Hello Digital Man!

** On Saturday 16.07.22 - 17:19, Digital Man wrote to Nightfox:

DM> In any case, I think they could've distributed DRM-movies
DM> on USB flash drives or SD Card if they really wanted to.
DM> --digital man (rob)

The display packaging (to prevent shoplifting) for such SD
cards would have been a nightmare. The basic SD products are
all practically under lock and key at department/convenience
stores.

One used CD shop had a clever system. The CD cases themselves
were empty (except for the covers or booklets), and the actual
discs were in a handy drawer system behind the counter. Every
disc had a store-assigned code and could be easily looked up
right at the cash register.

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: Ogg's Dovenet Point (723:320/1.9)
� Synchronet � CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Moondog to Digital Man on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:45 am

>
> SD cards and USB sticks tend to break easily. One lady I worked with would
> destroy usb sticks on a regular basis. She'd find a way to bust them off at
> the connector. I couldn't imagine what she could do with an SD card. I'm
> sur e she would snap the micro SD's in half.

was she mentally retarded?
i've dropped a usb stick in my work parking lot in the snow, ran over it several times and it still worked when the snow melted.
i don't know how someone can bust it off at the connector unless it's intentional.

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Digital Man on Sat Jul 16 2022 09:28 pm

>
> man, if only AOL started sending their clients out on SD cards -- I'd be
> set! I could finally make that 12-disk RAID 10 cluster I always wanted...

i'm sure they'd make it read only.
even aol messed with their disks and made them less than ideal.

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Ogg to Arelor on Sun Jul 17 2022 07:55 am

> Hello Arelor!
>
> ** On Saturday 16.07.22 - 12:21, Arelor wrote to Moondog:
>
> A> Moviemakers know they make much more money from the first
> A> days after a theatrical release than they do from long term
> A> royalties and DVD sales.
>
> Can that really be true? I would think that the physical/

here's the matrix
Box office
Budget
$63,000,000 (estimated)

Gross US & Canada
$172,076,928
Opening weekend US & Canada
$27,788,331Apr 4, 1999

Gross worldwide
$467,222,728

--

spiderman no way home

Box office
Budget
$200,000,000 (estimated)

Gross US & Canada
$804,793,477

Opening weekend US & Canada
$260,138,569 Dec 19, 2021

Gross worldwide
$1,901,232,550

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: Nightfox to Andeddu on Fri Jul 15 2022 08:50 am

> Yeah, I have never actually bought a movie from a streaming service, and
> that's one of the reasons why. If I buy something, I like having my own so
> I can make sure it doesn't go anywhere.
>
> Nightfox

I have spent only around 100 GBP on movies and box sets from digital
distribution platforms such as iTunes. I am glad I never invested more as I
will likely lose my purchases whenever Apple decide not to renew these
licenses.

---
■ Synchronet ■ BBS for Amstrad computer users including CPC, PPC and PCW!

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Phigan to Andeddu on Sat Jul 16 2022 12:14 am

> You'd be surprised how much people still watch VHS in the
> small/forest/mountain towns. Give your VHS tapes to the thrift stores in one
> of those.

I reside in the UK and thrift stores over here haven't sold VHS tapes for many
years. They all have extensive DVD collections so I have donated unwanted DVDs
to them.

---
■ Synchronet ■ BBS for Amstrad computer users including CPC, PPC and PCW!

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Dumas Walker to ANDEDDU on Sat Jul 16 2022 09:37 am

> A work friend of mine was trying to talk me into doing something like that.
> He apparently signs up for Hulu whenever they have a free first month
> deal, watches all of the new episodes of the show he wants to see
> ("Letterkenny"), and then ditches it before he gets charged.
>
> As I don't usually enjoy binge watching, I would figure I would try that
> and not get through half of the new season of whatever (like "The Expanse"!)
> before I started getting charged.

I cannot binge watch either as I don't have a particularly long attention span.

I tend to watch a half hour episode of a particular series in the morning on my
phone or iPad when having my breakfast before watching a single episode of
something longer in the evening on returning home from work and having dinner.

---
■ Synchronet ■ BBS for Amstrad computer users including CPC, PPC and PCW!

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Kaelon to Moondog on Sat Jul 16 2022 06:51 pm

> Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
> By: Moondog to Kaelon on Sat Jul 16 2022 04:51 pm
>
> > At one site I worked at, a sales guy pulled out some old CD's he burned i
> > the early 2000's and wanted files moved over to the network. the laptops
> > issue no longer had CD or DVD drives. Anyways, the files he wanted were
> > scanned in a proprietary format the scanner software he used in the late
> > 1990's. We got lucky and found in our software repository a program that
> > would read the format, but it had to be run on a virtual machine. By the
> > time we recovered the document andpreserved it to a pdf file, he could've
> > original documents pulled from the long term storage site.
>
> I guess the phrase you used earlier - "if kept properly" - rings true here.
> rms of primary source documents. Better to print everything out, they say,
> _____
> -=: Kaelon :=-
>
Hard copies are nice for that reason. Established digital file formats are
also good. The document scanning program used to make the original file was
mostlikely created to no digital recording standard, if such thing existed.
The program could save as or convert it's paperport format into PDF or TIF,
which is more universally accepted since the mid 1990's

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: Ogg to All on Sat Jun 18 2022 09:23 pm

> "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
> despite mainstream consumer shift.

i doubt this place is highly profitable.
they are most likely rich and can afford to keep it up.
I've seen better stores go under.

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Dumas Walker to KAELON on Sun Jul 17 2022 08:24 am

> Now, two of the last three things I bought on disk turned out to be disks
> that cannot be copied... so I have to have the physical disk. <shrugs>

Really? I assume you've tried the usual methods to remove the DRM and copy-protection schema? Handbreak + AnyDVD / Slyfox combination?
_____
-=: Kaelon :=-

---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Moondog to Kaelon on Sun Jul 17 2022 09:39 am

> Hard copies are nice for that reason. Established digital file formats are
> also good. The document scanning program used to make the original file was
> mostlikely created to no digital recording standard, if such thing existed.
> The program could save as or convert it's paperport format into PDF or TIF,
> which is more universally accepted since the mid 1990's

I can get on board a universally accepted file format; TIF, for sure, and even PDF, if Adobe weren't such a squirrelly company. (Remember when Shockwave Flash and .SWF files were the standard for web-games?) I imagine at some point basic unencrypted .TXT files might be the key to longevity. PDF and TIF for now, for sure, but anything that has endured longer than 30-40 years has my vote.
_____
-=: Kaelon :=-

---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Kaelon to Moondog on Sat Jul 16 2022 06:51 pm

> I guess the phrase you used earlier - "if kept properly" - rings true here.
> Everything from file format to readable / extractable software looms large
> in this digital world. (Similar note, so many fellow historians tell me
> what a nightmare we are in terms of primary source documents. Better to
> print everything out, they say, than to bank on any of these digital formats
> making it to the next generational archiving.)
> _____
The only reliable way I've kept my data, is to make multiple copies, on multiple media, and migrate it to newer formats every so often.

Even then things go missing...

So much data has already been lost. Think of the early internet, how much of that is still around? archive.org does a decent job, but good like finding some sites from the late 90's.

I think we are in a new digital 'dark age'. In later years, people will look back and find most of the information we were looking at, just not there. Most of what was on Social Media will just be gone. Even now, you can read a news article online which isn't that old, which links to a tweet, and that tweet is gone.

Then add to that peoples poor data handling, people losing their digital data when they migrate from one phone to another, or one computer to another, or losing everything when that hard drive they had their data on goes and there is no backup. We have 'cloud' services, but will they hang forever?

---
■ Synchronet ■ MiND'S EYE BBS - Melb, Australia - mindseye.synchronetbbs.org

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: MRO to Moondog on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:03 pm

> was she mentally retarded?
> i've dropped a usb stick in my work parking lot in the snow, ran over it
> several times and it still worked when the snow melted.
> i don't know how someone can bust it off at the connector unless it's
> intentional.

I've done that to one, but it was knocked I think,

I have found they are unreliable though. Had a few develop bad sectors/bad areas and stop working reliably. These were USB stick which weren't heavily used at all. They're consumer level hardware, I'm sure manfactured not to last, but to just be cheap throwaway devices.

---
■ Synchronet ■ MiND'S EYE BBS - Melb, Australia - mindseye.synchronetbbs.org

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Andeddu to Dumas Walker on Sun Jul 17 2022 06:26 pm

> > As I don't usually enjoy binge watching, I would figure I would try that
> > and not get through half of the new season of whatever (like "The
> > Expanse"!) before I started getting charged.
>
> I cannot binge watch either as I don't have a particularly long attention
> span.
>

i'm the same but i binge watch because of that. it's a good way to get to sleep.

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Enduring File Formats
By: Kaelon to Moondog on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:21 pm

> Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
> By: Moondog to Kaelon on Sun Jul 17 2022 09:39 am
>
> > Hard copies are nice for that reason. Established digital file formats a
> > also good. The document scanning program used to make the original file
> > mostlikely created to no digital recording standard, if such thing existe
> > The program could save as or convert it's paperport format into PDF or TI
> > which is more universally accepted since the mid 1990's
>
> I can get on board a universally accepted file format; TIF, for sure, and ev
> XT files might be the key to longevity. PDF and TIF for now, for sure, but
> _____
> -=: Kaelon :=-
>

Caere Paperport scanners had their own format that it saved fiules in by
default. Caere was bought up by Caldera, and I haven't seen a copy of their s
oftware since the XP days.

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Boraxman to Kaelon on Mon Jul 18 2022 08:42 am

> Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
> By: Kaelon to Moondog on Sat Jul 16 2022 06:51 pm
>
> > I guess the phrase you used earlier - "if kept properly" - rings true her
> > Everything from file format to readable / extractable software looms larg
> > in this digital world. (Similar note, so many fellow historians tell me
> > what a nightmare we are in terms of primary source documents. Better to
> > print everything out, they say, than to bank on any of these digital form
> > making it to the next generational archiving.)
> > _____
> The only reliable way I've kept my data, is to make multiple copies, on mult
>
> Even then things go missing...
>
> So much data has already been lost. Think of the early internet, how much o
>
> I think we are in a new digital 'dark age'. In later years, people will loo
> ch isn't that old, which links to a tweet, and that tweet is gone.
>
> Then add to that peoples poor data handling, people losing their digital dat
> 'cloud' services, but will they hang forever?
>

One of the things I liked about buying DVD's was when they offered additional
commentary and extra clips and mini-documentaries, such as the making of a
movie. Not sure if there is a way to encrypt the director's and actor's
commentaries into existing video formats.

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: MRO to Moondog on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:03 pm

> Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
> By: Moondog to Digital Man on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:45 am
>
> >
> > SD cards and USB sticks tend to break easily. One lady I worked with wou
> > destroy usb sticks on a regular basis. She'd find a way to bust them off
> > the connector. I couldn't imagine what she could do with an SD card. I'
> > sur e she would snap the micro SD's in half.
>
> was she mentally retarded?
> i've dropped a usb stick in my work parking lot in the snow, ran over it sev
> i don't know how someone can bust it off at the connector unless it's intent
>
She was director over business services, and i cannot figure how she ranked
so high. She tried to move further up the food chain by taking the senior rea
ctor operator's licensing course. She got canned for cheating on the final
exam. The student next to her noticed her peeking at his answers, so he
intentionally submitted wrong answers. In the comments he wrote to the instru
ctor which questions he intentionally got wrong and provided the right
answers. He did not directly accuse her of cheating, however he mentioned to
the instructor if he finds another student had the exact same wrong answers to
certain questions, his assumption they cheated is correct.

She still fought it, and tried to accuse the company of discrimination and
sexual harassment. Employee concerns could not verify any of these claims.
she had been there several years, and this suddenly became an issue?

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Moondog to Boraxman on Sun Jul 17 2022 10:19 pm

>
> One of the things I liked about buying DVD's was when they offered
> additional commentary and extra clips and mini-documentaries, such as the
> making of a movie. Not sure if there is a way to encrypt the director's and
> actor's commentaries into existing video formats.

with the .mkv container format you can have other audio and subtitles

---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: Ogg to Digital Man on Sun Jul 17 2022 09:18 am

Og> The display packaging (to prevent shoplifting) for such SD
Og> cards would have been a nightmare. The basic SD products are
Og> all practically under lock and key at department/convenience
Og> stores.

Remember those big shrinkwrapped cardboard cartons for CDs, so they could fit into a record company's shelves?

---
■ Synchronet ■ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.

Re: Enduring File Formats
By: Kaelon to Moondog on Sun Jul 17 2022 01:21 pm
Ka> (Remember when Shockwave Flash and .SWF files were the standard for
Ka> web-games?)
Very well. I worked at Macromedia at the time and was part of the technology M&A team that bought a tiny company called FutureWave for something like a million dollars and turned their product into Flash. Best investment I'd ever seen. :)
Some of the early content created in Director, Shockwave and Flash were pretty amazing. I wish I'd saved some of it.

The internet archive has some of it saved, including Radiskull and Devil Doll. Look it up. :)

---
■ Synchronet ■ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay S
By: Moondog to Boraxman on Sun Jul 17 2022 10:19 pm

> One of the things I liked about buying DVD's was when they offered
> additional commentary and extra clips and mini-documentaries, such as the
> making of a movie. Not sure if there is a way to encrypt the director's and
> actor's commentaries into existing video formats.
I'm pretty sure you can with some container formats, have more than one audio stream. At worst, you can just encode it into a seperate audio file.

DVD has multiple audio channels, so you should be able to find a tool which wil let you extract that channel, or encode that additional channel instead.

---
■ Synchronet ■ MiND'S EYE BBS - Melb, Australia - mindseye.synchronetbbs.org

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: Kaelon to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 2022 06:23 pm

Ka> We're the same person. ;) And I, too, assumed that flash-disks or USB
Ka> drives would have gone mainstream and replaced optical drives, but the
Ka> entertainment industry is obsessed with digital rights management and
Ka> getting all of the TV manufacturers to align on the same proprietary
Ka> format would be madness. So, today, pretty much every TV can decode every
Ka> format via USB inserted media, but if a publisher or distributor wants
Ka> DMR, they're fresh out of luck.

Recently I was thinking that if they did start to distribute movies on USB flash drives or similar, perhaps they'd have made special media players you'd have to use to play them (similar to a blu-ray drive, but would take flash media instead). My understanding is that blu-ray and optical drives have a set of keys stored inside that they use to decrypt the movies, and such a player for flash media could work the same way.

Ka> Considering optical media starts to decay in around 20 years, this is no
Ka> longer a theoretical. Any DVD or Blu-Ray purchased at the start of the
Ka> millenium is nearing its end-of-life. Best to rip it soon before quality
Ka> begins to decline.

That's what people say, but I have some old discs that I still haven't had any problem with. I have a DVD movie I purchased a little over 20 years ago, and I just watched it again a couple months ago and it didn't have any problems. I also have a CD-R that I backed up my original 90s BBS onto in 2000, and I was still able to read it recently.

For those who have experienced optical media "decay", I have to wonder if those discs were stored somewhere that was too warm or perhaps in sunlight or something.

Nightfox

---
■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: "Highly profitable" Bay Street Video store n Toronto thrives
By: Ogg to Digital Man on Sun Jul 17 2022 09:18 am

Og> One used CD shop had a clever system. The CD cases themselves
Og> were empty (except for the covers or booklets), and the actual
Og> discs were in a handy drawer system behind the counter. Every
Og> disc had a store-assigned code and could be easily looked up
Og> right at the cash register.

I've shopped at some stores like that. Years ago, I bought a CD from a pawn shop that would do that, and sone time I bought a used CD there that would skip a lot when played (even on a stationary CD player) - I think the CD was just scratched up too much. I took the CD back to the store where I bought it, and they took the CD out of the case and brought me another copy of the CD they had and put it in the same case and gave that back to me. For some reason I thought that seemed a bit sketchy at the time, but I guess in the end I still ended up with a good copy of the CD album along with its case and the booklet in the case.

Nightfox

---
■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Hello poindexter FORTRAN!

** On Sunday 17.07.22 - 21:31, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Ogg:

Og>> The display packaging (to prevent shoplifting) for such
Og>> SD cards would have been a nightmare. The basic SD
Og>> products are all practically under lock and key at
Og>> department/convenience stores.

pF> Remember those big shrinkwrapped cardboard cartons for
pF> CDs, so they could fit into a record company's shelves?

Indeed I do! :/

And a whole new plastics manufacturing process was invented to
create tall lockable display cases for each standard CD as
well.

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: Ogg's Dovenet Point (723:320/1.9)
� Synchronet � CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

-=> Moondog wrote to Boraxman <=-

Mo> One of the things I liked about buying DVD's was when they offered
Mo> additional commentary and extra clips and mini-documentaries, such as
Mo> the making of a movie. Not sure if there is a way to encrypt the
Mo> director's and actor's commentaries into existing video formats.

They're all just digital tracks that can be extracted.

I went the other way once, took digital tracks and made a DVD out of them.
It was a lot of fun, you could make your own title screen and menus, select
what options and where they'd go on the screen, and lay out chapters on the
disk.

If you buy a bootleg DVD of a TV series, sometimes you'll find an amateurish
menu with rips from broadcast or cable. I didn't really think I was getting
a studio DVD of both seasons of "Max Headroom" for $7.99...

.... Don't be frightened of cliches
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
� Synchronet � .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.