspiracy theories.?


Additionally, you know very well that my conversations with programmers around the world as well as around the US, aren't things I can "link to," so just stop with your petty little critiques about that. Likewise my conversation with students last week should be a warning to you. By the way, we weren't just meeting with your dreaded computer geeks either, there were students in arts, social sciences, business, law and the hard sciences too. There is mounting evidence that you Hollywood corporate types just don't "get it." The writing on the wall is everywhere and yet you choose to ignore it.

Do you have any proof the we "just don't get it" or is this just another one of your unproven theories? So now you are having conversation with programmers, student and the like all over the world, jeeze what fantasy world are you living in? You are a joke! I suppose all of these unproven conversation support what you say. How convient.........how fake.


I'll say this one last time: your information comes from the past and from sales figures only. This is simply not a complete picture. Now you can choose to ignore it all you want, but from what I'm reading here and everywhere else, you're the one who's missing the message. Frankly, I've made my case and I'm done talking to a stubborn old mule - I'm amazed I wasted this much time on you.

Fake conversation with programmers, students, no facts, no links, no nothing to support what you say, and you want to be taken seriously. Get real nightliar, you don't get that kind of pass. Show me the evidence that supports what you say, or admit it is wishful thinking. Forget all of the fantasy bull$hit, I just ain't buying it.


Let's come back here in a couple of years and see where we stand on screen sizes and digital video. And while we're at it, we should also then see where we stand on how Disney is perceived (and I'm not just talking about sales figures, either). My guess is that the Baby Einstein phenomenon is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hey, we don't have to wait a couple of years, your comments are BS TODAY. No proof of trends, no nothing. You discount what is out there, and provide nothing but "that was last years sales, and does not provide the whole picture. You have had 5 freakin pages to present your "whole picture" to counter mine, and yet you have not done so. Prove your point or STFU!

Take your flights of fancy BS, and stuff that silly $hit in the toilet, because that is all it is worth without proof or evidence.

[nightflier]

I said I was done here, but I guess you'll also need to have the last word. How childish.

[GMichael]

You two enjoy this don't you?

[Auricauricle]

<Pokes head through crack of the door> Um...safe to come in, yet? Who wants a beer?

[3LB]

You two enjoy this don't you?

You mean you aren't? I am. This is like accidentally landing on a TV station showing the Westminster Dog Show and a huge dogfight breaks out.

The righteous indignation and haughtiness in this thread is so thick it just oozes from the screen, just like their smarmy personalities. Finally, the two most self-aggrandizing, name calling, keyboard commandos in this place are having a go at each other.

Its like the Iraq/Iran war all over again.

Perhaps they could settle their differences with a duel...might I suggest nukes at 20 paces.

[GMichael]

You mean you aren't? I am. This is like accidentally landing on a TV station showing the Westminster Dog Show and a huge dogfight breaks out.

The righteous indignation and haughtiness in this thread is so thick it just oozes from the screen, just like their smarmy personalities. Finally, the two most self-aggrandizing, name calling, keyboard commandos in this place are having a go at each other.

Its like the Iraq/Iran war all over again.

Perhaps they could settle their differences with a duel...might I suggest nukes at 20 paces.

I learn a lot from these bouts. You just have to peel back the insults and speculation to find the facts hidden at the bottom.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I said I was done here, but I guess you'll also need to have the last word. How childish.

If you said you were done, then why continue? It is obvious you are not done isn't it?

Say one thing, do another....at least you are consistent.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You mean you aren't? I am. This is like accidentally landing on a TV station showing the Westminster Dog Show and a huge dogfight breaks out.

The righteous indignation and haughtiness in this thread is so thick it just oozes from the screen, just like their smarmy personalities. Finally, the two most self-aggrandizing, name calling, keyboard commandos in this place are having a go at each other.

Its like the Iraq/Iran war all over again.

Perhaps they could settle their differences with a duel...might I suggest nukes at 20 paces.

3LB you need to check yourself. Just because you are one idiot that has not decided to participate, does not mean you're not an idiot. Comments like this show just want gutter snipe you are, so mind your business, read, but keep your big fat snoze out of it. Another words, kindly note the mistletoe located at my coattails.

[nightflier]

If you said you were done, then why continue? It is obvious you are not done isn't it?

Boy you are predictable, lil't.

[bobsticks]

I wonder, is the whole nation of Germany permanently and irrevocably tainted by the Nazi legacy?

[Mr Peabody]

Sir T, why you want 3LB to kiss your feet?

NF, you should write a book, most of us who watch Disney do so just for entertainment and totally miss all the evil you pointed out. Most minorities must as well as I don't see any up in arms over any particular Disney flick.

[3LB]

Sir T, why you want 3LB to kiss your feet?



make no mistake Mr P, Sir Tantrum thinks everyone should kiss his feet.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Boy you are predictable, lil't.

And so are you nightliar......

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

make no mistake Mr P, Sir Tantrum thinks everyone should kiss his feet.

Don't bother with the feet 3 brain cells.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I wonder, is the whole nation of Germany permanently and irrevocably tainted by the Nazi legacy?

According to nighliar it is.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir T, why you want 3LB to kiss your feet?

My coattails are just a little higher than my feet.


NF, you should write a book, most of us who watch Disney do so just for entertainment and totally miss all the evil you pointed out. Most minorities must as well as I don't see any up in arms over any particular Disney flick.

I think there are enough books on unproven theories out there. Besides what would he cite as his reference material his gut?

A tainted mind can taint anything.