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VIDEODROME
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26 Nov 2012, 4:22 pm

It depends. I think some books are more practical if they're physical such as a Cookbook or Car Manual. I don't like the idea of following a recipe of an E-reader in the kitchen where is could be spilled on or dropped in the sink. Or you can feel free to scribble your own notes on the pages.

There is also the collector aspect of physical media. I do think people would like to continue buying quality books to have handy on their shelf. I'm doing this a little bit myself while occasionally evaluating and turning over my collection and recently chucking out old paperbacks.

I also think if you have any good hardcover that you've added several book marks to important sections, it can in fact be more simple to use. There is no fiddling with an Kindle Menu, you just pull if off the shelf and open it to the book mark. I also think if a person is doing research it would be very nice to have multiple open reference books on their desk and I think using a single E-reader for this would be frustrating.

On the other hand, it would be nice to use the E-readers for lite fiction that a reader doesn't consider collectible or memorable. In other cases, it's great to find old books for cheap or even free or books that are hard to find. In this way a person might discover new authors they would like the have hard copy books from. For example, I found The Art of War by Sun Tzu for free, yet if I happen to find a hard copy I would seriously consider buying it for my shelf. On the other hand if I get an E-book that is a very dry boring non-fiction book then I can just delete it. So basically, I think the sentiment is that hard copy will become leaner, but still exist for quality books.



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26 Nov 2012, 4:48 pm

It would be a sad, sad day if books were to die out, for me at least. There's just something about books that's timeless. This topics brings back memories of reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, *shivers*.

As for movies, I don't know. I think the movie watching experience will continue to change, like it always has.



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26 Nov 2012, 5:12 pm

Oodain wrote:
probably, at one point or another,

in some ways it is a good thing and others not,

leaving behind the physical one doesnt have to waste resources on something that in many cases is temporary fun to begin with.
it also makes the final product cheaper to produce so it can be sold cheaper, it is also easier to produce and sell so a single person at home can do what billion dollar companies had to do a decade or so ago.


At least the last time I checked, eBooks at Amazon were not cheaper than the corresponding paperback. In fact I just checked again, and the example book I chose is $19.90 hardback, $11.60 paperback and $14.99 for the Kindle version. This is absurd. In exchange for buying a $200 tablet they'll charge me more money for the book while at the same time saving themselves the cost of printing, distributing and shipping the book. Now, granted it may be favorable to some people to use an eBook reader rather than a physical book - personally I'm still on the fence - but as a pure exercise in cost savings, for someone who normally buys paperback books it makes no sense.



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26 Nov 2012, 5:23 pm

TallyMan wrote:
thewhitrbbit wrote:
I don't think books will ever go away completely. I for one am at times uncomfortable with the idea of everything being online only. What if the power goes out?


I agree. My computer is quite old. I have another even older, but if both of those fail I'm in a mess as I can't afford to replace them at the moment.


this destroys my willing suspension of disbelief. Because you can buy computers at 100 USD. And that's just as much as I wasted on cabs when I went to the US.

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Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein managed very will with paper and ink.
But it would have been dumb for them not to use audiovisual resources if they were available. In fact, I'd dare to say that knowing Einstein's story in school, he could have really gotten use of them when he was a kid.

I mean, this argument is almost as silly as reminding us that old scientists were all creationists. So what? That says nothing about what those guys would do now if given accurate information about evolution and if given more than book resources.

Oh and legal ebooks are artificially expensive. This will change eventually. But for now, it is anti-culture not to pirate thousands of books and not keep them in your computer.


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26 Nov 2012, 6:31 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:
Hopefully.

Books are a waste of paper. They should only print about 100 copies of a good book and leave them in refrigerated museums throughout the world, just in case civilization crashes and all our computer grid dies, so that their information can be recovered by future civilizations. But the consumer books should be 100% computerized.



So if books are a waste of paper, what about libraries? Libraries mainly use books(we have ebooks and other form of books as well, but mainly books with paper). We supply people with knowledge, who dont have access to ebooks.(We do it for free aswell).


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26 Nov 2012, 6:33 pm

ScrewyWabbit wrote:
Oodain wrote:
probably, at one point or another,

in some ways it is a good thing and others not,

leaving behind the physical one doesnt have to waste resources on something that in many cases is temporary fun to begin with.
it also makes the final product cheaper to produce so it can be sold cheaper, it is also easier to produce and sell so a single person at home can do what billion dollar companies had to do a decade or so ago.


At least the last time I checked, eBooks at Amazon were not cheaper than the corresponding paperback. In fact I just checked again, and the example book I chose is $19.90 hardback, $11.60 paperback and $14.99 for the Kindle version. This is absurd. In exchange for buying a $200 tablet they'll charge me more money for the book while at the same time saving themselves the cost of printing, distributing and shipping the book. Now, granted it may be favorable to some people to use an eBook reader rather than a physical book - personally I'm still on the fence - but as a pure exercise in cost savings, for someone who normally buys paperback books it makes no sense.


Consider using the library? We have ebooks/paper books for free!


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26 Nov 2012, 7:11 pm

ScrewyWabbit wrote:
Oodain wrote:
probably, at one point or another,

in some ways it is a good thing and others not,

leaving behind the physical one doesnt have to waste resources on something that in many cases is temporary fun to begin with.
it also makes the final product cheaper to produce so it can be sold cheaper, it is also easier to produce and sell so a single person at home can do what billion dollar companies had to do a decade or so ago.


At least the last time I checked, eBooks at Amazon were not cheaper than the corresponding paperback. In fact I just checked again, and the example book I chose is $19.90 hardback, $11.60 paperback and $14.99 for the Kindle version. This is absurd. In exchange for buying a $200 tablet they'll charge me more money for the book while at the same time saving themselves the cost of printing, distributing and shipping the book. Now, granted it may be favorable to some people to use an eBook reader rather than a physical book - personally I'm still on the fence - but as a pure exercise in cost savings, for someone who normally buys paperback books it makes no sense.


i have bhought quite a lot of ebooks on amazon and all of them far cheaper than the paper version.
many in the 2 or 3 dollar range or below.

there are probably plenty of places where the opposite is true as well,
but the kindle specifically comes with a selection of free books, there are plenty of free or virtually free publications out there as well, i agree that a digital copy should cost less, but in some cases that might not be possible for a retailer since the digital rights are sold independently from the print and as such a publisher could decide to increase such licensing to ridicoulous levels, if amazon did so themselves it would be case for concern(for most small authors they can actually set whatever they want and change it on a daily basis, how it functions large scale i dont know)

also i dont think anyone here is advicating actually fully abandoning paper, but for amny things, like school material, newspapers, magazines and so forth there is an inherent issue of reasonable lifetime, here meant as the time in which such work has a relevance for what it was intended and to a majority of people.

i also hate the fact that amazon can take up to some 30% off of small to semi small authors, much less than a publisher would give an author or artist but still a lot for what some would say little(though they do give insurance and a lot of other benefits to small publishers)


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26 Nov 2012, 7:25 pm

Keniichi wrote:
ScrewyWabbit wrote:
Oodain wrote:
probably, at one point or another,

in some ways it is a good thing and others not,

leaving behind the physical one doesnt have to waste resources on something that in many cases is temporary fun to begin with.
it also makes the final product cheaper to produce so it can be sold cheaper, it is also easier to produce and sell so a single person at home can do what billion dollar companies had to do a decade or so ago.


At least the last time I checked, eBooks at Amazon were not cheaper than the corresponding paperback. In fact I just checked again, and the example book I chose is $19.90 hardback, $11.60 paperback and $14.99 for the Kindle version. This is absurd. In exchange for buying a $200 tablet they'll charge me more money for the book while at the same time saving themselves the cost of printing, distributing and shipping the book. Now, granted it may be favorable to some people to use an eBook reader rather than a physical book - personally I'm still on the fence - but as a pure exercise in cost savings, for someone who normally buys paperback books it makes no sense.


Consider using the library? We have ebooks/paper books for free!


How does one borrow an eBook? Does it simply get deleted from your device after a set # of days, or ?



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26 Nov 2012, 7:52 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:
TallyMan wrote:
thewhitrbbit wrote:
I don't think books will ever go away completely. I for one am at times uncomfortable with the idea of everything being online only. What if the power goes out?


I agree. My computer is quite old. I have another even older, but if both of those fail I'm in a mess as I can't afford to replace them at the moment.


this destroys my willing suspension of disbelief. Because you can buy computers at 100 USD. And that's just as much as I wasted on cabs when I went to the US.


At this moment in time that is 100 USD per month more than I'm earning. :(


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26 Nov 2012, 10:34 pm

ScrewyWabbit wrote:

Consider using the library? We have ebooks/paper books for free!


How does one borrow an eBook? Does it simply get deleted from your device after a set # of days, or ?[/quote]

Exactly. The e-book has licensing gizmo which tells the reader the period time during which you can read the pages. After the time expires, the data is still on your computer or e-reader but the program will not access it for display.

There is an unethical ploy called "jail breaking" you e-book and bypassing the licensing gizmo. However doing this is equivalent to stealing the book. It is not nice to jail break an e-book.

ruveyn



27 Nov 2012, 12:00 am

Jitro wrote:
Will books and physical movies (DVDs, Blu-Rays or whatever form they're in) die out?




Never.


Watching movies on your laptop just can't compete with going out and seeing a movie in the theater. Especially when those movies are filmed in IMAX which is literally larger than life. 8)


Books will also never be obsolete since they do not require electricity to read and ultimately much cheaper to produce per copy than an amazon kindle.



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27 Nov 2012, 7:53 am

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Books are obsolete. For real learning you need videos and animation.


Weird...i hardly received any information during the lessons in school, could hardly learn while everyone around me was performing and creating noise, but had no problems because of learning from books during night when everybody slept. ^^ And why do i receive and keep much more information when reading a book, then watching a film at cinema? A book does not make any noise, a book does not force me to translate the noises into thoughts, in a book i can read the speed that is normally to me, while because of the noise talk in the film, a film is always bound to speech-speed.

I also have to disagree the poster before me from my personal opinion. Even when it comes to series and other things, which i cannot read in a book, watching it at home is for me thousand times better than any cinema or Imax. If i had a cinema for me alone, yes i would agree. But i hate cinemas...always there are people talking, making noise, laughing so you cannot understand anything and so on... i hate it. There is no use to IMAX when 10% of the visitors are acting like childs. (With real childs i have got no problems, i mean childs are acting like childs and thats normal, but grown ups acting like childs in cinemas i really do hate. -.-)

I´d wish the movie cinemas would start working together with the movie plattforms. If there was a good movie plattform, where i could be sure that there are no hidden viruses, with good service and speed etc...and a good solution i´d had no problem to spend a few dollars for watching a streamed film.

With the music it was the same, there had been illegal download portals and often you had crap quality and everything and when the first official supported download music portals started with good quality, many people had no problems to pay for a good service and quality. I just dont understand why it its so important for the companies, that i have to watch the films in the god damn cinemas at release. -.-

When it comes to books, i am happy about my e-book reader. So there is lots of stuff i only read one time, or i am noisy to read and so on and its ok for me. Still there are series and books i really do like, and which i do read again, which i like to have as real book. Also for hiking i would not like to carry my e-book reader with me. So i had the possibility to charge it via a portable solar energy station that we use to be able to charge up our mobile telephones in an emergency, but a book is more stabile, it can get wet as long as you dont bath it and so on. :)



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27 Nov 2012, 7:47 pm

My Kindle doesn't work after the battery dies and there is a power outage.

Digital movies don't come with special features.

I'm keeping my physical books and movies.


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27 Nov 2012, 8:30 pm

ruveyn wrote:
ScrewyWabbit wrote:

Consider using the library? We have ebooks/paper books for free!


How does one borrow an eBook? Does it simply get deleted from your device after a set # of days, or ?


Exactly. The e-book has licensing gizmo which tells the reader the period time during which you can read the pages. After the time expires, the data is still on your computer or e-reader but the program will not access it for display.

There is an unethical ploy called "jail breaking" you e-book and bypassing the licensing gizmo. However doing this is equivalent to stealing the book. It is not nice to jail break an e-book.

ruveyn[/quote]

Unethical coming from you is a hoot. You're all about free market. The free market dictates that it is best for one to get their goods at the cheapest price, assuming quality is a non-issue. A quick reality check will show you that, hey, most e-books are available for the low low price of free! You'd be an idiot to get 'em anywhere else.

When I feel like supporting an author, I go out and buy the book, you know, actually get something for my money.


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28 Nov 2012, 8:06 am

ruveyn wrote:
ScrewyWabbit wrote:

Consider using the library? We have ebooks/paper books for free!


How does one borrow an eBook? Does it simply get deleted from your device after a set # of days, or ?


You copy it.
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Quote:
There is an unethical ploy called "jail breaking" you e-book and bypassing the licensing gizmo. However doing this is equivalent to stealing the book. It is not nice to jail break an e-book.

It is never unethical to jail break. This seems to be the topic of which you are the least uninformed about (And that's saying a lot), so I recommend you not to talk about it again.

If we'd like to talk about unethical things, making devices that need jail breaking would be one.


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28 Nov 2012, 9:37 am

No. I still only have physical books and movies. No digital stuff for me.

I have relatives that don't even have a computer at their house. They aren't interested in the digital stuff either.