It doesn't have to be this way. We can, all of us, do better than this.

Not sure if Chris Trotter would agree that this is necessary - apparently it's to be expected and accepted, going by his column today:

But the choice is not - with all due respect to Hager's ardent idealism - between decency and the pit.

The choice is between accepting "dirty" politics, with all its "Criticks and Bug-writers", and rejecting altogether the formal and peaceful processes of democracy.

The options are not fair means or foul: They are foul means or fouler.

How's that for a depressing view?

+1.

Good to see people (esp. men) from across the spectrum responding to such repugnant comments from Jackson and Tamihere (can't bring myself to call him "JT" - he's any not deserving of some cutesy nickname).

That said, at the local level it's so depressing hearing colleagues - who otherwise generally condem the original crimes, the police response and Jackson/Tamihere's comments - heading down that classic dangerous slippery slope of bringing in apparently valid mitigating circumstances. The impression I was left from this conversation was that, as the girls apparently willingly hung out with these boys, and knew of their behaviour - well, you can join the dots... (And - scarily - this was from women as well as men.)

Played fine for me, too - how's this?

Russell - when you say the price will be $920 "until January", do you have any idea of what it will be after that? I'm assuming something quite a bit higher, considering the $920 is a decent saving over the current cost of that package in Aus (AU $867.92) translates as NZ $1082. I can't imagine it will be cheaper long-term in NZ than in Aus!

Then again, we do have one significant advantage over the Aus model, which only comes with 160GB, and makes the purchase of the ad-on hard drive [AUS $299 for 1TB] a necessity for many. You've indicated the NZ model comes with 320GB, which is probably adequate for most.

Totally agree with the comments of one poster on Wiggs' blog - I find having a single thread for a blog with multiple topics is frustrating, as often I will only be interested in one of those topics. Is there not a way of having a different thread per topic? I for one would read more on PAS if this was the case.

Re Tivo:
I too am fairly excited that Tivo is making it to NZ, however I don't think it's quite a rosy a picture as you paint in your post, Russell.

For a start, it's AU$699 not $599 as you say. By the time the NZ version retails here, it'll be $1k or thereabouts - a similar price to the (less featured) Zinwell PVR.

A few other issues - the 160GB hard drive on the Aus model is beyond miserly. This is a now entry level for a SD PVR. Their own website admits this only allows "up to" 30 hours of HD content to be recorded, which really is not adequate, especially for a product that can automatically record other programmes it "thinks" a user may be interested.

The icing on the cake is that one can't just plug in any external hard drive to increase capacity - one will have to buy the Tivo-branded WD model, at some premium I assume (not that this is yet available in Aus either).

See http://www.cnet.com.au/dvdpvr/pvr/0,239035858,339290237,00.htm for a review of the Aus product.

Also this link for accusations of some dodgyness with the pricing of "extras":
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/biztech/tivo-cops-price-gouge-flak/2009/03/23/1237656823070.html

So it will be interesting to see how things go in NZ...

You should really wait for the new Zinwell official MyFreeview HD box

Which I was dead keen on until I read this:

Somebody on dtvforum mentioned the RRP of the Zinwell PVR is going to be $1149, a lot more than I was expecting, so maybe the non-PVR boxes won't drop in price that much when it is released.

(see: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=83&TopicId=27997)

Can anyone confirm the expected cost of this unit? While others have mentioned a $599 cost, which sounds reasonable, I would certainly balk at finding $1149! Having waited many months already to get Freeview HD (waiting for the PVRs), I'm sure I can cope for a few more months before the PVRs become affordable.

Re comments on Sony's Play TV not having HD capability - see the post from another forum. Can't comment on the accuracy, but a different story to what you report:

"No PlayTV DOES record in HD, the reason why it does not in Europe is Freeview in Europe is not in HD. A number of people are importing the European PlayTV into Australia (Australia uses a simular MPEG-2 format but in HD) and they are working fine in HD and record in HD (uses aprox 4gb per 40min with 1080i) the only issues they have is the EPG clock is wrong (can't be corrected) and one of the ABC channels and SBN have problems. The PlayTV delay here in NZ has been a number of things including getting it Freeview certified (freeview will NOT allow HD 720p or 1080i out on component out only HD on HDMI) this posed a problem with the PS3 and disabling that function while PlayTV is running. The MPEG-4 AAC AC3 software had to also be written as the European software is MPEG-2 only."

From: http://www.audioenz.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=7007&highlight=play&page=2

And finally, Freeview users can tonight (9.30, TVNZ7) see the second Media7... I'll put up the links tomorrow.

Can I suggest that TVNZ looks to making some improvements to the podcasts of the show?

1. why not supply a copy of the whole progamme via this format? It's probably far easier for some of us to find the time to watch this on a portable media player than on a computer (eg, I watched the podcasts on the train!). As it was, I saw a bunch of disconnected parts of the show, and really was left with no sense of it as a whole.

2. how about labelling the podcasts for each episode to mark their order? Would be nice to be able to see things in sequence (and get the context; from what I saw, the opening of the show was not included - this relates back to point 1).

3. the sound on these was pretty terrible, though I take it from earlier posts that this applied to the ondemand copy as well. Is this something that is able to be sorted?

I'll certainly be watching again, but may resort to the Ondemand version for the reasons outlined above (well, until we get Freeview HD!).

Had no luck with the podcast (in iTunes) - is it me or is it just not up yet??