Can You Spare a Minute?

Yesterday, I spent some time copying half-hour programs from the hard disk of the satellite PVR to my PC. Then I burnt, a number of the programs to DVD. It did seem a shame that they were already in mpeg format but in order to get them onto my computer, they had to pass through analog again. It was not really a quality problem as the results looked just fine. Yet, it would've saved time to copy the files directly rather than have to wait for all the programs to play through in real time.

That's the rub for content providers, isn't it? Copying analog was never considered too much of a threat to the established media industry. A two-hour video tape or 35-minutes of vinyl were easily taped. It wasn't the loss of signal to the next generation that kept copyright infringement at bay; it was the actual length of time that the copying process took! Now even a layman can copy a 2.5-hour DVD in 20 minutes. A whole album in mp3 format can be duplicated in under a minute. I see why some companies are running scared.

The DVDs which I made contain ethnic TV programs from Ontario. The Singhalese (and English) show called Kala Kavaya hosts news and events from the Sri Lankan community in Toronto. As well, they show some current music videos and songs from Sri Lanka. I'm able to pass these along for viewing to those without access to satellite TV.