Interesting!!!! 8 Mbps uncapped ADSL!!

[shadowfox]

I'm not going to quote all that - too much - but I'm not disagreeing with you.

But with uncapped arriving, those services become more easily accessible, and suddenly moaning about cost doesn't make that much sense. Besides, Funimation offer streaming services, and there are websites like AnimeNewsNetwork and Crunchyroll that offer streaming services of anime episodes as well.

And the subs from Funimation aren't THAT bad - true, I disagree with some of the subbing they do - but those are minor points, and I'm not going to get into the whole fansub vs commercial sub quality argument now. And we run into a bit of a gray area where licensing is concerned - even if Funimation or another company does get the licence - it's usually only licenced for a particular region. But again, that's another topic for debate - no need to cover it here.

I'm looking forward to being able to use the services of sites like Crunchyroll - even if I have to pay the silly subscription fee (it's not unreasonable, after all) - it'll make my anime viewing that much more legal. It's an expensive hobby after all

 

[Auntpol]

You can stream internet radio using 30kbps AAC for a lot of stations, which amounts to pretty high quality in stereo; such a stream, run 12 hours a day every day of the month amounts to 4.75gb/month. In terms of cap, that'll be a non issue entirely for those running 384kbps/512kbps and an uncapped account. In terms of bandwidth, it doesn't really make a noticeable impact on even the 384kbps connection, coming in at using less than a tenth of its capacity.

Hmmm , do you mean a 30kbps Server streaming at around 5-10 Actual kbps , or do you mean Streaming 30kbps? Because if your streaming 30kbps then It might only be a 10th of your line "capacity" but in terms of actual download speed 30kbps on a 384kbps connection is well more than 50% of its capacity. As i've never seen a 384kbps connection exceed 50kbps download speed , Unless I completely misunderstood you xD

 

[nanonyous]

Shadowfox, it's not a 'debatable' matter at all.

When anime is still 'unlicensed' by a company such as Funimation, as far as the Japanese government and customs offices are concerned, it's not made available for distribution outside of Japan without accruing export duties, their regulations on content and a VAT for media. As such, it's their sole responsibility to ensure that the media in question doesn't get pirated.

Once a company like Funimation has licensed a series, it becomes dual-responsibility. The original studio that produced the anime is entitled to pursue legal action against anyone they find redistributing their works without a license, and Funimation is entitled to sue for copyright infringement if you redistribute their works without a license obtained from them.

There's no 'gray area'. Even just watching raws you get from Japan is illegal unless you specifically recorded it for personal use while there, yourself. Ie: getting it from someone else = copying == pirating == illegal.


As for the quality of Funimation versions of Anime, it's always terrible.

As someone that's fluent enough in Japanese that, by paying attention to what is being said and looking up words I'm not yet familiar with, I'm able to understand all of what's being said, watching any Funimation release is nothing but painful with subs on. Why? Because the subs are for the english dub, not the japanese one.

Fruits Basket is a perfect example.

Within the first episode or two, the one main character asks the female main character:

In the dub: "are you familiar with the chinese zodiac?"
In the sub: "how familiar are you with the chinese zodiac?"

Response:

In the dub: "no..."
In the sub: "well, I know the stories my mom used to tell me as a kid..."

That's just one minor example.


If you go sit and study international copyright laws a bit you'll see exactly where, how and why things become illegal where Anime and Manga are concerned within South Africa. I am not going to argue that you should stop doing so if you do it, because there is ultimately no viable immediate alternative for most people, and by the time one spends as much money on buying the legal copies of anime and/or the bandwidth downloading/streaming it, getting a freelance job and simply living in Japan, where you can watch it for free on TV begins to make more sense.

(and yes I'm fully aware of the visa requirements and such for going to and staying in Japan)



Anyway, Auntpol, I'm referring to kbps (kilobits per second), not kb/s, (kilobytes per second). The former is the same as the measure used for our DSL speed, ie kbps/mbps, while the latter is the kbps measure divided by 8.

Japan-A-Radio operates at 50kbps, while most DI.FM channels operate at 30kbps, on their AAC codecs, as examples.

 

[shadowfox]

Fair enough - I stand corrected - at least as far as the licencing argument goes. There's room for debate on the whole subbing thing, but like I said, that's not for this thread - I've noticed varying levels of quality between different series from them - Kanon being one and Shuffle being the other. Huge difference in the quality of the subs on both.

But that's an entirely different subject - and we're completely derailing the thread.

So back to my original point - higher line speeds, being uncapped hopefully = more/easier access to online (legal) content.

 

[Auntpol]

Anyway, Auntpol, I'm referring to kbps (kilobits per second), not kb/s, (kilobytes per second). The former is the same as the measure used for our DSL speed, ie kbps/mbps, while the latter is the kbps measure divided by 8.

Japan-A-Radio operates at 50kbps, while most DI.FM channels operate at 30kbps, on their AAC codecs, as examples.

Yeah , I know , I had a daft moment there.

I'm a Frequent listener of Animenfo Radio Station which also has an AAC channel running at 30kbps and one at 48kbps while the rest of their channels run at 128kbps / 192kbps

And concerning Line speeds , Whether we benefit from the 8mb or not , its a step in the right direction. Hopefully within a year or so the faster line speeds 8mb/10mb/12mb + will force lower connection speeds to become more "affordable" or simply put , cheaper.

But , as I know Telkom they will probably remove 90% of the connection speeds and keep only 3 or 4 options available.

 

[nanonyous]

If I'm not mistaken, Telkom's plans are to eventually replace 384kbps with 512kbps, and that with a 1mbps/1.5mbps linear service sometime after 8mbps has been 'enabled' throughout all of SA.

If one looks at how DSL accounts alone have changed over the past 6 months though, there seems to be a lot of internal discussions regarding package pricing etc, because I'm fairly sure that basic uncapped services could have technically been 'as cheap as they are right now' since the opening of Seacom in July last year. If you look at it, that's roughly around when the first spate of uncapped accounts began appearing anyway, and some of them were actually 'affordable', like (I think) Axxess with their 256kbps/384kbps uncapped that was 'full line speed' after hours.

The only way they could have afforded the kinds of bandwidth people were using up on that was if they weren't feeling it at all thanks to the Seacom infrastructure.

And yet, it took almost a year for us to begin getting accounts that are uncapped, but hard-limited in terms of speed?


Just doesn't seem right to me.
Anyway, Shadowfox, agreed, I'd also like to be able to make more use of legal online media that takes less time to get, without having to worry about a cap.