Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 5 February 2003
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Allister Jenks
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Yes, I'd download, but

...I would only download something I would buy in a shop.
With the exception of a few classic TV series, my DVD
buying is a constant hunt for quality documentary titles on
aviation subjects, and occasionally other documentary
subjects.

If download from the net would make wider selections
available, then I'm all for it.




From: Craig
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Yes this is already happening

When I missed a few episodes of a favourite show late last
year I started filesharing using kazaa lite - a bit of
searching showed a wealth of material available. Some
interesting things I had never heard of.

With a jetstream starter connection and picking the lower
quality smaller divx encoded files I was able to get a lot
of material that I had missed very fast. Most 1 hour shows
are only 40 minutes of actual program - with lower quality
encoding it can be only 70 megabytes - around an hour to
download on a good day.

Of course some shows are only available in high quality
approx 400-500 megabytes - and can take ages to obtain
leaving your PC on while at work is a solution.

I never expected to be nearing a 10 gigabyte download limit
of my ISP when I got jetstream - but I used 2 gigabytes in
one 24 hour period in December.

Right now I'm only bothering to get the newest episodes of 2
shows that I follow. I haven't watched television in the
past 2 months - why put up with the ads ?




From: David Annett
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: 300MB via Telecom, no way !

If you use Telecom for you ADSL connection, and who doesn't,
then there is no way you will pull down 300MB without a real
good reason and TV isn't it.  If you are a Jetstream user
then 300 x 20c = $60 so that's not going to fly.  If you are
a Jetstart user then 300MB = 10% of your 3GB cap (from
memory), alot to waste on one file.




From: bede
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: dnl movies tv shows

the fact is theres terrabytes of downloaded material
avalible in new zealand that you can dnl that wont count
against your international data count

see www.p2p.net.nz

as an avid futurama fan, ive been able to get all the
episodes I want from either source nz or otherwise,

how ever i have noticed alot of the early seasons of some
shows are only aval in poor quality rips as the hardware
avalible wasnt around to rip and encode it properly
this will most likely change when they get rerun sometime in
the near future,

Or the show makers put out there series on DVD like the
simpsons have




From: TomV
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: downloading programmes works for me

Using Kazaa lite and Ultra I can download an 80 meg DivX5
Episode of enterprise in around 20 minutes, plug the TV out
into the digital TV and sit back and watch.

The encoding is a little lossy, with some pixellation
visible particularly during active scenes, but the quality
is still better than watching tele on the old K9 with
rabbit ears used to be until just a few years ago.

We've found that by 5 minutes into the programme we aren't
even aware of the lower quality any more, we just watch and
enjoy.

We do this routinely now. With a 2GIG international cap, I
have to be careful in the last 10 days of the month or so,
but I'll check out that local P2P link. Even that problem
may pass.

We used to spend $5 to get a Voyager video out for 3 days
from the local video store when we got sick of waiting for
local tele to creen it. I would happily pay that price or
more to download ( 50KBps absolute minimum for that price)
a TV episode and watch on demand.

I'm guessing a slightly higher quality DIVX would only come
in at around 150Meg per hours viewing for near video
quality viewing. Once the entertainment industry pulls its
head out of its arse and allows online "video Stores" with
local caches, and cable/ADSL suppliers allow more bandwidth
for download from those caches, the business model will go
boom.

Ultra already has a VPN setup for one click high bandwidth
download. I'm no technical expert but surely site specific
VPNs with higher bandwidth are technically acheievable with
ADSL or cable?
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