Mon 28 Jan 2008
Not even one month into 2008, and I’ve already spent more money on music this year than in all of 2007. The reason why? Amazon MP3 store has reasonably priced music without the crappy apple or microsoft DRM — which means I actually own the copies instead of just leasing them.
I suppose I should also give credit to Megs and Dave who introduced me to some new awesome bands (new to me, that is) that I am quite enjoying such as Ratatat and The Killers.
Now if only the tv/movie folks would get in line in this. I’d definitely consider a set-top box that worked with amazon unbox or netflix downloads for a decent price, which I suspect may happen in the year, but that’s only because I can tolerate leasing video because of it’s shorter shelf life.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:26pm
That set-top box is called a tivo. I use unbox on it every now and then. The complete idiocy is the 24 hour constraint, which is goddamned stupid.
And even though you know this, the fan boi in me HAS to point out that a nice portion of the apple music is DRM free :P
January 28th, 2008 at 8:37pm
I just got an HD Tivo. It has a link to buy from Unbox. I’ll let you know when I try it out.
You can also copy movies off of it to a linux box…though you need to get software from the back alleys of the internet to do it.
Rumors are that the Playstation 3 will support movie downloads real soon now.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:40pm
Curse you Johan and your fast commenting.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:15am
j3, uc: I find the cost of the HD tivo to be a bit high just as a set-top box to rent movies on. I would probably pay $250 for one that worked with Netflix’s unlimited policy but $250 + the rental costs starts getting up there. Though if it was a device I’d already have a dual use for (like how you guys have use for the DVR functions) — so the PS3 may be a perfect option if they have movie/tv rentals at a decent price.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:42pm
Oh, I don’t have the HD tivo, just the series 2. Get a hacked series 2 (for bigger HD goodness) off of ebay and have at it.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:05pm
Actually… now I wonder if the unbox experience would be any different with hd tivo vs regular tivo. Because regular tivos are pretty decently priced.