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June 26, 2006

Broadcast Flag legislation

I got this today from ipacaction.org:

Dear IPac Supporter,

Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary committee continues its markup of Senator
Ted Stevens' omnibus communications bill. It's a lengthy and complicated
piece of legislation, but hidden deep within are the broadcast and audio
flags. Both represent the latest and perhaps most desperate attempts by
the Hollywood cartels to control innovation, roll back fair use, and
disrupt the free market.

The bill mandates a government technology committee that would approve
or reject devices based on their functionality, just like Hollywood
wants. For example, new personal video recorders could be blocked from
the market for having too much functionality, allowing users to tweak
their settings, or interfacing with non-approved devices in your
entertainment system. This kind of silly bottleneck would be laughable
if it wasn't so close to becoming law.

Now is the time to let our representatives know how the flags would
decimate the consumer electronics industry while erasing our fair use
rights.

Please call the Senators on the Judiciary committee and let your voice
be heard.

http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/06/help-lower-broadcast-flag.html

Posted by Bill Dettering at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

June 23, 2006

Replay A/V and Sirius now working together again

Well, I've calmed down a bit since my last rant about the online Sirius tuner, mostly because we've figured out a way to get Replay A/V and Sirius working together again. And even better, you can now record Howard Stern!

If you're a Replay A/V or Replay Radio user, download and install the update.

If you're not yet a customer, and want to be able to record Sirius shows automatically on your PC, give Replay A/V a try.

Also - in my new bliss, I've come up with a reason for the Captcha (those squiggly letters you need to reenter) which DOES make business sense. Perhaps they did this to prevent automated robots from stealing subscribers logins and listening for free.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

June 13, 2006

Sirius locks out the Blind

Sirius just added a new "feature" to their online listening system whereby users must now enter a "captcha" to listen online. (A captcha is a human-only-readable series of letters used to prevent automated logins.)

From our perspective, this totally prevents automatic tuning and unattended recording of radio shows. It's a bummer for our users.

From the perspective of Blind users (of which we have many), this is a disaster. Now there's no way for them to listen online at all.

I don't understand the business sense behind this. If you're going to have an online service at all, why make it more difficult (or impossible) for your users to use it. It's not as if automatic recordings of the online feeds are hurting sales of their new player-recorder, since they agreed to limit its distribution anyway.

The possibilities are:

A) They are a bunch of morons.

or

B) There's a good business reason for this I haven't thought of, and I'm the moron.

I'll go with A unless anyone submits a comment convincing me otherwise. Sirius employees are extra welcome to respond. Sirius management is extra-extra welcome to respond.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

Press Release for Replay SlingCorder

New Software Records Slingbox TV Broadcasts

SAN ANSELMO, CA - June 13, 2006 - Applian Technologies today announced the arrival of Replay Slingcorder, the first and only PC Software that captures TV broadcasts directly from the Sling Media SlingBox™. For the first time, travelers can record their Slingbox™ TV feeds, and watch them anytime, anywhere, even without an active internet connection.

With a single click, Replay SlingCorder enables customers to record instantly, or schedule recordings for automatic capture later. All recordings are exact reproductions from the original Slingbox™ TV stream, resulting in the best possible quality. Videos are stored as Windows Media files, and play on any PC.

"Our research showed that the only real shortcoming of the Slingbox™ was the lack of a recording feature," said Bill Dettering, CEO of Applian Technologies. "Using our expertise in recording streaming video, we've been able to deliver a solution that makes an already excellent Slingbox™ product even more useful. Our beta testers have been delighted with the video quality and ease of use of Replay SlingCorder."

Replay Slingcorder is available immediately for purchase from www.replay-slingcorder.com for $29.95. A free demo is also available. Replay Slingcorder requires a Windows based PC running SlingPlayer™ and 5Mb of disk space.

About Applian Technologies Inc.

Applian Technologies is the global leader in streaming media recording software for capturing video and audio delivered over the internet. Other popular Applian products include Replay Radio, Replay A/V, Replay Music, the Replay Video Suite, Replay Screencast and Replay Converter. More information on Applian Technologies is found at Applian.com.

Please direct all press inquiries to Leslie Bee via leslie@applian.com.

Slingbox and Sling Player are trademarks of Sling Media Inc.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

June 03, 2006

Replay Converter

Well, this has been a big week for new product releases!

Today we released Replay Converter, which is the long-awaited converter for audio and video files. Many customers have wanted to do this, and as such, we've built the easiest-possible solution.

You can convert from Windows Media, Real, QuickTime, MPEG, Flash and Flash Video (FLV), MP3, WAV, OGG and few other formats. Outputs are Windows Media, AVI, SWF (Flash), MP3, iPod Video, Play Station Portable MPEG-4 Video, MP3, OGG, WAVE and a few others. We've covered all the popular formats.

Try Replay Converter free today!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)


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