Results tagged “movies” from Missing Manuals Blog

Problem:
You're prepared to be stuck at the $&$^%#%@ airport for nine &#&$%%#^ hours when you remember you have a Netflix account and you can use your broadband wireless card to watch some movies to kill the time. However, you are on a Mac and you are told the following:

"Your system is not compatible with watching instantly "Your computer's operating system is not compatible with watching instantly. "Try again from a computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista."

The Answer:
Steve Jobs and Slingbox (The technology that Netflix is powered by) need to work out a solution to enable the growing marketshare of users who are switching to Macs to be able to get full value from services like Netflix's Watch it Now and the live streaming feature on DirecTV's SuperFan NFL package. Perhaps there could be a conversion through Flip for Mac that could accommodate this?

Ah, Star Wars. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the film's release, with all its sarcastic Han Solo lines and nifty technology -- even a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. After all, Star Wars showed us droids, comlinks and movie/data discs a few decades before we got Roombas, wireless Bluetooth headsets, and DVDs stocked in Earth stores. (And that flying practice drone that shot Luke in the tuchis when he was learning how to use his lightsaber -- now that's a gadget that really fights back.)

If you're still into Star Wars, Lucasfilm is giving you a chance to really get into the movie. InformationWeek, among other sources, has details about this new feature added to the revamped StarWars.com site:

The redesigned site will include a variety of Web 2.0 features, including an online media remix platform from video editing startup Eyespot. Using Eyespot's tools, Star Wars fans will be able to mix their own video source material with over 250 scenes and sounds from the six Star Wars films.

Okay, that's pretty cool, even if you're not a huge fan of the movies: a huge pop-culture franchise is not going to sue your pants off if you want to tinker around with copyrighted material and make your own creation to share with the world. No word yet if you can download your mashup to your video iPod, but I'll be checking it out.

The Queen has arrived! The video library of movies and TV shows is growing nicely over in the iTunes Store -- all in good time for summer and the start of vacation and maximum slacking season. I've purchased quite a few things from the Store, including most of this season's Veronica Mars. Even though the prices are reasonable, I've also been spending a lot of time on a site where the movies and music are even cheaper.

They're free, in fact.

The Internet Archive has been around for more than a decade, but since I got my video iPod, I find I've been visiting it way more often than I used to. The site -- a non-profit organization based in San Francisco -- collects all sorts of digitized audio, video and text for scholars, historians or anybody who wants to look. And being digital, you can even download some of the works.

For iPod enthusiasts, the fact that you can get lots of music in MP3 format or video in the MPEG-4 means you can take it with you (if the file has been bestowed with a "Download" link, that is). Granted, much of the content is older and in the public domain, but if you have any interest in film, music, or cultural history, it's easy to blow most of the afternoon roaming the virtual halls of the Internet archive. The usage rights vary and not everything is downloadable, but the site explains what you can do with each work you find.