The Joy of VHS

I don't know what it is. Nostalgia? A fear of getting older? Frustration with technology? I love, love, love videotapes!

I love their simplicity. I love the clicking and whirring when the VCR accepts a tape. I love how this discarded ("eewwww oldd") technology is so cheap.

I am not crazy. I know Blu-Ray is technically superior. I have 3 Blu-ray players and more discs then I care to admit. I know that streaming video a-la Netflix is the norm now ("why would you want to own discs"?? Why not just torrent??) yah yah yah.

But I still love VHS.

A friend of mine made fun of me once because I am obsessed. I don't see what is wrong with having 6 VCR's in a 2 person household. Or what is wrong with being thrilled about finding a 10-hour blank videotape at the Value Village in Maui on vacation (10 whole hours!!!!).

Motion picture has always fascinated me. Ever since I was a little boy I was thrilled that I could watch people that were so far away through a window in a box. That I could learn about people, technology, animals, you name it. That what I was watching could make me laugh, make me cry, or make me scared! I have many fond memories of sitting on the living room floor of my parent's house, watching all my shows on their RCA XL-100 console TV. It was a big beast with a faux-oak cabinet, turn dial switch for changing channels and a state of the art 25 inch screen! (25 inches!!) It was amazing. My mom was always after me for watching too much TV. She always said (and still maintains to this day) that if she wanted to punish me, she'd force me to "disconnect" or shut the TV off. If she wanted to punish my brother, she'd make him stay indoors. :)

I thought that having a big colour TV was the height of sophistication, until 1989, when we got our first VCR. Little did I realize what effect this little gem would have on my life.

We had a VCR in the house before, so I knew what they were, their awesomeness and how they worked. We used to go to a rental place not far from our house where we would get not only movies, but a VCR itself. I remember fondly renting movies like "Beetlejuice" and "Gremlins", and watching them again and again. I was in heaven.

One day, I remember my mom and dad bringing home a package from Sears and leaving it on top of our dishwasher. Me, being the snoopy kid I was, pestered and pestered my parents to tell me what it was. I remember my dad telling me "nevermind what it is, you'll find out later". I must've been persistent because after bothering them constantly, I think I was told it was furnace filters, or something equivalent to that, which would be boring to a kid. Later on that evening, I found out I had been had.

Upon entering the living room, I noticed, sitting on top of our TV was a shiny, beautiful, GLORIOUS, VCR of our own. It was a state of the art Sanyo, 2-head and mono with a digital tuner and a remote! I squealed with delight :) I was going to be the coolest kid on the street. Most of my friends already had VCR's of their own, but they were top-loading (ewwwww, old!) and had the manual channel buttons on the front you had to program (only 13 channels to record off? yuck! Ours could go to 69 whopping channels!). Also, we no longer needed to get up and turn the knob to change the channel! I was consumed by sheer unadulterated bliss!

I remember the first movies we rented with our own VCR were "Batteries Not Included" and "Jaws". I wasn't allowed to watch the latter of the two, but happily watched BNI three times before we had to return it the next day. I think my mom almost had to pry it out of my hot little hands. Ceremoniously, every weekend, like most families in the area, we'd go to the local video store to pick out movies to watch on the weekend. Our limit was usually 2, but sometimes, (especially if the kids couldn't agree) we'd get 3. We'd rush to the video store as soon as Dad was home from work with the car (because heaven forbid someone should rent Beetlejuice before I did without my permission!!). We'd make popcorn in our air popper (a Lemieux family staple) and bond over (sometimes wholesome) family entertainment.

My love affair with video tapes was enhanced even further when my parents bought me my first blank video tape for my birthday. It was a Kodak T120 video tape, and could record a WHOLE SIX HOURS of my shows!! (In EP mode of course). I went absolutely nuts. I wanted to record everything! Every episode I could squeeze of Square One or Gummi Bears went on to that tape. I watched and recorded incessantly. Movies would come on TV and I would diligently try to pause the tape when recording to save precious space. Through gifts and allowances, I continued to grow my stock of TV and movie goodness. I even went as far as pestering my neighbours (who had Pay-TV) to record movies for me off First Choice Super Channel and Family Channel whenever we had the chance. (And I lived for the free preview weekends so I could do it myself at home). My mom got us Disney movies; I had my very own copy of "The Fox and The Hound" and my 3 sisters were given a copy of "The Little Mermaid" (very coveted at the time).

As I got older and grew into movies more and more, my collection grew as well. Once I had my first job, I joined Columbia House (forging my mom's signature of course!) and continued to grow my collection from there. Also, when the local video store started selling off previously viewed copies of movies, I was first in line. Jurassic Park, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Twister and Diabolique were my mainstays. I laughed, I cried, I hid my face under pillows when it got too scary. Cinema in the home was an obsession of mine. Friends and I would trade from each copies of movies with each other, and also recordings of TV shows when the others missed out.

This continued on for many years, and as technology improved (4 heads, wow! - Stereo Audio, Dolby Surround) I was always right there on board, wanting the next best thing. Life was great.

Then DVD appeared.

All of a sudden, I was bombarded with advertisements telling me that DVD was better than VHS. That it had menus, no rewinding, better picture and sound. Oh and widescreen. (Because we need to see the movie as the director intended, not formatted to fit your screen). I felt conflicted. I had spent all this time and money accruing my video library, and I was now being told it was crap. VHS felt like a faithful friend to me, and I had reservations about turning my back on it.

While I jumped on the DVD train (and eventually had no choice once VHS was discontinued in 2004) I always held a special place in my heart for video tapes. I continued to collect them and watch them. To this day, I still buy videotapes from Value Village (Savers for my American friends) and watch them at home. Sometimes it is just simple economics. An old movie that I want to see - .69c on used VHS, but 3.99 to rent in iTunes. Is it technically inferior to DVD/BD/Digital Download? Yes. Is the movie cropped and formatted to fit my screen? Yes. Does that matter to me? Not really. My argument is that if a movie is shitty, it doesn't matter if it is widescreen or crystal clear, or analog. It is still a shitty movie. (Yes Mariah Carey, I am looking at you.)

While Hollywood continues to evolve and tries to make you repurchase your video library on a new format every 5-10 years, I am going to kick back and enjoy some long forgotten gems off a videotape. If the movie is after 2004, then of course, on DVD. I do find however that alot of movies these days lack substance, use too much CGI and are generally unworthy of their predecessors; but that is a whole other blog post.

Viva la VHS!

The Case Against DRM (An Opinion)

The Case against Digital Rights Management

I’ve been struggling lately with a dilemma over a TV show. I started watching “Mad Men” after a friend told me about how good it is. I went into iTunes, downloaded the first episode, and enjoyed it quite a bit. After doing this, I immediately wanted more.

My sister Danielle also got into the show with me, and we watched a few episodes together. When schedules changed and I wanted to keep on; I kept watching the show, with the intention to give my sister a copy after I was done.

While in the kitchen cooking one afternoon, I decided to access my Network Attached Storage Device (NAS) from my Linux-based netbook, and open the latest episode of Mad Men I had downloaded from the iTunes store. To my dismay, the episode didn’t open and I wasn’t able to watch it on my netbook. Upon further investigation, I learned that the video was DRM protected. So much for sharing it with my sister.

This irritated me as I had thought the iTunes store had gotten rid of DRM altogether. Upon further investigation, I realized that they had only gotten rid of it for music, not movies and TV Shows. This was my own fault, as a consumer I should’ve been a little more steadfast in my research, before buying DRM-protected video.

While I understand the premise of Digital Rights Management, I feel that the industry view has been skewed on it for sometime. The respective recording and motion picture industries (RIAA and MPAA) have long been combating digital piracy online since the early 2000’s. Compression technologies and increasingly higher bandwidths have been allowing pirates to make 1:1 copies of movies and music and freely distribute them, without any royalties or compensation being paid to the artists. The MPAA and RIAA have been quick to point out all of their estimated losses over time, and how DRM is needed to protect their assets. What no one is pointing out however, is the cost or burden that the end consumer bears in the process.

What I don’t like about DRM is that I feel it takes away my rights. As with any other product, I feel that once I purchase something, I should be able to do with it as I please (within reason). I’ve postulated on this before, trying to see both sides of the fence on the issue.

Here is an example of how DRM irritates me:

My sister and I watch “Mad Men” together. I am paying $2.49 CDN per episode to watch these episodes legally on my AppleTV via iTunes. We can’t meet up to watch a few episodes one week, so I decide to send her the file over MSN/Skype. Once she gets the file, she cannot open it because it is DRM protected.

-Now. If I had purchased the actual season of Mad Men on DVD, I could easily just lend her my discs and let her catch up. What bothers me about this is that I essentially am paying the same price to get a virtual DRM’d copy (which I consider to be inferior to the actual DVDs) for the convenience. The only caveat with this convenience is that it comes with its limitations.

Although I enjoy the convenience of modern day digital distribution, I feel I had more rights 10 years ago. I could take a VHS tape, program my VCR to record a show, and then pass it on to family or friends. Provided they had a VCR, I could do this no problem without limitations. With digital distribution in its current state, this sort of behaviour (which was ok for the first 20 years of my life, btw.) is frowned upon, and I essentially feel I am being punished by a corporation who wishes to maximize profits, and doesn’t trust the consumer.

Aside from lending the TV show to my sister (which in itself can be a contentious issue, lending is typically frowned upon by the MPAA.), I am bothered by the fact that I cannot play the file on the device of my choice. In addition to my AppleTV and iPhone, I also have a Linux netbook, a PS3 and several DVD players. I can’t convert a video to make an archival DVD copy; I can’t stream it to my PS3 either. Now I am not a person that would openly pirate video and share it online; but I do feel that I have the right to use media any way I see fit within my home – provided I am not selling it or exploiting the copyright holder in any way. Also – if Apple were ever to go under (not likely, but what if?) what would happen to my DRM’d material? Would the licenses be revoked on the content server?

What bothers me the most is that I choose to be legitimate and pay for movies and TV shows, unlike many who pirate by way of torrents. What troubles me about this is the fact that I am sold a file that has more limitations on it then that of which I could download free (and illegally) via a torrent website. As a consumer, I feel that I am being punished for doing what is “right”, and we are being driven towards the “wrong” behaviour of piracy for lack of a better option.

I think that there is hope in the future. As of early 2009, iTunes removed all DRM from music content in its store. Since then, there have been little to no complaints from media conglomerates on the ill effects of this action to their bottom line. In fact, this new movement has actually INCREASED music sales! (See link at bottom of post). Here’s hoping the same will apply to video in the near future.



Link: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/article.jsp?content=20080416_105241_7772

I exist, therefore I vacuum.

Technology never ceases to amaze me. Enter the latest addition to our household – the Roomba.

After a lifelong love/hate relationship with vacuuming (I love clean floors, don’t really care for vacuuming), this big puck will autonomously crawl the floor, ridding my world of cat hair, crumbs and dust bunnies. All for 140$. And it does a great job.

Owning a Roomba to me is a momentous occasion; because it essentially is the first real “robot” I have ever owned… …or is it? Humans have been relying on machines to do their dirty work now for at least the last century. I, like everyone else, have devices that do my dirty bidding – the laundry, recording my fave TV show, brewing me some coffee. What makes this little vacuum robot feel so different from the rest of them? I think it is the fact that it makes decisions with no input from the user.

When I first brought the unit home from the store, I let it do its mandatory 16hr charge, and then the next morning, (like a kid on Christmas morning), I tore out of bed to go and give it a try. After unplugging the AC adapter (I got the cheap one without the docking base), I hit “clean”, stood back and watched with awe. Roomba crawled through the room, bumping things and taking different paths, spinning, cleaning and calculating (and occasionally scaring the cats). After watching for almost a half an hour, I was quite impressed with the results.

While watching it go back and forth, I realized that it appeared to be making decisions. It would go in a straight line then bump a wall. “Oh I better turn around, can’t go past here” - or it would decide “Hey this is an edge, why don’t I crawl along it and pick up some dust bunnies?”. On and on it went. “Oh this is a staircase, better stay away” –or- “this seems dirtier than that other area I was just in, I’m going to go over this a few more times”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that this is just a series of algorithms that it is using that tell it what to do, based upon the feedback it receives from its sensors – but it seems more than that to me.

I use many devices to accomplish many things, usually they require minimal input from me, but they repeat the same set of commands over and over again, usually with little to no intervention. The devices don’t seem “intuitive” at all – they don’t usually compensate for changes in the environment when they occur. For example – if my food is burning, the oven won’t recognize this and shut off (even if it is on fire – lol!), or if my laptop is overheating, it doesn’t go after the program that is maxing out the CPU to try and slow it down.

We are entering an era of devices that are “situationally aware”, where they are able to make decisions for us, more and more, based upon current conditions, and adapt. Is it artificial intelligence or just fuzzy logic? We have devices that can teach themselves, we have vehicles that can park themselves, vacuums that can clean rooms without human supervision or intervention. It makes for pretty interesting times, and I am really excited for what is coming next.

On a more humanistic side of these technological musings, I can’t help but to meander down a little bit of more of an existential path – but that is a whole other blog entry. Meanwhile, without getting too deep – I’m just going to enjoy the fact I get to vacuum less now – Saaaaaaa-weeeett!

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