For the past couple of weeks we’ve had intermittent issues with email bouncebacks from our support department, and new users not being able to log into the support forums.

Rest assured your emails to support ARE getting through. The mail not delivered bounceback errors reflect a problem with our mail server that we’ll have fixed as soon as possible. Our support forum is currently down for maintenance as we fix problems with some users not being able to log in. That will be back up shortly.

When you’re deciding which shows to watch via Graboid, pay attention to the language flags to the right of each title. The majority of videos are in English, or have at least one English soundtrack (for those 5 GB DVD rips). But if there’s a flag beside the title that doesn’t look like the US flag, the primary language is not English, although there may be subtitles in English.

We’re working on getting sorting/filtering by language into the application, but until we do, use the language flags. They’re 95% accurate, and if you find something that’s not in English, and you can’t use ‘reveal’ to get the original file open in VLC and use the audio tracks dropdown to find an English track, then vote it ‘down’ so others don’t have that problem.

We thought the flag approach would work well, since you’ll generally recognize the flag of your own country.

We’ve recently made it easier to indicate whether a file works or not by voting it up or down within the Graboid Video interface. This voting button is NOT for indicating whether you like the video or not, just whether you were able to view it. You can click on a title in your downloaded titles list, or in the search results list, and vote up or down. The results don’t show up immediately, only when we do a global content update, which is every 3-4 hours.

Please use the feature every time you download or stream a show, as the votes are a great indication for other users as to which files work the best.

One further note is that some users will be able to successfully view a file that others can’t, for one reason or another. With some files, Graboid Video may be unable to play them within the application, and you can view them in another video app, like VLC player, which is bundled with Graboid. This also allows you to directly manipulate the file in other ways, such as changing the audio track (for multiple language videos), turning subtitles on or off (for full DVD rips), and jumping around within the video using the progress bar.

If a file has multiple negative votes, you can be pretty sure it doesn’t work for anyone. But one or two negative may just mean some bad experiences, and if you’re a bit more of an expert on file types, decoding, etc., then you may still be able to get the file to play properly.

You get all this extra power by clicking on Reveal in the downloaded files list when you click on a title. That opens up the folder on your PC that contains the original file. Find the proper file, usually the largest one, and open it with VLC player.

please direct questions or requests for support to the Graboid User Forums. This blog is for general commentary and rants that aren’t rude. Other posts will be deleted.

Just a note to let people know we’ve slightly optimized our search queries to return faster results on browsing and searching for titles.

You may also notice very brief service service issues (a few minutes) as we test other service changes. Over the coming weeks we’ll be making some major improvements in aspects of the Graboid service and we know you’ll be pleased.

please direct questions or requests for support to the Graboid User Forums. This blog is for general commentary and rants that aren’t rude. Other posts will be deleted.

Incorporating many of your requests, version 1.1 of Graboid Video is now available for download and as an automatic update to all Graboid users.

Amongst the slew of new features and fixes, here’s the most exciting:

• Increased the maximum size limitation for streaming video files from 1GB to 2GB
• Added the ability to play ripped DVD files from within Graboid
• Added the ability to vote on videos from your completed download list
• Completed downloads list is now automatically sorted by video name

Please see the Release Notes page for complete details.

The union and representatives of the studios have come to an agreement and sent a proposal to the writers for approval. Everyone expects this to come on Monday, and we’ll have new TV shows and movies to look forward to shortly after that.

I’m sure I can speak for TV fans everywhere in saying, “It’s about time.”

What I find enormously entertaining is that the core of this strike was about compensating writers for re-broadcast (typically on the internet) of shows that they’d already been compensated for on original broadcast.

Whether you agree with this underlying philosophy of compensation or not, it’s remarkable to watch the studios on the one hand saying, “hey, we already paid you, get your hand out of the pot”, and on the other hand saying to users who want to share videos on the net, “hey, we know you already paid for that, but cough it up again.”

In the end, it’s about what’s legal, not what’s moral. And that’s the way it should be - laws are how we as a society decide what is “right”.

The law has all kinds of application to copyright. One of the most infamous is that 50 years after the death of the original creator, copyright on that work expires, and the work enters the public domain. Whether this is fair or not is something you can debate, but it IS the law. Many companies make their living, quite legally, by taking these works and delivering them to new readers for a profit, whether in the form of new editions, or audiobooks, or movies.

There is a time honored tradition here of people being compensated for their works, then having that work ‘augmented’ by better production or distribution. As new revenue streams are created, the law, and commercial agreements like that of the writers guild, determine who gets compensated and how much.

Maybe now that this issue of internet re-broadcast is being addressed by industry, they’ll figure out a way to let people watch the shows they want, when they want, where they want, for a reasonable price. God knows they haven’t figured out how to do it yet. And thank god that in the meantime other companies are figuring out ways to get people what they want to watch.

please direct questions or requests for support to the Graboid User Forums. This blog is for general commentary and rants that aren’t rude. Other posts will be deleted.

Graboid issued its first press release yesterday and is starting to get covered in the papers. You can see the digg reference to the first article here. Help us out by going to the link, and clicking “digg” this article!

Thanks for using Graboid!

please direct questions or requests for support to the Graboid User Forums. This blog is for general commentary and rants that aren’t rude. Other posts will be deleted.

Apologies for the lack of updated content yesterday. The problem has now been resolved and all content is up to date through today.

please direct questions or requests for support to the Graboid User Forums. This blog is for general commentary and rants that aren’t rude. Other posts will be deleted.