Slashdot Mirror

I've read that at high bit rates, MPEG 2 looks just as good as H.264. You can find examples at http://www.shapeofdays.com/

Let's assume that video content can be compressed by 2000x in 10 years time. Currently H.264 can get a compression ratio of 1200:1 (http://www.shapeofdays.com/h264/ bottom) so this might not be too far out.

21TB -> compression -> 11GB.

Even if we decide that 2000:1 compression ratio is really taking it too far, a 500:1 compression ration would still give us a movie that would fit on next year's dual-layer Bluray disc. A 250:1 compression ratio will require a 4 layer disc however.

It's not about the resolution, it's about the compression.
With h.264 even HD files can be compressed to a manageable size. With iPod's large storage capacity one could easily carry half a dozen movies on it.
With a video out, all you'd need is a TV to plug it in.

The problems are, and I have no idea if they have been solved:
-the battery life for outputting a movie
-is the iPod beefy enough for h.264 decoding? (Possibly, through a dedicated hardware chip)

Here's a good real-world explanation of h.264 and what it can do for HD.

The Power Macs on display at the show run a one-off build of Mac OS X 10.4.1 that incorporates the few necessary changes that were required to get the operating system running on the Intel hardware. This build includes Apple's bundled iLife '05 suite of applications.

"Update: A reader who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous just demonstrated to me that the software is, in fact, already available on Internet software piracy sites."

And further, the blog adds:

"It's possible that any one of the ten items above -- well, except number one -- is wrong either in detail or completely. It's possible that I'm totally off-base here."

Slashdot, always helping to spread rumors without fact.

Decoding?

This setup would require realtime ENCODING, which from the preview here: http://www.shapeofdays.com/2005/05/a_demonstration .html , is a good 5 or 6 cycles of Moore's Law away for 480p, much less 720p (read: clip took 24x as long to encode as length for standard def content).

H.264 can make clean HD content flow at as low as 2mbps at 720p

Here's a web page with samples encoded at HD resolution as low as 1 Mbps, and that's for 1080p. The half-HD res samples (which are just a bit smaller than 720p) come out at 256 kbps. Yeah, that's less than what you get with H263 at lower-than-SD res.

H.264 can encode 1080p HD content down to as little as one megabit with no objectionable loss in quality. For a videoconferencing application, you could easily go lower.

- G5 processor can decode H.264

Any processor can decode H.264. Examples can be found on the definitive H.264 site.

Beefy 1GB Eithernet can get content (from the iMovie Video Store?) in a flash

Ah, yes, you need a gigabit ethernet connection to go with your fancy new gigabit cable modem. Oh, wait.

17" and 20" flat screen options also have VESA mounts for dramatic display opportunities

If you think a 20" screen could ever be considered "dramatic" in any room bigger than an airplane bathroom, you're out of your mind.

Obviously you've never heard of H.264. DVD content can be compressed down to as little as 512 Kbps, and HD content down to a megabit.

This is the authoritative series of articles on H.264 right now. There are lots of examples of encoded content. The most amazing one is the clip from "The West Wing" at half a megabit: no visible artifacts whatsoever. There's HD content on there too.

An analogy.

You decide to go on vacation. While you're away from home, I break into your house in some way that doesn't do any damage at all. Say I pick the lock or something. While you're gone, I live in your house. I don't hurt anything, or break anything, or consume anything. Hell, maybe I even make things better. Let's say I clean your carpets.

Crime, or no crime?

Obviously it's a crime. Obviously I would be arrested and thrown in jail for breaking and entering, for tresspassing, for squatting (which is defined as the crime of living without permission in somebody else's domicile). I'd got to jail for a long time.

But no tangible harm has been done. So why am I in jail? Because I stomped all over your rights.

(This analogy isn't original. I got it from a a blogger who was kind enough to share it.)

Cringely published his column on January 20. This blogger beat him to the story by nine full days. Check the dates, man.

Cringely stole the idea from this blogger who claims to have made a similar prediction about the music store. No idea if he's full of shit or not, but check the publication date.

Read this blog post which I linked from another story last night. The author does a good job of walking you through exactly what Apple is claiming, including providing a copy of the complaint itself.

Long story short: Apple says that Ciarelli offered anonymity in exchange for trade secrets. In California, offering something in exchange for somebody breaking a contract is called tortious interference. Second, Apple says that Ciarelli knowingly published trade secrets. In California, it's against the law to do that, under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

So yeah, Think Secret is probably going to have to shut down or pay millions or some other onerous thing because Ciarelli broke the law.

You're only thinking about one small part of the dispute, the subpoenas for the names of the leakers.

Heads up! There are two separate cases. In one, the defendants are unknown, and Apple is attempting to learn their identities by subpoenaing people involved with two websites to compel them to reveal their sources.

In the other, the Think Secret case, Apple is suing the Website operator. You might think that this is a bad thing, but try reading this before making up your mind.

You don't understand the case or the ruling. Read this article (which I have already pimped elsewhere).

This blogger, whom I have become completely addicted to, wrote the best article I've read on the subject. It deals with only one of the several lawsuits filed, but the points he makes are real thought-provokers.

Sorry for being such a shameless pimp, but I really think people who are interested in this Apple story would be interested in this article.

(I got the link from MacSlash last weekend.)

I don't know a lot about Avalon, but I don't think it does what you think it does. Or maybe it's Core Image that you've been misled about. Whichever. Let me see if I can help.

Core Image is a set of modular, hardware-accelerated image processing routines. It does things like scaling, color-correcting, blurring or sharpening and compositing raster image data. The modules, called Image Units, are written in a C-like language called CIKernel that's derived from the OpenGL Shading Language. Image Units are hardware-agnostic, meaning they can either run on the CPU or an available GPU, depending on what hardware is available. Core Image is smart enough to know whether the GPU or the CPU is faster, so if you have a fast CPU and an entry-level GPU, Core Image will pull the Image Units back into the CPU so they'll run faster. That kind of thing. It's a lot like SGI's ImageVision, according to this blogger who seems to have a clue.

Avalon, as I understand it, is more like a 3D version of Quartz 2D. I've heard it described as Direct X gone way out of control.

According to a not-for-attribution conversation I had with an Apple employee some months ago, Apple hasn't invested any money in developing a 3D version of Quartz 2D because there's simply no demand for it. People who want to do actual 3D programming are already using OpenGL and it's working spectacularly. Quartz 2D is for the other 99% of developers who draw 2-dimensional things to the screen, and those guys don't give a flip about 3D.

And the article even mentioned Battlestar.

Well, great minds think alike - and since you're a Coward, here's the link to the article that talks about the same kind of thing I did:

http://www.shapeofdays.com/2005/01/the_movie_store .html

Scooped!

Scooped!

Actually, you're a little behind the curve. Here's an example of a blogger who's selling his content on the honor system. He says he just started this week, so I'm anxious to hear how it goes over.

What the ABC News/Washington Post poll, which dates back to September 2003, actually said was that about two-thirds of Americans agreed at the time that the poll was taken that it was at least possible that Saddam Hussein was complicit in 9/11. There were five choices given: Very likely, somewhat likely, not likely, not at all likely and no opinion. Because of the way the question was worded, anybody who didn't fall into the "no" or "I don't know" camps was forced to give a positive response. The sum of the two positive responses was added up, and the front-page headline read "Americans think Saddam was behind 9/11," when the poll showed no such thing.

Here's an article by a blogger who explained all that in detail.

Given the facts of the case -- that one of Saddam's top lieutenants was personally involved in the meeting in Kuala Lumpur where the masterminds behind the attack finalized their plans --it is entirely reasonable to admit the possibility that Saddam has some level of complicity or involvement in 9/11. When polls show that most Americans hold an entirely reasonable opinion, some people see it as an opportunity to decry the American people as fools for admitting a possibility. I find that kind of sad.

A blogger has a better idea.

This one was de-bunked by 1:30 this morning. It's a bullet-proof vest.