Please CRTC, Need Online Media!

Allow me to explain the scenario that led to the following outburst of hate and rage:

Midway through last week, I finally finished rewatching the entirety of the Star Trek Enterprise series that I had bought on DVD. With an empty pit left in my daily life, I needed some heavy dose of Sci-Fi to keep my geek needs at bay. So, I finally decided that I would try and get into Battlestar Galactica, which has been getting insane amounts of press time lately as it enters its last season. As I was out of Star Trek immediately, I did not have time to try and get my hands on the DVD’s through Amazon or some other site. So I turned to the internet, as I do for most things.

Now, for most people, this would be a simple task of going to the network that carries the show, or AOL, Hulu, or elsewhere, and starting at s1e1. However, I live in Canada, meaning that the CRTC has rules on what can and cannot be seen in the country. I knew that the networks themselves would not be playable, and that the only proxies I have available are too slow to handle video of any quality, so I thought Hulu or a similar site may work. Silly Matthew, of course they don’t.

Just as a quick background, the CRTC, a.k.a, the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, is a government agency meant to ‘keep communications in the public interest.’ Essentially what they do is act something like the media filters in communist countries like China, which determine what is and is not acceptable for its citizens. The CRTC has rules along the lines of “60% of content on television shown in Canada must be Canadian Content!” , “Canadian networks showing the same show at the same time as a foreign network can override that channel at anytime,” and setting rules for language, violence, and other content that they may deem “unsuitable for Canadians,” or “harmful to the Canadian Identity.” Granted, it is not as restrictive as socialist media sources, but anyone who has watch CBC for any length of time knows just how terrible it can make things for Canadians.

When it comes to the internet, the CRTC is a bit more hands off, with the exception of broadcast television. It does not infringe on my ability to access and independent podcasts or other media, but they do their very best to block out TV. Any attempts to access an American network like NBC or CBS leads to an error much like this one:

They have also terribly slowed down other services, such as iTunes, from offering television content online. Why? The 60% Canadian content requirement. Because they cannot guarantee that at least 60% of content online that Canadians are seeing is Canadian, they block it all. Canadian networks under the CRTC’s rule have shows online, but only “made in Canada” shows such as Corner Gas. iTunes, which recently brought television content to us, mainly carries Canadian content, such CBC programming that no one wants to see anyway.

Infuriated, I rushed to the CRTC’s website, and threw them an email which should hopefully get most of my questions answered. Below is the message as it was sent in the form:

Dear CRTC:

Like more and more people in today’s world of online media consumption, I have begun looking to the internet for my video entertainment, primarily television shows and independent podcasts. However, I have run into several large roadblocks that prevent me from accessing the media that I wish to receive.

When visiting a site such as NBC.com, or Hulu, it is impossible for me to legally view their content. Any device registering a Canadian IP address simply gets an error saying that the content is not available in our area. This occurs on all of the major US broadcasters.

This same problem presents itself with the British Broadcasting System being available online only within the UK, but this has a legitimate reason. The people of the UK pay a tax to support the station, so why should the rest of the world get the same content for free? However, this does not apply in this situation. The American networks are independent, and sponsored by independent companies. They already are shown in Canada over traditional methods, so what makes the internet different?

I am aware that many of the Canadian networks, CBC and CTV primarily, have online content, but this is not the content I am usually trying to find. I am seeking prime-time television by the major broadcasters.

Essentially, I am asking for someone to explain why this content is unavailable, and the regulations and laws behind that. What makes this content unacceptable when applied to a new distribution model? If it is not the CRTC’s doing, then what division of government is responsible for this kind of regulation? What are the future plans in this area of content distribution?

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated, as I am confused at the moment as to the legal environment around this situation. Thank you for your time, and hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Matthew Heisie

Hopefully, I get my reply in “about 10 business days.” If so, I’ll be sure to post right back here what they said. My unstated message to them: If you want to get 60% Canadian content into every Canadians home, then make content good enough to be 60% of what they want to watch. If you can’t do that, then just let them be free to see what they want. The internet is not something that should be “protecting national identity’, but a global, international network.

 

Can Apple Make Artists?

    Anyone who has watched television without a DVR in the past few months, saw ads online, or just stopped timeshifting to watch the shiny new Apple ads, have heard some very catchy songs. Their latest commercials for the iPod Nano, Macbook Air, and others before, know the style and kind of music that Apple uses for these ads.

    Strongly enough, the last two songs to be featured in Apple commercials have been later met with large commercial success. Take, for example, the Macbook Air song, New Soul, by Yael Naim. Like virtually every individual in North America, you have never heard of this person. She is a songwriter and artist who gained relatively large commercial success in Europe, but practically nothing in the North American market. This all changed, however, when Apple unveiled the debut commercial for their new ultraportable at Macworld.

    After seeing what happened with the song ‘1234′ by Fiest when it was featured in an iPod Nano commercial a few months ago, I rushed to the iTunes Store to check the popularity. A couple of days after the commercial was first unveiled, the song had a two bar popularity level, a pittance. I bought the song (iTunes Plus, btw) and decided to check back in awhile.

    Of course, I forgot about doing that until yesterday. I decided to look at the Billboard 100 for the United States for some unknown reason, when… There it was! An obscure French artist, who would likely have never been heard of in America, suddenly in the top 10 songs. I then rushed back to iTunes, and sure enough, it was in the top songs, with a maxed out popularity.

    This leads me to the conclusion that Apple really has the ability to catapult an artist to stardom. All the proof you need for that is to see the Grammy nominations for Fiest. These songs are even so unique, that hearing one of these songs on the radio, on a bus, or anywhere else, reminds me of the commercial. Apple gains free advertising when radio stations simply play a top 10 song!

    Congratulations, Steve. You (well, your employee’s) are the marketing god(s).

 

Why did they cancel thebroken?

Revision3, as most webizens will certainly be aware, is the online network hoping to bring web content to all facets of life, such as television, portable devices, etc. Their network is home to such popular content as Diggnation, with hundreds of thousands of weekly viewers.

However, many people who have been with Revision3 from the beginning remember the first show that they made, the show that they used to prove the viability of their company and of their business model: thebroken. The show, which launched on July 21, 2003, had only four episodes in its 3 year run, the last of which was after a 2.5 year hiatus. The content focused on hacker culture, and tips, tricks, and how-too’s for everyday hacking. Personally, I learned a valuable lesson on WEP encryption hacking that has come in handy in the past couple of years. On September 26, 2006, thebroken was officially dead.

Why was it canceled? Kevin Rose stated in 2006 interview that thebroken had achieved over 2 million downloads in the first year, setting a great precedent for their viability of their company. It sparked the beginnings of Revision3, with new shows springing out of the company regularly after thebroken caught on. After episode 3, no reason was given as to why no new shows has produced for several months. As time dragged on, forum posts began asking questions about the future of the show. When episode 4 was released, these people thought that finally their pressure had worked. But, no more episodes were to be created. With the official cancellation announced, people began to drift towards other offerings, such as Systm.

Their has been no other show on Revision3, or elsewhere, that covers the same area of web culture that thebroken did. The ratings were fine in comparison to other web video that is considered successful, and their certainly is not a lack of subject matter.  Thebroken forums have been active with threads dating back to 2005 debating whether the show is alive or dead, and what the chances are of its recovery.

Myself, and the other fans of the show, would certainly wish for a reasonable explanation, although it is apparent that we will be reduced to debating over 3 year old comments by Revision3 employees.   I have long ago accepted the fact that the show is dead, but will stay on the lookout for anything to replace its genre.

 

Is the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Battle Over?

    Much to the dismay of HD enthusiasts world wide, the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD battle has been holding many people back from enjoying their content in HD.  Much like happened with BetaMax and VHS back in the day, one of these formats is destined to lose, and its content will be rendered obsolete.  After spending $500 on a player, and another few hundred on content, no one wants to repurchase it all in another format.  Thusly, many have simply waited, sticking to there up-converting DVD players, trying to drown their standard def depression in simulated clarity.

Up until the Friday’s announcement, the divide between studio support was fairly equal.  Universal, Paramount,  Warner, and Dreamworks supported HD-DVD.  Sony, Disney, Fox, Warner, and LionsGate supported Blue-Ray.  However, with Warner’s switch to Blu-Ray only, many have been calling an end to the format war, as the sides are so stacked.  With the studio support of Blu-ray, many feel that the others will abandon HD-DVD.

While this very well may be the case, I have a few issues with this bold statement.  Firstly, some of the studio supporters of HD-DVD are very strong. For example, Paramount, in a shocking episode last summer, switched to HD-DVD exclusive. Many thought that huge pay-offs may have been involved, for a Blu-ray only manufacturer to abandon its format, and switch to HD-DVD.  They also have strong hardware supporters, such as Microsoft and Intel, who are expected to do something unexpected at CES 2008.  While Blu-ray still has more support, both in studio and hardware, enough may be invested in HD-DVD to leave some companies hesitant is ditching HD-DVD.

Secondly, consumers will still be anxious for HD-DVD content.  With the recent lowering of prices , some players are going for as little as $199.  Many who have been waiting for this price point snatched them up, and content along with it.  These people will be very angry if and when their players become obsolete, so could drag on support for both formats by the studios for far longer than many predict.

Thirdly, the HD-DVD team may have some tricks up its sleeve for this weeks CES.   Rumours abound over Microsoft putting an HD-DVD player in its Xbox 360.  this could be huge, seeing as a large percentage of Blu-ray players reside in side Sony’s struggling PS3.  others twists could include new functionality that Blu-ray can’t match, such as networking and interactivity that have not been explored on either side of the war.  Cheaper players are also a last hope for HD-DVD.

However, in the face of the recent Warner decision, I still agree with the predictions of the end of the war, although still farther into the future.  Lower prices on the Blu-ray side will really be the nail in the coffin, especially if they can reach the <$150 price range by mid year.   This war has dragged on for too long, and its about time that a winner finally claims the throne.  Last CES, Sony claimed victory.  This year, they may have actually achieved it.

 

Crysis=Meltdown

Well, I’m back and blogging! Life seems to have a terrible habit of interfering with my online life, but a lot has been happening as of late. However, that is no excuse, and the blogging shall commence posthaste!

Well, as many in the gaming community have noted, the new PC game, Crysis, by developer Crytek, has received awards galore for best graphics, physics, and general eye candy. Unfortunately, the game is a destroyer of GPU’s, the slayer of physics cards, obliterator of of RAM, and the annihilator of any CPU you foolishly throw in it’s path.

Now, I do not have the greatest gaming PC of all time. After working this summer at the local Nippon Institute of Technology, I thought I’d splurge a bit on a new PC for my everyday needs, gaming included. Seeing as my budget was limited by the impeding purchase of a car, I settled on a Dell XPS 410 (A.K.A. Dell Dimension 9200). It had a Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz, which is it’s best feature. 2 GB’s of RAM, I put in some speedy hard drives, Nvidea 8600, Vista Ultimate, nothing to spectacular, but still reasonable for gaming. It plays Command and Conquer 3 great with all settings maxed, Bioshock, Orange Box, everything looks nice on the Dell 24″ monitor that I use with it.

After I heard on Diggnation that Kevin had to buy a bloody Falcon Northwest insane machine to even get acceptable frame rates, I knew I had to see what it would do on an average persons PC.

I got the game, installed it, which went nice and fast, and booted it up. A little sluggish in opening, but nothing to worry about.  I immediately went into options before anything else and ran its auto detect to recommends video settings. It chose medium for my system.    I then launched the single player campaign, and waited through its monotonous loading.  My first impression when the game launched was this:

Oh!  That looks pretty! Oh…, wait…. it’s not moving.  At all. Damn.

I check the FPS, and I was getting numbers ranging from 1-5.  I went back into options, but now the whole app was lagging to such an extent that i had to hold buttons for upwards of 5 seconds before the system would act on them.   Finally, after far to much tweaking,  I hat framerates in the 20-30 range; still bad, but the best I could really get without being in a polygon jungle.  The resolution was such that I couldn’t aim at all, every movement caused the FPS to drop, looking around made my curser teleport to various places on the map, and it was generally a failure.  It devoured my 2 gigs of RAM, my Core 2 quad was plugging away at 75%, and the graphics card sounded like it was going to take off out of my PC.

So, my verdict is this.  If you like First Person Shooters, but also enjoy having money to spend on things other that PC components, avoid Crysis.  If you have a PC with some SLI’d 8800’s, an insane processor, and more memory that you have hard disk space, you might be able to squeeze out some acceptable frame rates.

 

Jeff Gertsmann

If you’ve been on the internet a of late, you are likely aware of the fact that Jeff Gertsman has been fired (although possibly quit) from his post as reviewer at the C|NET Networks-owned Gamespot.com. After reading a ton of forum posts, news articles, and posts from others, I thought that I would combine what I know of the incident for the simplification of this issue to my readers.

First, a bit of background about Mr. Gertsmann, in an extremely brief form. In short, he was one of the first video game reviews at the founding of Gamespot. He has worked at the company for over 10 years, reviewing games, attending special gaming events, and hosting online weekly shows about various gaming topics. He has a large fan base on Gamespot, and is one of the sites most popular reviewers.

As per the Gamespot forums, he arrived at his office on November 28th to find all of his personal items in a box, and his door locked against him.

Forums are raging, and most all speculation is that he was fired due to a review that he did on the game Kane & Lynch, by Eidos. After all of the hype and the advertising of the game on old and new media, the developers were understandably angry when they way the 6/10 rating that Gertsmann had given it. More seriously, possibly, was that Eidos said that they were upset not because of the score, but because of the “tone” of the review. Unfortunately, much of that advertisement took place on Gamespot, and other C|NET owned networks. As many quickly inferred, C|NET was possibly pressured into firing him by Eidos.

The forum post on Gamespot, at 724 pages as I am writing this (741 as I’m editing), has been screaming bloody murder at Gamespot, and their leader, a man by the name of Logan. I saw hundreds of people pledging to cancel subscriptions, to spam the Director of Games, and generally hurl walls of hate, pain, and suffering at the people who dared shake the lives of the Gamespot community. This is the hottest thread that I have seen on a forum in a long, long time, and I can see it continuing at this fevered, ranting pace for a long time yet.

What does this mean for Gamespot? Other than the standard “Our reviews follow our strict code of journalism integrity” cut-and-paste lines, there have been no official statements. As the announcement has reached mainstream media on a Friday, it is possible that we may be waiting until Monday before we hear any word on the subject. Suspiciously, they have removed the unfavorable video review, and edited the written review as well of the game in question. Until more information becomes available, the general consensus is that Gamespot is selling out to its advertisers.

While it is certainly common for advertisers to put pressure on gaming reviewers, it is a terrible misdeed to fire a reviewer over their unbiased review, and then direct people to their code of unbiased journalism that forbids exactly that. Possibly, if the company feels that he didn’t do his job properly – that he didn’t play the game enough or let some personal grudge taint his objectivity – this is conceivable. Otherwise, it’s a horrifying example of financially motivated censorship.

As I stated before, this is all rumor at the moment, and should be treated as such until we hear official confirmation as to the motives from CNET, Gamespot, or from Mr. Gertsmann himself.

I certainly hope that Gamespot can give a reasonable explanation for this, or if they really have sold out, that they can make amends. From what I have read and written on the flaming forum thread, it seems the only way they would be able to do that would be to publically apologize to the Gamespot users, re-hire, or at least offer to re-hire Mr. Gertsmann, and maybe even reprimand this shady Josh Logan character who is apparently responsible for this.

I, personally, am a fan, of Gamespot, and C|NET in general, and I hope that I’ll be able to keep the trust in them that they ave gained over the past several years.

UPDATE: December 4

Well, now that the story has been in the wild of a bit longer, I have heard a bit more about the story from some Journalists inside CNET.

From what I’ve heard form these people, who are, of course, employees of the company, this event may be being blown out of proportion by the blogosphere.  As with any major publication, their are two divisions:  the Advertising people, and the Editors.  Of course, say these journalists, advertisers always raise all hell against companies who give them negative reviews. However, it seems as though the journalists themselves never hear this scorn.  Never, in their 7 years at CNET, have they ever been told to tone down a harsh review, or told that they had to tilt a review one way or another based on anything that an advertiser had told them.

They also said, however, that CNET.com, where they work, is very much a separate entity to Gamespot.com, although they are both under the title of C|NET Networks.  So, while the CNET.com reviews maintain their journalistic integrity, we still are somewhat in doubt as to what pits of depravity Gamespot brass may operate at.

 

You Know What I Want?

1) A Zune 2

2) The rebirth of The Show.

However, the first one has a greater possibility of actually happening that the first. As most readers of this blog likely don’t know, the Zune isn’t available in Canada. Why?

Well, my understanding of it goes something like this. Firstly, the Canadian regulatory board that has to approve new products before they can enter the Canadian marketplace is at odds with Microsoft over the Zune’s “Squirting” ability. (It seems that Microsoft has two people in charge of naming. The “Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery”, uninventively guy, and the “squircle” guy, who people just look dumbfounded at.) Apparently, the CRIA thinks that the ability to send a song from player to player, even with the ridiculous DRM that they have on the tracks, violates the rights of the artists, and of themselves. Canada is one of the only countries that charges a tax on every piece of media sold to cover the suspected piracy that may or may not even occur, which adds a lot of money to the legitimate purchasers yearly bills. Also, Microsoft themselves pay a fee to Universal, and maybe even other labels if they pressured for it, to cover what they suspect will be losses due to piracy. With those redundant systems, and the fact that 3plays/3 days isn’t a form of piracy at all, wouldn’t it make since to allow the product to be sold?

But I digress. Certainly, one day, eventually, in the future, the Zune will be available in Canada. And when it does, I will certainly be looking into it. I own a few iPods, all the full size ones. These are great for most things, but I wanted something lighter and smaller for when I didn’t want to look like my pockets were fanny packs. The Nano was looking good, until Apple replaced it with the Fat Nano. This defeated the purpose that I had in mind for the device, and to be frank, the new iPod interface looks a little clunky to me.

After the first generation Zune, I thought that the brand would be dead in six months. The thing was thick, rubbery, brown, and had a pitiful lack of storage for a device of its size. But with this new model, I think they could actually be a competitor to the iPod. The interface looks nice, the control scheme is good (regardless of what the name may suggest), and the device itself is actually somewhat good looking.

Now, I’m not going to be abandoning my dreams of an iPod touch as my main PMP, but Microsoft has, as they did with IE, and Xbox before it, forced their way into another market.

PS. Squircle formula just for good times.

 

OSx86 on VMWare

This is a story of torture, pain, and terrible, terrible trouble.

For those of you who are unaware of what the OSx86 project is, it is essentially the dream of being able to run Mac OS X on any PC hardware. A team of developers formed after Apples switch to the i86 platform with the Intel version of OS X Tiger, and have devised a series of patches to get the bloody piece of software running on most any machine. Here are the general instructions, but the way that I got it running in VM Ware differed in a few, crucial ways.

First, let me make one thing completely clear. DO NOT pirate a copy of OS X. This is completely illegal. All of the prepatched downloads of OS X that you can get on sites like bittorrent are illegal, and can be made yourself with a free, legal patch, and a legal copy of OS X that you buy. Also, running OS X on a PC has questionable legality unless you are an Apple Developer or buy a real mac, deactivate the copy of OS X, and install it on other hardware. Check the legality of it before you go any further.

System Requirements:

• Processor supporting SSE2 or SSE3 instructions (Use CPU-Z for Windows to check)
• Windows 2000 or higher/Linux (Mandrake, SUSE, or Red Hat)
• 512MB of RAM (strongly recommended)
• 6GB minimum hard drive space
• 8MB of VRAM

Now, as for the software that I used. I bought a copy of VM Ware Workstation 6.0.1. I see no reason why it shouldn’t work in newer versions, but I know that it works on that one.

First off, I had to configure a virtual machine. Create a new machine, and do the Custom setup. Click through the next step, and you’ll arrive at Select a Guest Operating System. Choose Microsoft Windows, then WINNT in the pull down box. Use 1 processor core. When you get to I/O settings, select the bottom one.

That is the only difference for now that I have found from my own experiences, and this website.

And, as a side note, the install took nearly an hour. Luckily the rest of the computer still worked fine while it was installing.

That guide worked for me up until the step where it said “the system will now boot.” Of course, life really couldn’t be that easy, now could it? I got a bizarre error in about 9 languages at the Apple logo. A quick Google search of the error wording fixed the problem, but it was certainly worrying.

Finally, the thing started working.

I was spared the troubles that many are reporting, such as audio and mice not working. One of the first things that I noticed was not working was the internet. As soon as I fired up Safari, I got the message here:

I fiddled with every bloody setting for network that exists in VmWare. I double and tripple checked the addition to the VMware config file, and everything seemed perfect. I again resorted to Googleing forums. I found a handy program called Maxxuss AMDPCNET, which apparently fixed every single user of any forum ever’s networking woes. I tried it a half dozen times, both as a service and installed, and nothing happened. I seem to be the only one that didn’t work for, but still I had no networking, internet or local. More hours of Googleing. I found a ridiculous number different methods on this website, but now, everything I do just resets when I run the program, even if the config file is read only! For know, this problem persists. I’ll update if I ever do get that bloody thing working, but I just don’t have the time at the moment.

I’m certain that you are asking yourself by now, “How does OS X run under Vmware, Matt?” Well, moderately. I gave it 512 mb of RAM, a 20 GB hard drive and all the performance tweaks I could find, but it still is somewhat sluggish. Programs launch slowly, Animations are laggy, and the audio stutters in iTunes. Without networking, the only way to move files back and forth is to create and mount ISO’s. Programs install slowly, but do work natively. All in all, I would compare it to using the latest OS X on a machine at the very end of the approved spectrum on the Apple list, like an old G3 or G4 with terrible amounts of RAM, and a hard drive that hasn’t seen a clean install in years. It’s usable, if your internet is working…

All in all, it’s a fun project. Certainly not the seamless experience that most users would buy a mac for (It’s harder than any Linux distro I’ve ever tried to get working) but it is certainly an interesting challenge for a morbidly obese block of spare time you may have. Through the OSx86 wiki and InsanleyMac, you should be able to get it running on anything that meets the basic requirements of the software.

Good luck on your OSx86 endevours, fellow ambition comrades.

 

XKCD Really is Awsome

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with daily trips to XKCD.com. I only got into it a couple of weeks ago, so I still have a lot of the past issues to go through, and I have really been enjoying it. The thing that really got me intrigued about web comics was a Strongbad Email on www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html , which was actually taunting web comics in general. Then I heard XKCD mentioned on Buzz Out Loud, the best podcast ever, and had to go check it out!

Witness and example of it’s nerdy hilarity!

Yeah, the vast majority of them are very good, and I strongly recommends going there a few times a week to check out the new additions. As per the original Strongbad email, i checked out some other webcomics, and have yet to find another that I like. If I missed anything genuinely good, please tell me.

Soon to come, my experiences with the OSx86 project! (Mac on a PC, for the un-enlightened.)

 

Pretty Much My First Blog

I suppose that this is pretty much a hello world statement.  Just for starters, I’m a Canadian teen who is easily described as a total internet addict, but I’ve spent too much time sitting on the sidelines.  So, as of today, (and tomorrow if I don’t get through it all), I’m starting this blog, making a Twitter feed, registering a domain, joining Facebook, and a few other things that I’m sure I’ll think of.  Of cource, it’ll take some time to get everything up, running, and intergrated, so please be patient.

-Matt