Hulu titles slowly becomoing unrecordable, just me?

[HomeVideoGuy]

Whether it is a camera pointed at the movie screen or a promotional DVD swiped by an intern, that one tiny leak of an unprotected each breaks the business model.

He actually makes a point here. Pirating has been going on in some form or another for decades. It is the distribution of these materials that is illegal. So why not trace this distribution and crack down on the pirating?

I don't see anyone trying to crack down on Applians' own RVC product which could, conceivably, give the same end result as RMC; a pixel perfect reproduction of a web video. In fact, I could hook up my PC to my DVD recorder and get a similar result. I guess I just don't understand the paranoia about DVRing things. How about instead of completely blocking it, putting in mechanisms that trace the distribution of recordings to thwart the piracy?

Maybe Adobe is helping copyright holders protect their assets. But only for the resale of those assets themselves. As far as Hulu, CBS.com etc, at least I won't be going to their sites, viewing their advertising and purchasing those products any longer just like I did when ABC switched their player to one that did not work with RMC.

I am not arguing that one has a right to protect their copyrights. Just that in the long run, I will just purchase the shows I want to see from iTunes where I can watch when I want w/o commercials w/o being exposed to a lot of other possibly good shows. Then, these commercial sites will loose viewership and the downward spiral begins.

[HomeVideoGuy]

Non-related topic.


will RMC will work with USA and FOX network's online episodes? trying to capture those.

RMC never worked with FOX.com. I am not sure it did with USA.com either. However, those same shows should be on HULU.com; which did work with RMC; or at least still does with the 360p videos.

[dragonfang196]

Darn. because their hi-def versions own hulu's 360p version. but i'll take what i can get.

[agent_squirrel]

Applian posted a tutorial on YouTube yesterday showing how you can use RMC to capture Hulu videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNmD88Sbgo. I was a bit surprised to see that considering you can't really use the software to do this
anymore.

I've been following this tread since last week when I too couldn't capture something. I see all the sides to the arguments but have to say that those who are trying to protect their content need to come up with something better. I have a TiVo so I can easily skip through commercials. I also have the desktop software from TiVO (free and legal) that lets me download just about everything I record to my computer. Some programs are copy protected and you can't download them if you have a newer TiVo (still works fine on the one I have from a few years ago). There are a few different - and legal - software packages out there that will let me take my TiVo file and edit it. I can cut out commercials, clip off parts of the show I don't want, burn it to DVD or even put it on my iPod. And yes, I can also take those same clips and post them on any website, though TiVo makes it clear that you shouln't do that.

The reason I said that those who are trying to protect their content need to come up with a better argument is because the technology is always going to be there for users to download, steal, copy, whatever word you want to use. None us can have it both ways. Those who post content on their sites want the money from the advertising. Though users of RMC don't pay for the content, we've paid for the software. Someone is always making money. It just isn't always the site that host the video.

Someone here already made the point about those who profit from taking copy protected work and distributing it, will continue to do so. Microsoft can keep trying to come up with ways to stop copies of their OS from being burned to disc and sold throughout the world. But someone else will find a way around it. Those who profit from using the media they obtain off the web will be back in business before most of us are able to fully read through all of the messages being posted. The rest of us will have to wait. In the meantime, other sites will become better known to view media content on the web.

I do believe that copying content does SOMETIMES take away from those creating the media. But I, like HomeVideoGuy, have been exposed to a lot of media BECAUSE I have been able to download things and watch/listen to them later. This was true back in the Napster days. I can't even count the number of artist that I listen to regularly now that I didn't even know existed before Napster. Often I would find someone who had a lot of music I liked. Since the person's music collection contained a lot that I was interested in already, I often took a listen to some stuff I had never heard of before. I've spent a lot in concerts, CD's, and even merchandise on artists that I would never have been exposed to before. While the RIAA talks about how many people got "free music", nobody ever really took time to find out how much money was made because the first taste someone got was by downloading it for free. I'm not saying that Napster should be brought back. It went too far. But at the same time, there are always two sides to every argument.

Though many people would like to, you can't stop technology. If you are going to make videos available to people, they are going to find ways to download them. If RMC doesn't work anymore, another software product is right around the corner. Adobe can keep trying to find ways to secure flash videos but any new system will only be in place for a short time.

Finally, since most of this talk is related to Hulu content, I wonder what direction Hulu is actually heading in. Today they pulled all their content off of TV.com. If I recall correctly, they pulled their content from another site a couple of weeks ago. Like many other sites, they might be getting too big to care about the audience anymore. I have a feeling something else is going to take off soon that might be bigger. Who knows?

[FairUse]

Bump.

You know what Applian should do?

They should look into selling Replay Media Catcher to Slysoft.

Slysoft is located in the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda.

They have purchased applications in the past which had to be discontinued due to legal issues.

Since Replay Media Catcher is basically not going to be of much use any more the way it is now, they could work out a deal which will net them a nice profit that they could use toward developing some of their other applications.