[wellylug] Presentation videos now available

[Tim Nicholas]

On 03/10/04 09:37, JP wrote:
>  --- Jamie Baddeley wrote: 
> 
> 
>>- First of all we need to recognise that the time
>>and effort that R2
>>provide is for free.
>>
> 
> Absolutely.  It is very kind of R2 and Jeremy to make
> the video available on-line in any form.  
> 
> 
>>- The last thing I think we want to have happen is
>>people stop coming to
>>a LUG meeting, because they can watch it online
>>instead. Catching up
>>each other in meatspace instead of cyberspace has
>>it's value.
>>
> 
> That might be true.  I certainly wouldn't stop going
> to meetings just because vids were available though. 
> Sometimes I have prior commitments that I can't get
> out of (e.g. child care), and that's where I would
> find videos useful.
> 
> 
>>- If you can't make it go, ask for help. I can watch
>>it here. All you
>>need is mplayer.
>>
> 
> 
> And using mplayer is just fine if you are comfortable
> with its legal status.  I'm not, because I haven't
> been able to find a clear statement that it is legal. 
> If you have something authoritative to the contrary,
> please let me know.  My understanding was that the
> site is still based in Hungary because making all the
> Windows codecs available for download would break all
> sorts of laws in most developed countries.  A bunch of
> free codecs have now been written, but to my
> knowledge, asx formats are still using proprietory
> ones.
> 


It was my understanding that it supports those codecs by using .dlls 
from windows, which (again, as I understand it) are able to 
redistributed legally. I'm quite prepared to believe that I'm wrong 
about that though.
Either way, you can compile and run mplayer without the .dlls, it just 
limits the options of which codecs you can use.

Personally, I'm glad I'm not inclined to observe the laws of this 
country as restrictively as you do. I evaluate such decisions on their 
moral worth - do I personally feel that what I am doing is unfair/unjust 
etc - and then additionally on risk reward. As such, I listen to all my 
music from the mp3s which I have ripped from CDs to my computer.

Tim


-- 
Tim Nicholas                          ||                      Cilix
Email: tim at nicholas.net.nz            ||    Wellington, New Zealand
http://tim.nicholas.net.nz/           ||   Cell/SMS: +64 21 337 204