O O Ø O O O O
The Dark Age of Video
I’m sorry for being Canadian.
I can’t help it. It was a decision my parents made, and I haven’t yet got around to correcting it—you know, because of digital video.
I had thought that being Canadian was the next best thing to being American—we have the same stores, the same products, the same movie release dates, and, for the moment, the same dollar.
Then I bought my Apple TV, and was reminded what it’s like to be a second-class video citizen.
It’s not like “second-class” is new to me, especially where video is concerned. Officially, Canada just got Tivo 3 months ago. I guess I just expected more from Apple—I was expecting them to change the rules.
The Apple TV is a cute little device, capable of delivering your audio, video, and (with more difficulty than I would like), your photos onto an HDTV. I bought one, despite the fact that I don’t actually have an HDTV. (Canada hasn’t really bought into that whole HDTV thing yet. We have the TVs, yes, but the content is, shall-we-say, lacking.) What I do have is way too many LCDs lying around, one of which was immediately repurposed to the Apple TV via a HDMI-DVI cable.
I thought it would be a happy little combination. “I have videos, it will play them,” I thought.
I thought wrong.
First, the damn thing doesn’t play DIVX. Yes, I know I can hack it to do so—hell, I did hack it to do so—but why doesn’t it do so out of the box? iPods play MP3s, after all, so why wouldn’t the video equivalent play the video equivalent? And yes, there are legitimate DIVXs out there, especially for those of us who can’t handle watching 10 minutes of promos just to get our DVD player to display the freakin’ main menu.
Rip. Save. Watch without crap.
Of course, I was hoping the DIVX issue would become moot, given the cool new movie rental feature that Apple has been touting. Unfortunately, there’s no such feature in Canada. Sure, theatrical releases happen simultaneously in the US and Canada—as do DVD releases. But as far as iTunes is concerned, there are no movie rentals to be had here. No real TV shows to buy either. (Seriously? Corner Gas? That’s it?)
Of course, there’s ways around that, too—especially if you happen to be taking a trip to the states. But here’s the kicker. Even if you “rent” your movies from the US iTunes store, in glorious low-def, for watching on your glorious low-def LCD display, you are informed of the following:
“This content requires HDCP for playback. HDCP isn’t supported by your HDMI connection. Use the component video connection to watch this content.”
Suck it Jesus-TV. I’m gonna go to the store and rent something.
Kjell Wooding
March 11, 2008
OOØOOOODCCCLXIV
March 11th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Imagine that! HDCP is preventing a paying customer from doing what they have paid for the rights to do? That must be a bug. They couldn’t have possibly intended it to take away all your rights, bend you over, and kick you in the sack while they are at it, could they? Nah…
The inability to skip the 4 trailers, 3 commercials and the warning that says that “even though you bought that DVD, you are a criminal”? Must just be a programming error. The industry wouldn’t screw over it’s customers like that would they?
Am I likely to submit to a rogering at the hands of the industry via online rentals? No. I think I’ll stick with my local video store. They have good coffee in the shop next door as well. And beer next door to that. It’s all win, I say. Except for the unskippable trailers. That is not a win. Maybe I should just download movies. Downloaded movies would not be calling me a criminal…
If I had not canceled our satt TV a couple years ago in favour of bit torrent, the writer’s strike may have pissed me off. In fact I am sure that if I had been paying fifty to a hundred bucks a month for cable or satt TV, the strike definitely would have pissed me off. Hmmm. Wonder when the class-action lawsuit against the cable providers in the US kicks off?
Ahem. Sorry.
Did I mention I agree with your rant?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Unfortunately, Apple is at the hands of the Content Owners when it comes to usage rights and terms. As much of a maverick/robin hood people think Steve Jobs is - he still has to work with the folks that actually HAVE the content.
I pay Comcast a stupid sum of money every month for HD content (why, oh why can I not get CBC in HD south of the border!?!?) - the writers strike didn’t affect me since I don’t really watch anything but sports. Oh, and Battlestar isn’t broadcasting the next season quite yet. :)
Full disclosure - I work for one of those companies, but not in the evil, prevent getting at content kind of ways.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Yeah, but in this case, the US rights have already been negotiated. The Canadian rights should really just be a footnote.
March 15th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
While you’re wet dreaming about things that would be easy and profitable to do, can you ask for all you can eat data and mobile plans that recognize that the carriers don’t pay long distance in country, and something less than 5 cents a minute with our neighbours to the south?
Why offer people anything if there’s not enough competition to justify it? Welcome to Canada, the land that competition forgot. We should probably rename ourselves Austria II or something.