1. recordings are now digital (same quality) as the original where before vhs this was not the case.

2. With time shifting I record more then one show at once. Is this ok? When I pay the cable bill it is related to watching one show at a time you can make an argument for. Does it change the view when I record 4 channels at once then watch the shows during low cost commercial time (middle of night, daytime, or summers). This is of course is not important if they can account for the recording numbers but that I don't think is completely accepted with all the different recording modes.

Just a couple thoughts which again I do not agree with but can see some small points in these.

Good show again, guys. For me, I think one problem of local v. streaming (and DRMed) media could be access and licensing. I've lived in 5 countries in the last 6 years. Any media I own (bought or, I suppose, recorded) is mine to play, wherever I happen to live. But what happens in a scenario where, say, I buy a license to play every episode of Lost and then I move?

If my license is affiliates with a local internet/cable-tv provider and I don't live in that service area anymore, could my license move with me to a new provider? What if my license is with Apple and there is no iTunes store in the country where I move to (which there isn't where I live now).

And this is not that easy to solve even if I license from the network. NBC might not be able to sell me a global end user license for Lost. NBC relies on overseas partners to sell the show for TV in local markets (currently, this type of arrangement would do things like delaying sales of the last season of Lost on DVD if that season has not yet aired in the country). None of the major networks or Hulu stream overseas. Microsoft hasn't licensed Internet TV in media center for overseas use. I think MLB Online has some international licensing but the NBA-TV doesn't. I recently read that Netflix is going to try streaming globally, so that will be a good sign if they are able to offer a full library to a large number of countries.

What happens to media licensing in 10 years time? Who knows? Back when I started HTPCs, I played DVDs on a PC hooked up to a TV and it was a huge pain to deal with region-encoding and a 5 time limit on changing your region (if I remember correctly, I had to do this in the software DVD player, Windows98 and the actual DVD drive). But Blu-rays are now generally region-free and so are players. I think online BD bonus content (which I never try) is probably global too. Even Apple eventually started to sell no-DRM MP3s and allowed people to un-DRM songs they already bought (despite charging for the privilege). And check it out, Kindle is now a global media service and I can buy a license to a book anywhere in the world at US prices. So maybe there could be a solution that develops in the future that is international consumer-friendly. While it's true what Adam says about having to pay for multiple times for the same show on different media, I believe that the trend is always going to be towards more consumer options rather than fewer as more delivery technology are developed.

Cheers, Joe.