Watch free B-movies
B-movies are low cost or budget movies set in a certain genre like Horror or Science Fiction. Not all have been bad movies and some were the first part to fame for actors such as Jack Nicholson or John Wayne. Bmovies.com is a website that makes available hundreds of B-movies to viewers from all over the world. The real beauty is that those movies can be streamed - and thus watched - on the website .
DIVX All In One Fix
If you experience troubles playing movies using the DIVX codec that is installed on your computer you might want to take a look at a bundle of fixes for DivX that is called All In One Fix. This is not intended for users who use ffdshow for instance to play movies, only for those who are actually using the DIVX codec.
Play music with people around the globe
I don't understand why no one did create a software that would connect people form around the world to jam with each other and create music that way. This is one natural application that would make it easier for everyone from beginning musicians to bands that are separated and need to jam with each other.
Artists are leaving the sinking ship
Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Jamiroquai and even Madonna have something in common. They all decided to turn their backs on the Music Industry and either market their albums directly or - in the case of Madonna - use a company that is not related to the Music Industry.
Convert DVDs with Handbrake
I don't like to take my purchased movie DVDs with me when I travel but still love to have some of my favorite or new movies with me in case I would like to watch a movie on my notebook. I could of course burn those DVDs and take the backups with me but this is not ideal in my opinion. I do not like to carry any media with me when traveling.
Copying bought music is stealing!
That is at least what Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, said when questioned in court about her music piracy understanding. I think that this is one of the main reasons why the Music Industry is doing so badly. Their view collides with the demand of the consumers.
Radiohead is trying a new distribution method
Radiohead is a well known English rock band which was formed in 1986. They currently are under no contract with a major record label and are therefor trying to distribute their upcoming album called In Rainbows which will be released October 10, 2007 and exclusively available for purchase on an Internet website.
Joost 1.0 Beta is out
Joost has released yet another version of their acclaimed Internet TV client that streams prerecorded TV shows to the users computer. The new version has one feature in particular that was well overdue. Joost can now be updated from within the client. Users do not have to download and install new versions from the Joost website anymore.
Watch TV premieres early
It seems that the TV companies have finally began to understand that the Internet is more than just a way to publish their TV program on the website. They understand that it will benefit their business if they publish TV premieres early on the Internet to create some buzz that could not be created otherwise.
Amazon DRM Free MP3 Store
I always wondered which company would be able to compete with Apple's iTunes store and only a handful companies came to my mind. Besides Microsoft and eBay Amazon came to my mind. They are a established brand and I do not know a single person who does not have an Amazon account already.
Play Last.fm Radio Streams in your Music Player
Last.fm does not offer an obvious option to play music streams in an external music player. It is however possible to obtain the stream url for several radio streams from last.fm and use them in your favorite music player. This is also an excellent opportunity to record those songs using that player. I do recommend XMPlay for this.
20000 Euro per song ?
Server operators who happen to have songs on their servers that are distributed illegally will have to pay the fine of 20000 Euro ($28000) per song: at least in Germany according to the district court in Hamburg. Private downloaders get it much cheaper though. They only have to pay 6000 Euro for the first song, 3000 for the second, 1500 for the third and 600 for all remaining ones. A cheap bargain don't you think ?
Winamp 5.5 lite vs. XMPlay Memory Management
A new beta version of Winamp 5.5 has just been released as usual in a full, pro and lite version. Winamp lite is basically a music player supporting many different audio formats while the other Winamp editions support video playback, cd ripping and an integrated browser to browse sites like Shoutcast.
Nine Inch Nail Remix Album on Bittorrent
Nine Inch Nails is one of the few bands that is openly opposing the music industry by trying out new ways and methods to distribute their music. This time a full album called 'The Limitless Potential' containing 21 tracks of fan made Nine Inch Nail remixes were released to the public.
The IT Crowd Anti-Piracy Ad
The IT Crowd is one of the best British comedy series ever produced. It's up to the point, uses nerdy characters that remind me of many of my work colleagues.The IT Crowd is about three guys - actually two guys and their female boss - from the IT appartement and their daily life in the office.
NBC cooperates with Amazon after ditching Apple
NBC wants more control on pricing and usage restrictions while Apple did not want to give in which is why the current relationship between those two is a little bit icy and it remains unclear if NBC shows will still be available in iTunes at years end. Meanwhile Amazon and NBC announced that NBC's tv shows will be made available on Unbox.
How much would you pay for one tv show episode ?
NBC recently tried to raise the price that users had to pay for one tv show episode from $1.99 to $4.99 which was rejected by Apple. NBC then decided to stop offering shows on iTunes and accusations were ping-ponged between both parties.
The HD-DVD vs. Blue-Ray war confuses consumers
The war between HD-DVD and Blue-Ray entered a next stage with the announcements of Paramount and Dreamworks to publish their lineup exclusively on HD-DVD. Rumors soon spread around the Internet that both companies were receiving payments (Paramount $50 million dollars, Dreamworks $100 million dollars) from HD supporters to make this decision.
The ultimate way to tag and rename mp3s
I'm one of those guys who likes to have a neatly categorized mp3 collection with a distinct folder structure ( band name / album ) and properly named and tagged songs. I absolutely hate it if songs are not properly named or are missing tags because it messes up my iPod as well.
Schedule Online Music Recordings
RaimaRadio is a free software that lets you record music played by online radio stations. Several other programs such as XMPlay or Streamripper offer the same functionality and you might be wondering why I'm reviewing just another Internet Radio streamripper. The answer could not be simpler, RaimaRadio offers several unique features that make it worth a review.
Remove Protections from DVD folders
Free DVD is a small freeware that is able to remove certain protections and other unwanted features of Video_TS folders on your hard drive. The software can remove the Region Code, Region Code Enhancements, Macrovision and so called UOPS (user operation prohibitions) protections.
DVDFab HD Decrypter
DVDFab HD Decrypter is a free DVD and HD ripper that is able to copy the contents of a movie onto your hard drive even if that movie is copy protected. It can remove DVD copy protections such as CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS and even manages to remove AACS from Blue-Ray and HD-DVD disks which means that it should be possible to copy most DVDs and HD DVDs that you have to your hard disk without running into copy protection problems.
Why DRM is not consumer friendly
I just read an interesting article at Arstechnica by Ken Fisher who was commenting on the termination of Google's commercial Video service. The termination takes effect in just two days which would not be a big problem if the users who bought or rented videos from the service would still be able to play their purchased videos after that date.
Watch the Summer Olympics 2008 in China online for free
The Summer Olympics 2008 in China will probably be the biggest sport event in 2008 next to the Euro 2008. Many people from all over the world have the opportunity to watch the Summer Olympics live because they have access to television channels who broadcast the event.
Holiday Tip: Store your DVDs on your Notebook
I always take my notebook with me when I go on holidays with my family or friends to make sure that I can update and administrate my websites during that time. I also like to take a few of my DVDs with me to be able to watch them when there is nothing else to do, nothing beats watching a DVD on a rainy day in my opinion.
Download 'Watch Now' Movies from Netflix
Netflix, a online movie rentals company, is offering a so called 'Watch Now' service since the beginning of 2007 which allows subscribed users to watch streaming movies. This offer lets you watch x hours of movies where x is the amount that you pay in dollars for your monthly subscription.
What is the name of this song?
I can't rememeber the name of the song but it goes something like this.. If you ever have been in a situation where you were not able to remember the name of the song that you heard either because it was played on radio or a song of the past you should check out the new service Midomi to get a good chance to discover the songs name.
Taking another look at Joost
It has been a few months since I used Joost for the last time and I thought it would be a good time to take another look at Joost considering the announcement that they would go live at the end of the year with almost one million beta testers. A post at the Cybernet Blog also called my attention where Ashley asked if someone was actually still using Joost.
How to play flv files on Windows
Several readers have been asking how they would be able to play movies with the flv extension. Those flash videos do not play normally in standard programs such as Windows Media Player but there are a handful of great alternative video players that support flv files out of the box.
Free Music List July 2007
The article Free Music List December 2005 was a very successful article back in 2005 and I finally found the time to update the article with new sites and get rid of links to sites that do not exist anymore. Most of the sites listed below allow downloads even for non registered users, several ask you to register after downloading some albums and some require a registration before you can start to download or stream music.
Seeqpod search and listen to music
Seeqpod offers two ways to find new and exciting music. The first is the so called PodCrawler which constantly displays songs that have been found and added to the database. From what I can tell they are crawling official band and company websites as well as podcasts and probably other websites as well.
FairUse4WM 1.3 works with Vista and Zune
A new version of FairUse4WM hit the Internet two days ago which is able to strip the DRM - that is Digital Rights Management - right of music files that use MS DRM IBX components up to version 11.0.6000.6324. So, if you own a Zune, use the Yahoo music service, Urge or several other services you might want to give FairUse4WM a try and get rid of the DRM in the music.
Liberated Films
Liberated Films is a movie plattform that brings independent film makers and film enthusiasts together on a single website. Independent film makers get a lot of exposure from the central plattform while viewers are able to enjoy more than 9000 films that are currently hosted on site.
Huge List of Free Legal MP3 Sites
I found a very comprehensive list of sites that offer mp3's that can be legally and freely downloaded. The list is neatly categorized which aids the visitor in finding out which sites offer mp3 files that could be worth the download.
Tune in with Tun3r
While I love Internet Radio streams I sometimes find it hard to find a station that plays the kind of music I want to listen to right now. I do have some regular stations that I normally listen to but when I want to listen to something else I have to search shoutcast and tune in into several stations to find the one that is playing music I like to hear.
Stream Music over the Internet with Vibe Streamer
A friend of mine was asking me if there was a quick and easy way to stream music over the Internet. I did some research for him and found the solution in the free software Vibe Streamer. This program makes it possible to stream music over Internet and Lan and comes equipped with all the features necessary to make it a great product.
Song identification community
It's been a long time since Wildbits started to provide an amazing and free music identification software called Tunatic which helped me many times identify a song I loved. This happened for instance when I recorded Internet radio streams without information about the artist or the song name. I bet you've happened to be in such situation too.
Simpsons promotion
Ok. I have seen lots of movie promotions but this one is topping them all. Remember the Simpsons tv series ? The Kwik-E-Mart were Apu is pressing money out of Homer and his friends ? Well, they apparently created several of those across the United States to promote the new Simpson movie.
Preview Daily Top 25 of Youtube with SlapVid
If you ever wondered how so many users are able to watch hundreds of videos that are published on Youtube on a daily basis you might want to consider using a service like SlapVid which offers previews of the daily top 25 videos at Youtube.
Crunchyroll Asian Movie site with many translations
I love Asian movies, especially the ones from South Korea and Japan which sometimes reach a quality that is on par with only the most exclusive movies from Hollywood. But there is more than Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano, just consider all the great Anime movies or television series that rarely make an appearance on Western television.
