Mininova primarily.

I don't download music or applications. That too me is taking the money out of peoples pockets.

Downloading TV shows, at least the way I justify it, is not really theft considering they will be on air in the UK or Australia within a few weeks (usually). The production company packages have already been bought by local broadcasters and the advertising sold, so noone is losing money from my watching the show early. A lot of the production companies (HBO and Fox among a few) even accidentally leak pilots and season premiers (there are a lot around at the moment) of new shows so that they can get massive amounts of on-line feedback before they finish final production. The recent "leaks" of Fringe and True Blood are typical examples. Both of which will be tweaked before their launch in September per the response from the Internet reviews.

Film is a little harder to morally dismiss, but I have little sympathy with an industry who pay their main actors up to $10m a month and whines about lost revenue at the box office when new films which come out (the ones which people bother to download) make a hundred million in the first week, etc. They have ripped people off for too long and when they see a potential to effect their huge ongoing profit they freak out. The MPAA also use REALLY dodgy tactics like employing 3rd party "companies" to release dodgy versions of their own films into the scene, they have even been known to release packages which contain viruses and malware just to try to diswade people from downloading their stuff. The MPAA are a greedy bunch of old codgers who are scared shatless at the thought that their domination of the media-scape might be compromised. They have very loudly claimed that they are losing $6 billion a year to piracy, they shout about this from all of their $100m mansion rooftops and from the windows of their $300k cars. However they finally admitted that only $2.3 billion is due to internet piracy. Even worse, earlier this year they were caught in a very embarrassing bungle massively inflating their figures in a commissioned report by LEK Consulting.

Al

Slightly off track here, but have you any idea what program might back up Forrest gump, i'm having a nightmare with it.

I've tried clone, nero and dvd decrypter

jazzys

I've only done that a few times and then I used DVDDecrypter. Sorry can't help.

Thanks mate, is not having it at all, the search goes on.

Jazzys

Tried anydvd for Forrest gump ?

$35 gets you an aldi dvd that'll play avi from usb ( no fast forward ) , or just burn 6 *700mb avi files on to a standard dvd.

The joys of watching series two torchwood now

Yes burning AVI to DVD is a little like copying a DVD to VHS, IE moving backwards. I get very frustrated with people that want me to convert AVI or WMA to DVD, to the point now, that I simply give them a full DVD of AVI files and tell them to convert it themselves. or buy a ALDI DIVX player for a similar price of a stack of DVD's.

Media Harddrives are the way to go now, there is a wireless network one, with a blueray player version on the market. I cannot think of any improvement on this kind of technology, before the next generation of Hologram television comes in.

Simple answer to the Burning Question, spend 35 bucks on a DIVX player... or preferably, buy a Media Harddrive. It will save you heaps of time and in the long term money.

No blu ray player on the following, but they are out there. I wont buy one until they hit sub 400 AUD and I'll only get a wireless network one.... not sure about blu ray yet, I beleive you can get almost the same quality with hi end DIVX.


http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Mvix-1000GB-H...QQcmdZViewItem

Yep, i've tried running anydvd in the background and it still won't have it.

Jazzys

I don't know whether BluRay 2 is compatible with #1?

In any case, i won't be buying unless and until discs come down to the $10 mark - I'm certainly not going to pay $35 for a movie which is pefectly adequate in DVD definition!

BluRay 2.0 (aka Profile 2.0) is a basically to support "BD-Live" which is the realtime online services for BluRay data.

• 1.0 is the launch profile, and secondary audio and video decoders are optional, as is local storage and network connectivity. The majority of standalone players fit into this category.
• 1.1 is the newer profile, and to take advantage of these discs, players need a secondary audio and video decoder to handle picture-in-picture, as well as at least 256MB of local storage for content.
• 2.0 is the profile of the future, requiring the two secondary decoders, 1GB of local storage for updates and content, and an Internet connection.

Playstation 3 was recently certified BluRay 2.0 compliant after a recent OS upgrade. Yet another reason never to buy a BluRay Player (most of which can't be upgraded to Profile 1.1 let alont Profile 2.0)

To answer you question, yes they are fully backwardly compliant. All that will happen is that discs will likely be sold as Profile 1.0/1.1 but with "Bonus Features" which would be 2.0 specific.

Have you tried shrink? coupled with with anydvd it`s the only way to go!
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/dvd_shrink.htm

Since we're on this subject and there are so many knowledgable people here perhaps I can ask this:

I've got a Sony full HD Bravia TV and it's got amongst other inputs a USB plug for a "USB device". The manual merely has a pretty picture of the input panel but says nowt about what the USB device does!

If I place a TV recording as a .mpeg file on a USB memory, will the TV play it? Does anyone know?

Yep, afraid so mate. Tried shrink, DVD decrypter, clone DVD 2, and Nero. Keep getting something by the name of cyclic redundancy error or something like that.

Thanks
Jazzys

Just googled crc and the main cause is a scratched or damaged disc
If this don`t work you might have to get another copy
http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/cd-recovery.html

I reckon the answer would be yes
My home theatre can play mpeg4`s and mp3`s via the usb input but only with a memory stick or similar storage device,any thing with a cable(like my external)alas won`t work(on my machine at least)

Thanks, Wenge. I have a Davis10 home theatre setup - the one with micro speakers - and it has a "Multi media" adaptor socket on the back which appears only to be able to play audio.

The Bravia TV does have a USB port and you can select this as a TV input but whether it would only show USB stick pictures or "run" mpeg files is unclear. If it *will* then I will rush out and buy a 8Gb USB storage gizmo and problems are solved!