The rumours we heard back in May were true - Sanity has now officially launched its music subscription service, LoadIt, the same service it promised back when Microsoft launched Vista in January 2007. But anybody looking for the future o music consumption should look away fast, otherwise you might sear your eyeballs with the incredible lack of value in Sanity's proposition.

For a start, it's so packed full of restrictions that it makes Cuba look like the centre of the free world. First off, there's the Windows Media association - we knew this was always going to happen, but it essentially means that Mac and Linux users are a no-go. And, of course, anyone who uses an iPod - each song is WMA with DRM, so only Plays For Sure MP3 players will work with this service.

Then there's the track limits. For $29 a month you get - wait for it - the ability to download 300 songs each month. Over time, that's probably not too bad a proposition - 3,600 songs each year isn't terrible value for money. But that first month, when you want to load up your non-iPod MP3 player... You can only grab 300 songs. Worse is that if you do download more than 300, there are excess charges, although what they are isn't spelled out on the LoadIt website. As a point of reference, Napster's subscription service in the US offers unlimited downloads for US$12.95 a month.

And finally, there's the subscription model itself. You pay $29 a month for your music. After a year you might have built up a decent collection. But if you stop paying your subscription fees, all that music will disappear like smoke in the wind, and you'll be left with nothing but a credit card debt and an empty MP3 player.

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We counted 364 films on offer, ranging from classics like Terminator and Robocop to relatively new releases, like Jumper and Cloverfield, although the press release claims over 700. Prices to purchase the films look to vary between $9.99 and $24.99, which seems a little bit steep - there's no physical disc, so it should be much cheaper than buying a DVD.

Movie rentals are also available, with library items costing $3.99 and new releases $5.99, which is a much more appealing cost. At this stage, it doesn't look like there's anything in HD, but that could be a choice on Apple's part - at least until our broadband pipes expand enough to be able to handle the extra bandwidth.

If you are going to be jumping into this service, make sure you know your download limits - unless you're with iiNet, you'll be paying for the download twice, and as movies are all about 1GB in size, you can chew through your monthly allowance pretty quick.

[Apple - Thanks Ryan!]

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Digital dowloads taxes might be breathing hot and steamy down our necks, but we apparently dodged at least one taxation bullet today: A Ron Jeremy-sized 25 percent tax on adult entertainment in California that would've extended to streamed and downloaded internet porn (you know, if you actually paid for it).

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LG's Netflix-streaming, Blu-ray 2.0 playing BD300 made its public debut tonight, and we're impressed. The box is slim and it won't take up more space on your shelf than any other player. An LG exec confirmed a September launch for the sub-US$500 player, so check out the gallery and start lickin' your chops. [LG]

Blockbuster may be planning in-store download kiosks, but their recent beta-testing of Movielink downloads seems like they're aiming for at-home downloads as well. They've picked 500 Total Access customers to test out the US$2 rental, US$8 purchase system from Movielink, which will allow customers to rent when flicks hit video-on-demand, and buy when they hit DVD. It's fairly interesting that Blockbuster will charge extra for movies when Netflix is going with a free, albeit limited, streaming service. We'd like Blockbuster to follow suit. [Dallas News]

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After a frustrating few months of searching for a solution to the audio problems he encountered while ripping on-screen video with his Dell laptop, a ripten editor discovered that others were experiencing the same issue--and that the problem was not confined to Dell laptops. Apparently, the lack of a sound card Stereo Mix recording option is to blame--and numerous forum threads have suggested that the RIAA has put pressure on laptop manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and Pac Bell to remove it.

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Wow. Stan Glasgow, at dinner tonight with a few journalists, told us that Sony plans to network 90% of all of their products, thousands of models, by 2010. It's a matter of getting content on and between devices. He said that the goal was to have it happen automatically or with a click of a button.

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Either Toshiba is still stinging from the HD DVD loss to Blu-ray, or they're really in need of some fast cash from the really low barrier of entry DVD market. Either way, it seems like the Japanese company is going to introduce an internet-connected DVD line called "DVD Download DL", using the nets to bring next-gen connectivity features to old-gen. This way Tosh can get easy money now from the huge DVD install base, then get into Blu-ray when that's cheaper and more widely adopted. [TGDaily]

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