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Stock Analysts Down on DIVX
rmcd sent us a link to a New York Times article that talks about
Circuit City is being financially hurt by DIVX.
Apparently they are really making a mess over there. So lets
get rid of divx, standardize on HDTV, and merge THX & Dolby.
That'll happen around the same time as the whole world agrees
on the same OS.
Class-action lawsuit....
(ok, maybe that's 2 words or maybe it's 3, the brain cells that contain that information from 8th grade grammar can't be unlocked without a phone line)
Almost all companies drug test at hiring time. It's a horrible invasion of privacy, but there's not really a choice if you want to live in this world.
Rob made a mistake. You cannot combine DD and THX. One is a spec of how to read the source, the other sets standards as to how the source is delivered to you (or your ears) Perhaps DD could be killed in favor of DTS but so many people invested in DD and DTS is not widely available (though it soon will) that's not plausible (no i don't have DTS anything). BTW do DTS music really sound good?
See earlier response, but the basic point is that I have to deal with them far less often by going the DIVX route. I've found the CC people leave you alone is you're just looking at DVDs, it may be a little tough getting someone to ring you up, though, cause it means they're missing a 'real' sale. As I say, the point is that you only have to go through this once in a while, and then when it is conveneint for you, like a weekend afternoon, and not when it is convenient for the video store, like 11:30 on a rainy Tuesday evening.
By the way, as far as commissions go, I really prefer the straightforward way CC handles this than the BestBuy experience where they offer you no help that you couldn't read off a spec sheet, and then try to aggresively badger you into buying their rip-off extended warranty plan, all the time telling you that they don't work off of commisions and so you should trust their advice to get it. Talk about an insult to one's intelligence! All these mega-stores suck big rocks, its our reponsibility to be smart about what and how we buy.
DTS for music does really sound good... Best sounding music you will get.. at least until MLP. :)
It's the same thing in my area. When the BB opened it had a better music selection than many of the mom and pop music stores. Even before they added the "trashy reading material" aisles it turned completly to pop shite.
...but I suspect they'd be screwed?
Actually, my cable company just got deregulated. Now they can charge me whatever the hell they want (if I had cable that is). They still won't allow competition. They won't let the satellite providers carry the same basic cable channels and no new cable companies are springing up since Paragon has the whole city in its grip already. Rates have gone up 20-something percent in the last 3 years. I'd say cable companies rank pretty high on the "Evil Companies That Should Die" list.
BZZZZZT
Wrong Answer! You don't even get a home version of the game.
The Constitution of the United States of America (Including the amendments) does not protect you as a citizen from anyone other than government agencies. Go on, read the 4th Amendment (You know, search and seizure) and see if it mentions anything regarding searches from non-governmental entities.
Criterion definitely kicks ass. Although, even with problems here and there, I have yet to see a DVD that was unwatchable due to artifacts... Granted, I only have a 27" tube, so artifacts are small if they exist. But all that said, Blade Runner hardly bothered me... although it would seriously rock if Criterion did a new anamorphic RSDL transfer for it (salivating...). I have yet to see any RSDL disk with artifact problems... they are *sweet*.
I've worked two jobs in a row that I have not been required to periodically piss in a cup. Any employer whose mind hasn't been poisoned by Reagan era bullshit knows it make little business sense.
The cheapest test is the EMIT which costs 30 dollars. The EMIT has a 30% false positive rate so all positive tests have to be confirmed with GC/MS. GC/MS costs a minimum of $100 per sample. Say you run a firm with 100 employees and you are going to randomly test all of them twice a year. Furthermore at least 5 people a year get far enough in the hiring process to get the test. That's $3500 in emit tests. But wait! About 30 of the employees tests will need to be confirmed with GC/MS; that's $3000 more. At a minimum, such a policy will cost $7500. Your 100 employees and interviewees will have to cost you that much in DRUG RELATED losses to justify it. And I haven't even accounted for lost man hours, office work to administer it and ancilliary things like cups and stamps. It gets even worse if the employer is extra paranoid and tests four or five times a year.
The fact is that the test will only reliably catch heavy users and only some of them. The residue from most hard drugs can be flushed from the body simply by abstaining for a couple of weeks. For some substances DAYS will do it. The users of drugs most likely to cause related losses have the best chance of escaping the net. ANY DRUG USER WITH HALF A CLUE REALIZES THESE THINGS AND WILL LIKELY EXPLOIT THEM. On other hand, piss tests are really good at catching potheads because the metabolites are fat soluble and can sometimes be found for months after stopping use of the drug. Pot tests basically discriminate more against users with slow fat metabolisms. Contrary to what any paranoid cop will tell you, potheads have far less "need" for the drug than heavy drinkers even. If one runs out of pot, there is no compulsion to steal anything that isn't nailed down. There is no puking, no physiological pain goad that makes a pothead look anything like a typical Hollywood junkie. If the pothead in question just likes to do a little on weekends there is no good way to prove it affects job performance. If he does a lot and acts dopey at work, there is no need for a piss test to fire the guy. This dynamic can cause the tests to backfire even if they do seem effective.
Aggressive testing will tend to weed out pot users who for the most part are still productive employees. The testing will catch fewer users of hard drugs so hard drug users will form a higher portion of the undetected users. It is the hard drug users who are stealing, hiding in the closet to pop pills, and endangering their fellow employees. In short, drug testing discriminates against the most innocous drug users and favors the more harmful ones. It is costly and not 100 percent effective. If most of the drug users in an organization are reasonably informed there are things they can do to slug the odds a little more in their favor reducing effectiveness even further. In short drug testing is doing little more than making the drug testing industry filthy rich.
...if left to the market place. Nicholas Negroponte said something similar in Wired about 5 years ago (one of the few intelligent things every conveyed in that magazine). FCC has to force the issue. People...well, the mass market anyway...with not pay extra money for extra quality. The stuff that sells best is the cheapest.
:(
Secondly, you can put about 4 digitized NTSC-resolution pictures i the same space a one digitized HDTV picture. So, if you're a TV station, and you get a digital license...a license to transmit bits... and you have the choice between 4 stations worth of programming or 1...which would you choose?
Unless the FCC becomes the "bit police" and forces HDTV-only. Which it looks like they will.
And for those who remember when you could get a video at a lot of little guys for $.79, Blockbuster got where it is by moving into a market, blitz marketting, studio deals for new-releases, and dumnping to drive the local guys out of business, and then jacking its prices back up when there was no more competition.
Know, local stores only survive in niches...
Ha-ha! I vote for this as "Flame-bait of the Day". Simple and effective. :)
Now go preach to your momma, Puritan Muthafucka!
(tee-hee, what fun)
I mean, it stands to reason that if you are going to be purchasing something that CC sells, and you don't purchase it just because they push Divix, you are making a point, but the point is lost on CC.
If EVERYONE purchased ALL of their consumer electronic goods at CC, their OVERALL sales would go through the roof. However, their percentage of sales due to Divix would shrink to almost nothing. That might get them to drop Divix faster than poorer overall sales.
"Gee, sales are up across the board, except for Divix players and movies. How much are we spending hyping this non-profit-generating idea?"
The reason DIVX failed is because Wal-Mart would threatened to sue Circut City if DIVX was successful. Wal-Mart supports DVD.
THX is also (as the second poster noted) a specification for the given acoustics of a listening area - i.e., the "acoustic experience", as well as actually encompassing the visual experience (certification of projectors, etc...)
Actually, Lucasfilm (George Lucas), and M&K were the original people behind THX...
/* The clerks at my grocery store (OK, Safeway) always say "thank you mr/ms
last-name-from-your-check-or-CC-or-debit-card". I suppose I can always pay in cash if this starts
bugging me too much. */
That doesn't bother me. To people I don't know, my first name is Mr. It's when they assume a degree of familiarity that I did not invite that I become offended.
Choice:
1. pay $9 each and drinks and transport and food, total $30+ to see movie with girlfriend
2. pay $25 for DVD version and keep forever! no transport issue + drink what i want at home
Thisis the choice, if DVds get cheeper and released soon after cinema, cinema will die.
520i (or close to this) is NTSC. 480P *is* an HDTV standard (considered a bridge standard), as are 720P and 1080I. a number of high-end DVD players have progressive outputs already, and complaining that your $300 DVD player doesn't take full advantage of your $6500 TV would be like arguing that JBL ESC-200 speakers don't sound good on an Onkyo TXDS-939THX receiver. If you have money for an HDTV, you can easily afford a DVD player with progressive output (which, mind you, isn't found in any LD player I've seen)
I walked into Circuit City with a friend of mine. I had heard of DIVX and DVD and at the time didn't really know the difference. I just knew that the DIVX movies were a lot cheaper.
I knew there must have been a reason why DIVX was 1/4 the price of DVD so we started reading some of the fine print and educated ourselves as best we could on their pro-DIVX marketing crap.
In the end, a salesperson assulted me and my friend. My friend (obviously not knowing the sales guys were compensated well to sell divx) said "this DIVX is bullshit, why would anyone buy it?" The sales guy flinched, looking like he had just run into a wall. He quietly walked away and ignored us the rest of the time we were there.
Looks like you're not going to put your money where...oh, never mind. No offense, but it was a stupid argument anyway.
Anyway, S-Video yes, and quite decent speakers and components, thank you very much. No Opt-input on my audio gear, I don't think its neccesary. (But I am _not_ going to get into an audiophile war on this point.) Sound quality (as opposed to volume and effects) _is_ quite important to me, I listen to a lot of music.
And no, I don't watch a lot of movies, but quality is important when I do. In any case, I have a lot better things to do than sit around and worry about wether my Video compression is lossy or not. As if VHS and 'regular' DVD aren't lossy! Now, if we were talking about audio, I'd have a slightly different story...
Hardly seldom used, anymore. T2 was the first RSDL (reverse-spiral dual layer), but in my collection of 26 discs, I count 11 RSDL discs. Not to mention that DVD18 (18GB - double sided, double layered) is on the way with Titanic. True, it's not full HDTV resolution, but 480P is pretty damn good, and by the time HDTVs are affordable, backwards-compatible HD-DVD players will be available, so I'll be able to play my whole collection on my new TV. But c'mon... if the choice were a VCR or a DVD player now, why would you choose VHS? I've replaced far more VCRs than I care to count, since I have awful luck with them breaking, not to mention that the tapes look terrible after repeated viewing. I've run some DVDs as many as a dozen times, and they look just as pristine as when I got my first player 18 months ago (my first player hasn't broken - I just wanted another one).
Who cares what they think. I just don't want to give any company that pushes DIVX any of my money. It doesn't matter to me whether they understand why I won't shop there or not. Besides, Best Buy usually has better prices anyway and they don't have pushy sales critters that lie through their teeth.
This is my practice as well. When you take the DIVX crap into account along with the way CC salespeople treat you when you want to see a product that they aren't "pushing," I take my business elsewhere. There are just too many choices in the electronics/home entertainment field to have to put up with this type of crap. Too bad the dolts that shop at CC will never learn any of this info regarding DIVX and will continue to throw their money away on a soon-to-be-dead technology.
The nice thing about /. is us hixinthestix (good band name) get to hear about all this stuff.
Keep in mind we live in the town in the continental US that is farthest from an interstate. It's a five hour drive, seven on snowy roads, to the nearest interstate.
I never figured out how in sam hill CC was going to have us as customers. Remember, we have oodles of those disposable $$.
The technology is so inherently and intuitively evil that it's not even funny. The greed of the companies pushing the pay per view paradigm is appaling, very much an offshoot of the way software is currently done. If you're an open source person like me and know that information wants to be free and that the more information is available the faster new information can be created then the whole pay-per-view scene is going to rub you the wrong way.
Non-free information stifles innovation. You think they'll be happy to stop at the entertainment sector? If this keeps up you'll have to pay every time you man printf. This needs to be nipped in the bud.
Let divx die the death it so truly deserves. The people who have divx disks can go to the hackers in California who came up with a device that cracks the format (The story ran here a few months back.)
Divx "technology"? Why is every proprietary format or protocol called "technology" these days?
Not really at least the Betamax delivered higher quality, Divx can't even make that claim.
How can we find anything good in the same format with the addition of a pay per view mechanism and the removal of all the extras that come with movies?
THX is a standard, of course you have to pay $$ to put the THX insignia on anything. Most THX systems (used to be) high end Dolby... I used to work at a theater that had a THX house. The difference is basically a more heavy duty system.. Liquid cooled Xenon bulbs, larger transformer, Better screen and basic dimensions of the house including slope of the floor. All this being approved, the theater still has to pass a sound test, which isn't a given even with a fully THX compliant setup...
normal people?
you gotta be kidding. the normal american person is an extremely heavy drug user. Caffeine and nicotine are rated by the us gov't as being more addictive than pot.
put in that perspective, how can the war on drugs be anything but a presidential marketing campaign.
sounds like you bought a bill of goods.
stooge!
Well, what did you want CC to do -- tell you to go hide in a hole until Divx came out?
BTW, Divx doesn't obsolete DVDs -- a Divx player is merely a DVD player with an expansion card (effectively) thrown in to handle Divx disks. It plays DVDs just fine, and won't tell anyone where, when, or what you've been watching that's not Divx.
At my local rental store (laserdiscs, actually) a new female employee was hitting on me for a while (I'd come in once or twice a week). Then one day she had told me how she had looked at my rental record, and I really got a bit upset about having my viewing preferences available for consideration. And also a bit embarrassed; watching all those japanese animated porno movies now seemed like a bad decision. :-)
I think the fact that Circuit City is trying to foist an inferior product off on the unsuspecting public just to raise their bottom line, is just plain insulting. I'd love to see Divx, and Circuit City go under.
As for me... They haven't recieved my patronage for some time... nor will they ever again.
Well, the MacroVision is not in the disc itself, it's a flag that says to the hardware "scramble it before output". Some DVD player ignore the flag and don't do MacroVision. If you read the data from a DVD-ROM in a digital way there's no MacroVision anywhere :-)
That's a another pet peeve. If I want help, I'll ask for it, GODDAMMIT! These vultures leap all over you the instant you enter the store and harass you up to the =moment= you have a question or need to check out and are then no longer to be found!
I used to go shopping in wearing dark glasses and a long coat to intimidate people into leaving me alone until I was ready. Eventually, however, some twit in a CD store called mall security on me. They asked to search my bag for CDs. Only thing they found was a pair of new pants. Assholes.
My wife wonders why I hate shopping.
There comes an applicant that voices his rights against accepting a drug test...
and then CC hires the next guy that dutifully accepts drug testing.
I'm a practicing physician. During a research fellowship in the middle of my residency, I had a moonlighting job where I did pre-employment physical exams for a variety of companies. Typically, applicants would get a urine drug test as a first step and anyone with a positive test was excluded. Then, those with negative drug screens returned for a physical exam.
Each company had their own form I had to fill out. I was supposed to check "normal" or "normal" for a lot of different findings, most of which made sense. However, under "Head and Neck" there was a note that said "Facial hair other than neatly trimmed mustache = ABNORMAL". I have no doubt that these companies told anyone with a beard that "You failed your physical" with no further explanation.
Yea, I suspect BB runs it based on department incentives, so they can get the whole peer-pressure thing going. I've had a guy fail at convincing me, go back and talk to his buddys, and have _someone else_ intercept me and try to bully me into getting it. Pure evil.
re: my original point...well geez..I think the
\\\\\\\////////
****OBVIOUS****
implied point is that you have to return the movie to the video store when they want you to because if you don't, they charge you a late fee. This isnt an issue with DIVX, because you can rent them when you want and you don't have to return them. Get it?
Probably the reason you always get hassled when you go to CC is that you can't resist stopping and checking out some piece of equipment, am I right? The key is to not stop, not to look at anything else, and head straight for the discs. I have _never_ seen one of these guys just randomly intercept someone who isn't checking out something. The idea is not to look like easy meat to them.
Sorry, its getting late...
Crawl back to your hole, pothead. I'm sick to death
with this pro-drugs bullshit. Leave normal people
alone, please.
I personally don't care too much for CC, however I don't think it's a matter of who could have pulled it off. I don't think Divx could have been pulled off by anyone. The whole paradigm just isn't what the general public wants.
A.C.
True, my point is just that you can a) buy it (not worth it) b) rent it (involves hateful relationship with video store), and that the conveneince of being able to 'rent' whenever I like without having to worry about returning a video is a real value to me. Until there is true video on demand this will continue to be a unique value, and anyway, I think that Video on Demand is even more intrusive than DIVX privacy wise.
I think a lot of critics of DIVX just dismiss this value out of hand. If you're going to fight an enemy, you have to really understand its true strength, and that, in a nutshell, is it for DIVX.
Maybe now they will quit trying to bring this dead horse round the track. Or maybe not...
BTW, what's DIVX? some x rated site or something?
Re: The Constition only protects citizens from governments agencies
Well, this is also not true. The constitution can help protect from a non-government agent trying to usurp your rights as well. An obvious example is the police force, which is meant to protect the citizenry from those trying to usurp your rights of life or property (ie. murder, theft, etc.) And certain civil rights are also protected (ie. a qualified person cannot legally be denied employment, housing, etc based solely on religion, race, or gender, etc.) So, it is meant to protect against non-governmental abuses as well.
Of course, there is continuing debate on just what specifically is protected, and how effective that protection is. And certainly drug testing by private companies is not considered a clear abuse of the Constitution or protected civil rights (at least, judging by legal precedent)
This is known as combing, it has nothing to do with the Bit rate (Laser Discs would have the same problem). It is a result of vertical interlacing in NTSC signals. Hook a DVD player up to a comb filter, or use progressive output, and these problems will met away... Even S-Video will take care of a number of combing problems. Also, sit farther away from your TV. If you pause the DVD in one of the highly-combed scenes, the combing should go away since the player will be displaying the whole frame.
DVX v. DIVD -- The Environmental Argument:
"If you don't like a Divx disc, where does THAT go? Do you throw it out? Great, more garbage that lasts forever in the landfill! At least I can take a DVD like Lost In Space or Zorro (both of which I got for free) that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and sell it to a used CD store for some money. Sure it'll go into a landfill later, but at least it's off my mind!
Now we've heard them all, and can die happy! (Actaully, I'm not sure anyone's brought the Nazis into this yet, so we might not be quite done...)
Check out this explanation of HDTV that I once found, thanks to Slashdot. I'm grateful for all I've learned from Slashdot.
And also, if you are paying more than $16 for just about any DVD you are paying too much.
Yep. Most can be had online for $9.99 - $14.99. No reason to blow $25 on one at Best Buy or anyplace else for that matter.
Not worth it? Buying DVDs is very worth it!
First, I only buy movies that I like, or have strong recommendations for, so I don't mind watching them again and again (I must've seen Top Gun 2 dozen times before I bought the DVD, and twice since).
Second, what is a better way to avoid conversational holes with company than to put on a good movie? I hate awkward silences when I'm supposed to be entertaining someone - so I just take them into the entertainment room, let them pick a movie from my collection (currently almost 30 discs), and enjoy the sights of DVD and the sounds of optical Dolby Digital.
Third, I can let friends or relatives borrow my DVDs, just like they would borrow books, and even more entertainment is derived from my expenditure.
Fourth, very few discs cost $25, unless you buy them at CC! Collectors' Editions may cost that much (Criterion, etc.), but those discs are very worth it. Maybe not if you have no interest in film as a scholastic pursuit, but I thoroughly enjoy listening to Jonathan Demme, Jodie Foster, Ted Tally, and Anthony Hopkins discuss the making of Silence of the Lambs while the movie is playing.
If instead of taking out the number of people with whom I've shared movies (I've shown Ghost in the Shell to no less than 2 dozen other people) to the theater to see that movie, I would have spent *far* more at the theater. The $18 I've spent on Ghost has resulted in about 7 viewings in the same number of months, Pi ($15) 5 times in 2 months, etc.
If you watch movies only for you, then perhaps renting makes more sense... but I enjoy watching good movies multiple times, and I enjoy sharing good movies with good company, so collecting movies is hardly not worth it.
A larger disc would have made for a more costly format. Not only are the raw material costs more, but the injection molding machines to press larger discs are much larger and more expensive to buy and maintain. That's also a barrier to entry for small plants. With the current DVD format, it is possible to retrofit existing CD presses to manufacture DVDs.
> Or Betamax tapes :)
Well, betamax tapes didn't stop functioning
just because they stopped being produced.
(They're not made anymore, are they?)
But if divx goes under, then people who try to
play a divx disc will not be able to hook up
to divx central, and so won't be able to play
them at all.
The most irritating video store behavior I have ever run into was at a Blockbuster. Apparantly some PHB (Pointy-Haired Bastard) decided that all of the employees should read the customers' names off of the screens and thank them while addressing them by their first names. Maybe I'm just a cranky old fart, but where I come from it is rude to address strangers by their first names. Furthermore, I'm offended by the phony friendliness. These people aren't being "friendly" because they know and like me, they are doing it because some jerk is forcing them!
Of course, this is no worse than the Circuit City sales weasels who assume that you are such an idiot that you'll actually believe their mindless sales pitches! Why does the retail industry believe they have to insult their customers??????
Sorry but whenever I see an LD i get the creeps. LDs are huge, even CDs could benefit from a little bit of shrinking. Say why not use MD sized discs for music and CD sized DVDs for movies (ok film is better but let's compromise)
BTW the video industry rules as it's their content and frankly they are in a position to push their interests.
I guess one would need compression as no disc player can handle high bitrates. Perhaps they could have waited 6 months and used 2x readers but i don't know how much an increase in quality would result. But definitely most movies would expand to dual layers or sides or even discs.
I am. One of my many problems with DIVX is the
way CC has handled it. Before DIVX machines were
available, they would happily sell you a DVD
machine without mentioning that they themselves
were behind an effort to obsolete the very
product they were selling you. CC headquarters
instructed its sales people specifically NOT to
mention DIVX unless asked about it.
CC, once one of my favorite toy stores, has not
seen me since.
Hmmm, and everyone complains about the salespersons being liars... "Portrait of a salesperson who has a shitty day because customers deliberately antogonize him, going home and taking it out on his family."
I say, if you don't want DIVX or the hard sell, just don't go to Service Shitty.
"'m sure you, like most people, are happy with nothing more than the enhanced A/V quality of DVD that Divx offers. But for me, Divx is
nothing but a supercharged VHS with the late fee built into the "purchase" price.
Use wahtever works for you."
Yea, this was my point, exactly. I probably shouldn't have implied that everyone who buys a lot of discs is lame, just that the fetishizing of it is. I personally don't really care about all those extra features, except maybe for a file I really liked and that can benefit from multiple viewings (I'll pay whatever it costs when Koyannisqatsi comes out on DVD.) Thats different than a lot of people. So DIVX is a good deal for me, but I would never suggest that it is a good deal for everyone.
By the way, I appreciate the mostly thoughtful comments about this; I thought there would be a lot more invective...
I was under the impression that several movies use dual layer... I can't remember titles too well, but I'm pretty sure T2:Judgment Day is dual layer
NOTE: I am Miggy, not THE anonymous coward. I do NOT like DIVX! I just don't have time to create an account now, but will later. Anyway, a question to the real anonymous coward.
:)
Have you considered renting on-line? Cheaper prices for longer viewing periods. And when you're done, just put the video in the pre-paid envelope and drop it in the mail. I hope THAT isn't too inconvenient
Miggy, the Thief
DDS-007
http://www.ddsociety.com
It's that way everywhere. I used to work at a *mart dept. store. Employees are required to make eye contact, smile and greet, then ask "do you need help with anything?" with *every* person who came within ten feet of them. If one was caught not doing any *one* of those things *three* times, she would be dismissed from her job. Also, at the end of any transaction where the name of the person should be known (such as credit card or cheque transaction), one has to address the customer by his name when wishing him to have a good day. Yes, under the penalty of losing her job if she doesn't.
"I am willing to lay 10 to 1 odds this person doesn't even have their DVD player hooked up via the SVIDEO jack and optic audio cable? HAH,
prolly still using the speakers on that mighty proscan tv."
-OK, I'll take that bet. What's your limit?
Other than the fact that they both use lasers, I don't see where the similarities are.
Laserdisc is an analog medium, video and sound are modulated onto a carrier wave and require a demodulation process which is not lossless
DVD is a digital medium using a lossy compression algorithm which yeild superior results over laserdisc if mastered correctly. DVD is also encoded in component video with a higher horizontal resolution, which carries a pristine video signal to the video display device.
Laserdiscs are big, require multiple sides, and often multiple disks.
DVD's are small, and dual layered to allow an entire movie to fit on one side of the disk.
Even if DVD's were made the same size as laserdisks to allow an uncompressed digital video signal.. IT WOULDN'T WORK. assuming that you want a 32 bit video signal broadcast at 30 fps at 1000x750
That would be 3 megabytes per frame, at 30 frames per second thats 90 megs per second. 5.4 GIGS per minute (I am assuming a 1,000,000,000 byte GIG for simplicity sake). I'm sorry.. even if you had a lossless compression teqnique that could compress 32 bit video to 25% of it's original size there is NO WAY any realistically sized disk is going to fit a lossless digital signal.
As for scratches on the DVD medium. The fact that DVD uses a lossy compression gives it the interal ability to do a form of error correction on itself. A scratch on a PCM encoded CD is much more detrimental than the same scratch on a DVD.
Actually people have already figured that one out... I've heard of several tactics... one involves involves soldering a new chip in your divx player... there are also some players with diagnostic modes which can tell the player not to check with divx central...
Well, hateful is perhaps too strong. Its like this:
:-)
When we lived in the city, I really enjoyed dropping by my friendly local video store (one block, walking distance) and chatting with the Bangladeshi guy who ran the place. The videos were usually somewhat &(*&'d up, but that was ok.
Now I live in the 'burbs, by neccesity, and everything is a drive. I'd much rather deal with the CC people once or twice a month than the Blockbuster folks ever, the Blockbuster people are much more thourghly programmed (if just as incompetent), and its scary. Hollywood is a little better, but totally out of the way for me. Everytime I go to Blockbuster there's a huge line, major movie pushing, and all the completly artificial niceness makes me want to vomit. My time is valuable and scarce, and driving back and forth to rental places is not something I want to waste it on, all other things being equal.
I'm not saying that DIVX is great, as someone characterized, just that it works ok for me, thank you very much. No, we don't watch a lot of movies, I prefer more dynamic activites, like reading, programming, or listening to music.
"Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you not like about DVD."
Lossy compression. The decision was made to use a disc that was the same size as an audio CD and at that time, the only way to get everything on the disc was to use lossy compression.
I know that the artifacts are small and _most_ of the time they aren't noticeable, but goddammit, if you're going to introduce an ass-kicking video technology, do it right. Don't let the audio industry dictate terms -- and don't fall for the lie that people won't buy a DVD player if they can't use to play their audio CDs.
If people have $100,000 to spend on HT equipment, and they do, why criticize them? I have an Onkyo TXDS-656 receiver and Atlantic Technology's Compact Theater speaker system (total $1200 shipped), plus an addition $150 or so in cables. To some, that is ridiculous.
But the fact is, I don't like going to the theater. It costs $8.50+ per person, I have a choice of about 10 movies (at least 7 of which will be bad), Mr. Annoying Fatso sitting on the left and right of me, munching his popcorn, the movie doesn't pause when I need to run to the bathroom, and the annoying bunch of school girls giggling hysterically 2 rows in front of me. That's hardly a way to enjoy a movie!
I can buy a DVD for the cost of 2 movie tickets, sit in my living room, on my couch, eating whatever I want (breakfast, dinner, M&Ms... I'm not paying $4.00 for movie snacks, I've got my own!), when I need more snacks or a trip to the head, I can push pause and not miss anything, snuggle with my girlfriend and not have to worry about somebody complaining, and noone will ruin the critical point of the movie by talking. And I can have this experience as many times as I want (how many times did you go to the theater to see Titanic?), for free. The sound is better than in the theater (no occlusion, directly in the sweet spot, etc.), and IMO, DVDs on the small screen look better than films, with all those annoying black splotches, do on the big screen.
This raises another interesting point.. What happens to all those shiny new Divx discs that people bought (or didn't)? Since the Divx collective will no longer exist to bill the person, I guess the discs are about as good as frisbees. :-)
The one positive aspect of DIVX is that it's dragging down Circuit City, which is a pretty shitty company all around.
o Sleazy, pushy salesmen
o Sells censored CDs with no warning label
o DIVX
-- Divx players can even report back on which regular DVD discs they've played recently. (As if the privacy problem you already cited weren't bad enough...)
-- The Divx company can spam you whenever the hell they want. It's in the service agreement.
-- If Divx suddenly decides to start charging monthly fees for their service (and they do reserve the right to do that), you either cough up the dough, or your Divx discs become instant coasters.
-- If a movie studio decides for any reason that they want to "recall" a Divx movie, your disc of that movie won't play anymore. Period. Coaster time
-- You get dinged for an extra "viewing" even if you just put the wrong disc in the player for 5 seconds. And they won't cancel the charge, so you're stuck with it. They also won't cancel the charges if your kids put a dozen different discs in the player "just to see what'll happen." Hell, they won't even cancel the charges if your Divx player was stolen unless you notify them within 24 hours.
In short, Divx seems to be designed around one goal: To separate the gullible movie-watching public from the maximum number of dollars before they catch on and dump the worthless system. Judging by the number of Divx player returns Circuit City has been seeing, I guess a lot of people are catching on...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
You can't say it hasn't been coming.. Divx was a bad idea, and its dismal sales are no surprise. They didn't follow the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) guideline. Too many caveats and rules to follow to get a DIVX disc working. It's a good thing nice, simple Open DVD will triumph in the end.
The problem (to me) isn't that Blockbuster has my movie preferences. This actually includes movie preferences of my wife and whenever my siblings show up. The problem is that is I choose, I can go from Blockbuster to Hollywood video to the local rental store. No one company has all my viewing preferences.
With DIVX, one company has all the information on what DIVX movies are viewed. If more companies took up on this idea, it'd be a bit better. For example, the way VISA and Mastercard work. Each bank has its own way of offering and handling customers, but no matter where I go, I can make a payment with a VISA card. The involvement of VISA is handling the payment between the customer and the vendor.
Ooh. I aughta get a patent on this idea.....
A few months ago, I took my parents to a CC because they wanted a new bookshelf-size stereo. We found one that seemed OK, so my Dad asked me if it had a headphone jack. I looked around the front panel, the side, and top, and found none.
So I called the nearby salesperson and asked him if it had a headphone jack. He looked around a bit, and came up with a half-smile : "I guess it doesn't have one."
So then why, I asked him, did the little spec/price sheet for this stereo list, under the heading of "Recommended Accessories", a CD holder and _Stereo_Headphones_?!
We left pretty quickly.
Posted by some2:
They tried this. Remember the old CD caddies in the first generating CD players? Unfortunately, they failed miserably, most likely because so many people would refuse to buy more than 1 or 2, so they just turned out to be a hassle. If they were in a solid-state cartridge like MiniDiscs, that would be excellent though. I guess we can't get everything.
Isn't THX a standard for the hardware, software, ease of use and sound quality...not just another sound system? I thought one of the requirements of a THX reciver is that it can run multiple sets of sound system. Like a home theatre or the TV and stereo in the bedroom. Of course I have no THX rated hardware so all of my knowledge is from reading magazines. Oh...DIVX needs to die a quick and silent death.
IMNSHO, Divx discs are just as good as AOL bisks. They sure would look nice hanging from my car's rear view mirror. And would give a nice look to my Yuenglings.
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Ahhh ok, didn't realize this. I had assumed it was the compression since the first time I saw the effect was watching a DSS satellite feed. (FWIW, I use an S-Video cable)
While I quite like DVD, the compression leads to issues other than artifacts as well. Take a look at the video right after a scene change or during quick panning. You'll notice that the horizontal lines are spread out, and when the image stabilizes they fill in. This happens when the bit rate can't keep up with the amount of information that's required, and can be slightly aggravating.
Still, though, I think DVD is a very good set of tradeoffs between size, quality and marketability.
If anyone's looking for a good deal, You can get the Toshiba SD-2109 at Sears for something like $270 with 1 free movie + 5 pre-chosen free ones. (I think they have similar offers with their other DVD players)
me: hi. here's the movie i want.
them: that'll be $3. this is due back on tuesday.
me: thanks. bye.
that was tough.
nothing wrong with getting out of your house every once and awhile and actually interacting with people.
---
"Colors blind the eye
Desires wither the heart."
-- Lao Tsu, "Tao Te Ching"
It's that kind of fatalistic attitude that just contributes to the problem.
Maybe if more folks stopped accepting drug testing as a fact of life instead of standing up to the constitutional violation that it is, "most places" wouldn't feel comfortable performing said testing.
Why not wish Circuit City bad luck? They deserve it for this DIVX fiasco.
There's plenty of other reasons not to like 'em also, not the least of which is the fact that all prospective applicants for jobs are given a full drug test. Blech.
but the point is lost on CC.
;)
Do what one of my coworkers does. He does this about once every month. Go into Circuit City, or Good Guys, and start looking at something really expensive, like a huge TV or really high end pair of speakers. Get the salesperson all worked up, have him start writing up the order.
Then, as you go for your credit card, glance over at the DIVX supply and say:
"Oh..wait...you guys sell DIVX?" As you put your credit card back in your wallet, "I can't buy from you guys if you sell DIVX, sorry."
Haven't tried this yet, but after my friend mentioned it, I can't wait to go try it.
My mistake and mis-speak. I got so excited the words "constitutional violation" just leaped out onto the keyboard. ;)
one more thing to add: they drug test all their employees and prospect applicants.
If you don't like their hiring practices, go somewhere else
Uhh, like, that was the main point of my post. Everyone was in such a hurry to correct my constitutional error that they assumed that was the main point of my post.
I still can't imagine them wanting you high at work! Alcohol is legal, but you shouldn't go to work drunk
I'm not saying that you should. What I'm saying is that these blanket drug screenings are intruding into what one does in one's personal life outside of work. In my opinion the only kind of drug testing that is acceptable is impairment based testing...i.e. an employee is demonstrably impaired at work or has had erratic performance. Then and only then should the employer have the right to test their employees.
The only other acceptable time IMHO is when the person will be doing a job that can directly affect the life of other people, e.g. driving a school bus or working heavy machinery.
but why should an employeer be forced to hire some fucking pothead
How exactly does the fact that I might smoke a joint in the evening have anything to do with selling a damn CD player to some schmo 12 hours later? And who said anything about forcing them to hire somebody? If someone is so impaired by drugs, or a "fucking pothead" as you so eloquently put it, they will be likely be elimated in the interview process when they can't speak in complete sentences.
I'm not saying an employer doesn't have the right to perform drug tests at all, I'm just against blanket screenings of all applicants. What I may or may not do in my private life has no impact on my employer, as long as it doesn't affect my work performance.
If you've got an employee that is having performance issues, and shows up for work obviously impaired, then by all means, take a cup of piss for all I care.
If you don't like their hiring practices, don't work there
I wouldn't. Nor will I shop there. Your point?
I'm sorry if you only watch crap on TV. A tip for you, a lot of quality programming can easily be found by tuning in TLC, Discovery, or your local PBS channel.
so how could it have been too late?
I picked up one of the first SVHS decks available in the US, in 1988. DVD didn't show up until 9 years later in 1997(again, in the US).
The difference in picture quality isn't as great between DVD and SVHS as it is between VHS and SVHS. Based on the values of DVD = 480, LD = 425, and VHS= 240 (found in this DVD faq) SVHS has 77% more picture detail than VHS, while DVD only has 13% more picture detail than SVHS. Plus SVHS has the definite advantage of recording over DVD.
Divx is not ecologically friendly. The concept of a disposable movies incased in plastic is definitely not PC :-)
480P is SDTV(Standard Definition), not HDTV(High Definition).
I've seen both 16:9 tube sets as well as projection sets. Best Buy here in Houston uses 16:9 tube sets to demo anamorphic(widescreen, not letter boxed) DVD movies.
It's pretty lame when you don't check your facts first.
sorry, it isn't HDTV. I keep up with video quite a bit and know of what I speak.
Check this DVD Faq, where you will find the following in section 2.9:
DVD-Video does not directly support HDTV as well as
DTV format, which includes both high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD)...SD (704x480 at 24P, 30P, 60I, 60P) and HD (1280x720 at 60P and 1920x1080 at 30P).
While 480p is DTV, specifically SDTV, it is not defined as an HDTV format. HDTV formats are only 720 and up(after all, if it's the same resolution as current TV's, it's not High Definition, is it?)
NTSC is defined as 525i, however it actually only shows 480i. There are 20+ scan lines before the top of the picture, and another 20+ scan lines after the bottome of the picture. These non-visible scan lines are used to carry additional information(such as closed captioning), as well as to give the video beam time to move from the bottom of the picture tube back to the top.
I'm not arguing against the "added features" of DVD. It has some nice ones, just like FAT32 has some nice features when viewed against the prior FAT file systems.
I'm arguing that just like FAT32, DVD didn't go as far as it could have when compared with what came before.
Since you brought it up, Laser Disks have random access, additional content, multiple sound tracks, digital sound. Very few use more than 1 disk. The ones that do, such as the 2 disk collector's edition of Toy Story, tend to contain lots of additional content, such as all of the prior PIXAR productions.
As far as digital dolby 5.1, you'll need to invest in new expensive sound equipment to be able to benefit, just like you'd need to invest in new expensive video equipment in order to access the better resolution of an HDTV capable DVD. You can still use DVD without a new sound equipment, just like you can use DVD without a new video system. Just as the sound is dramatically better when you upgrade your audio components, wouldn't it be great if when you upgraded to an HDTV set that ALL of your DVD colletion would look dramatically better? You'd just be able to get more out of your DVD investment as you upgrade the other parts of your audio-video system.
DVD will be the furby of '99... Hmm, let's all be lemmings, which seems extremely counter to most of what the ./ clientel stand for. If ./'ers were lemmings, we'd all be rooting for ms in the lawsuit.
maybe if I use an analogy that ./er's can understand...
DVD is to consumer video as FAT32 is to windows 98 hard drives
FAT32 is slightly better than what was used before(in the windows world). It solves the wasted space problems encountered with larger disk drives. However, FAT32 is not the best solution to hard drive storage formats.
Likewise, DVD has a slightly higher resolution than what came before in the consumer video world, but it could have been so much more.
To me, all the people praising DVD for what it did to an analog TV's picture quality is exactly the same as all the people hyping FAT32 for being the greatest thing since sliced bread.
should have be "seldom used" :-)
Instead of using the dual layer to get up to 4 hours per side, it could have been used to achieve HDTV resolutions.
then by that arguement I'd have to say that Linux is not available at all because you cannot walk into Sears and buy a computer preloaded with Linux.
Ever try to fit an 8" wide device in a 5.25" bay?
True, computer compatiblitiy was probably a deciding factor in the final form. However, by using the already designed but not used double layer DVD, the capacity could have easily been achieved on a 5" disk. The double layer works by having the first layer be semi-transparent. The laser can focus on either layer to read the data(similar to how you can see thru a rain covered window by focusing thru the raindrops).
The relatively large amount of CD-form-factor infrastructure around also makes life more convenient.
not really, 8" is one of the sizes that laser disks come in. 8" disks tend to be karaoke and music videos.
Plus, 8" disks would be too damned big.
The artwork on a laser disk sleeve tends to look a lot better than the artwork on DVD box.
and that's my grip.
If they had made the disk slightly larger, say midway between a Laserdisk and a CD(about 8 inches diameter) they would have had the capacity to do so. By doing so, we wouldn't now be stuck in the scenerio of "nothing to watch on HDTV, so why buy it?". HDTV will basically sell itself, but only if you can see how much better the picture is.
It also saves the problem of people not upgrading because the current system is good enough. An excellent example of this happening is SVHS(Super VHS). The SVHS decks provide laser disk quality on a video tape, while maintaining the ability to play/record the original VHS tapes. In spite of the obvious increase in picture quality (about double the resolution), very few SVHS decks were sold.
you'll have to admit there is a major difference between not available at all and available but more expensive.
That's my major grip with DVD. DVD does look OK when viewed on current low-quality TVs, but does not buy you anything with an HDTV set. It would have been a seriously major boost to the acceptance of HDTV if you could purchase movies with HDTV quality.
Seriously, I can't stand the idea.
If someone is willing to employ me, but won't take my word for it, why the hell would they trust me to work there? I refuse to work in an environment predicated on distrust. I have much the same problem with the 'final indignity' practiced at Costco & CompUSA. It's a slur on my honor.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
i come from France, where all movies in VHS or CDV are in 16/9 and we CAN watch them on 16/9 TV, here in north america there's only 4/3 TV and almost every movies sold in VHS are in "pan scan" format 4/3 so we lose about 1/3 of the picture... it's really lame... lame US...
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
At least he was man enough to use his own name, and in my opinion its not really as much an issue of drugs, as privacy.
Personally I have never done any drugs, but still would not take a job that required a drug test.
--== So many idiots, so few comets. ==-- --== Stupidity should be painfull. ==--
That's quite true, but it's important to realize that there are laws covering information companies gain from video rentals, cable pay-per-view purchases, and credit card purchases. Companies are not allowed to sell that information, period.
DIVX wouldn't be half as bad if a similar law covered it, too, IMHO. The privacy thing is the biggest drawback. I also hate the idea of paying if you accidently put in the wrong disk or whatnot, but the idea of my porn^H^H^H^H movie preferences being sold scares me. :-)
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
The laws specifically cover *selling* that information to others (in other words, they can do what they want with the info, just not sell it to advertisers).
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
I was just speaking in the scope of privacy issues. My cable company (I'll name names: Comcast) just decided that the last free channel on my system would be best filled with the Game Show Network instead of Comedy Central or FX, so they're rapidly climbing my s***list.
At least they're rewiring my neighborhood for digital/internet cable, so they have a chance to redeem themselves.
Keith Russell
Whatever happened to peaceful coexistance?
This sig intentionally left blank.
Evil Companies that Should Die: Cable providers and video rental companies must comply with federal laws that govern their use of personal information. I'm not sure Divx is held to the same standard. Better the evil I know than the evil I don't.
Collecting and DVD features: The two subjects relate very well. Some people may be rather lemming-like in their selections ("The #1 movie of the summer!"), but I only buy what I like. My tastes lean towards movies with a distinct visual style. (Note to self: Reserve The Matrix!) That makes widescreen/letterbox very important. I also like the optional commentary audio tracks (like Aronofsky and Gullette's tracks on Pi), that provide insight into the writer's or director's vision of the film.
V is for Video?: IIRC, DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc. My DVD player is the DVD-ROM that came with my PC. The decoder card has S-Video out, so I can watch it on my TV or monitor. The last time I was at CompUSA, I saw Myst, Riven, Journeyman Project 3, and Encarta on DVD-ROM, and my company gets Microsoft Developer Network's optional DVD-ROM version of their library, which is normally 3 CD-ROMs.
Divx has no plans to create some sort of "Divx-ROM," because of the security issues. I'm certainly not going to attach something to my computer that dials out in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping.
I'm sure you, like most people, are happy with nothing more than the enhanced A/V quality of DVD that Divx offers. But for me, Divx is nothing but a supercharged VHS with the late fee built into the "purchase" price.
Keith Russell
Whatever happened to peaceful coexistance?
This sig intentionally left blank.
But granted, it's for a Good Cause... ;-)
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
>>I know that the artifacts are small and _most_ of the time they aren't noticeable
Decent encoding/mastering gets rid of this, expect things to get better. My wife runs a DVD encoding operation, and they spend a lot of time tuning the encodings for specific problems - assisted by the encoding software getting much better too.
All products are compromises, non-lossy compression at a similar quality would have to spin the disc so fast (and such a big disc too) to make the product useless.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
It's nitpicking, but here we go :)
... wtf does that mean? Haven't you ever gone into a video store on a weekend afternoon? *GASP*! Look at that! IT'S OPEN!!!
:) You just keep spending five bucks for a crippled disc. I'll spend half that to rent the real thing.
Best Buy isn't a video rental store. However, to take your side on one point, you are completely right about that utter crap warranty they push. They push that damned thing *hard*. I once had to tell a yokel at BB "no" *three* times. The third time I got quite nasty with him and he finally understood. I think they're not completely honest on the commission issue -- they may not make commission on sales, but I betcha they either get a kickback or incentive for warranty sales, or they get disciplined/fired if they don't meet a quota.
Again, as the poster you responded to asked, how is a video store drone worse than a CC drone?
Video stores are also open more often than CC is. More hours per day. While you may not get bothered by CC drones (that's a load of dung, by the way -- I've *never* made it through a CC without being pestered) whilst searching through the small DIVX rack, you have to go search for one to let you pay for it.
I don't quite get the "when it is convenient for the video store" statement
If you want to rent a DVD, you go to the video store and rent one. You don't get bothered by sales drones, and there's always one waiting to take less of your money. If you want a DIVX, you wander to CC, shake off some drones, then hunt one down when you're ready to part with your money.
I have always laughed hysterically at the notion that some people are legitimately lazy enough that the "convenience" of not having to return a stupid disc to a video store outweighs the crippling downsides of DIVX. "I don't mind not having widescreen, multi-lingual, multi-camera-angle, etc.; I don't have to take this back when I'm done with it! Bwahahaha!"
If that's the only legitimate reason to use DIVX, then it's pathetic (but we knew that already
Read my stuff.
I haven't personally bought anything at Circuit City since I learned about the whole DIVX fiasco, and I encourage my friends to go elsewhere also. I'm offended by the strategy of DIVX, and doubly so by the reluctance of Circuit City to realize what idiots they were. I consider it an insult that they continue to fund the project when it's clear that no one with a brain will ever buy in.
Later,
Zach
My
That blade runner conversion is one of the worst Film to DVD conversions there is.
F /...
I have found that most people who were quick to bad mouth LD are quick to jump down on DVD. Alas these poor souls will never know the wonder of the fabulous Criterion collection edition of fine movies... oh well, just more on the shelf for me to buy.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
Uh and where do you buy it from? I live in SF and there are 5 rental places within 3 blocks of my house... not a one has DIVX (suprise!). However 3 of the 5 have DVDs. The closest circuit city (5 blocks and I bet thats a lot closer than most people live to a CC) has a selection of about 40 different movies and it was a "rollout" store for DIVX.
F /...
Another huge DIVX flaw, no Criterion Collections (and there never will be). I currently own 11 Criterion disks and view them all with the same reverance that I hold for a fine hard covered book.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
Anyone who rambles on about how great DIVX is and then says "[it] is sharp and clear as hell on my proscan" obviously doesn't spend much time watching movies.
F /...
I am willing to lay 10 to 1 odds this person doesn't even have their DVD player hooked up via the SVIDEO jack and optic audio cable? HAH, prolly still using the speakers on that mighty proscan tv.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
>Circuit City just isn't pervasive enough -- they're not in the small markets in the sort of way that a company like Best Buy is. There was no way they were ever going to pull this one off.
I have to agree with you there...
The other thing I've notcied about Circuit City is that they don't encourage salespeople to sell you what you want... most Best Buys realize that getting you out the door quickly with ANY purchase is a good thing. Circuit City is too concerned with selling you what they make the most money on.
Why in the world would you ever put gigabytes (I'm talking DVD here, no flames please) on an optical storage medium designed so people HAVE TO TOUCH IT? Get real. CDs and DVDs should have been designed in a cartridge so that you CAN'T touch the surface, unless you really want to. The fact that a new storage medium has emerged without such protection is unconscionable. I do realize that would introduce additional cost, but big deal. Now that a DVD movie cost $25 retail, wouldn't an extra buck or two be worth it to ensure that movie lasts for years? And if you have several gigabytes of files backed up on DVD, wouldn't it make sense to have it protected against damage that could be casually inflicted?
Not to mention going up to a video store and renting a movie is a LOT quicker and easier for me than going up to a CC.
Video Store: Literally across the street, Cute counter help, Late fee's are my own problem - I know up front when I rent when it's due back. I have no problem taking responsibility for getting it there.
CC: almost an hour to the closest one, quite possibly the most annoying staff out of any store I've ever been to, very porly informed staff, pushy unhelpfull staff.
And that's just the renting vs. buying at CC!
Add in the way that most DIVIX don't have widescreen, (Forget about HD 1:19 TV's are here now) some can't go silver, and the idea of "pay per view" makes me look for a discounted price, not a higher one! This is no bonus, it's (* I'll censor myself here*).
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
I thought the main reason HDTV hs never taken off,
was no demand. The companies producing (or
planning to) HDTV did 'blind' [1] screenings with
viewers to see what they preferred. Regular TV
with better sound was judged to be better than
HDTV with regular sound. HDTV with better sound
was judged just as good as regular TV with better
sound.
[1] No pun intended
My only question is, when DivX finally goes under, how big is the class action lawsuit by all the people who were duped into buying into it going to be?
:)
If they all were talked into it by sales droids, then they might have a fairly decent chance at winning too... (Or am I just watching way too much Ally McBeal?
Later,
Blake.
I speak for PCDocs
Once, I went to CC to buy an X2 modem (Sportster internal, non-Winmodem), before V.90 was standardized. I asked the salesman if it was compatible with OS/2. He immediately said, "No, you need this one over here for OS/2", and promptly walked to the other end of the department and grabbed from the shelf...
a Macintosh modem.
I said that that was not what I was looking for and he answered that "that was the only OS2 he had heard of". The x2 I originally had works fine, BTW.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Ya think thats a bad thing? I believe in privacy and I also think drugs should be legalized (not just some, but all) but why should an employeer be forced to hire some fucking pothead. If you want to work for someone else, you are giving up a bit of privacy by virtue of working there...
If you don't like their hiring practices, don't work there. If you don't like DIVX because it violates your privacy, don't buy that shit either.
clifyt
Yes, but Caffeine and Nicotine do not effect work place activities in the same way that pot does. I myself see no harm in pot in moderation, but that does not mean that I should have to hire someone who I know does illegal activities and brings them into the workplace (even a trace residue in the blood stream is bringing it with you).
As for the war on drugs, everyone knows this is a crock of shit. It is a war on minorities and those that just don't fit into society. I don't like drugs myself as I believe in a pure mind and body...this doesn't mean that I support the gov't restriction of a substance unless it effects others (ie. someone smoking anything on a crouded anything where I have to inhale the shit as well...)
blah blah blah
clifyt
I'm sorry, but you must not know anything about DVD if you think it blows. You just try putting a VHS player and a dozen videos in your backpack next time you fly somewhere.
I think the DVD player in my ThinkPad is the greatest advance in portable technology since the CD. I like the letterbox format movies, the alternate language soundtracks, and even the multi-lingual subtitles.
Divx offers none of those advantages, and isn't portable. If you take a movie to another player you need to pay again to see it, even if you are within a paid viewing period.
So farewell to Divx, long live DVD, and blow something else, PhoneMonkey.
The temperature in the Abyss is a balmy 140 degrees Fahrenheit, with a 98% relative humidity. This trend is expected to continue.
In other news, pigs have as of yet NOT sprouted wings, and monkeys are not about to fly out of my butt.
But we can always hope.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
But granted it's true. Divx is one of the few products you can buy where if the company goes out of business the computer is no longer functional. If company that makes your car goes under your warantee will no longer be any good, but your car will still drive.
-matt
but the next guy refuses, and so does the next guy, and the next, and the next. Uh-oh, circuit city has no body left to hire. Maybe they should rethink their drug testing policy. If everyone says "well that sucks, but that's just the way it is, nothing will ever change"
-matt
I actually wonder how long it will be before you start getting Divx discs in the mail that don't come with the first free viewing period. That certainly would be interesting.
-matt
More variety, better features, and better pricing across the waters.
The sets in Europe and other locations are reasonably priced, usually less than $1200 for a 28 inch multiformat (PAL/NTSC/SECAM) widescreen, with sizes 20-37 inches (This is from looking at the british site, dixons (http://www.dixons.co.uk:80/). Cheapest widescreen in US about 2k.
One could say that not available at Wallmart/Sears is not really available at all.
DVD is different that a VCR, and even VCD. Similar to laser disks.
DVD has random access to the information on the disk. VTR's do not.
Addtional content, like trailers
How many video tapes have more than one language soundtrack.
How many VCR's can do digital dolby 5.1 sound?
(The real reason to get a dvd).
How many Laserdisks come on more than 2 (or 4) 12 inch disks? Laserdisks were way to big for me to want to create a collection. DVD and video, got em.
DVD will be the furby of xmas 1999. Everyone will want one, but there will not be enough players to go around.
What the are you going to record? TV signal?
Sat Signal is the only thing with enough quality. And if one wants a recording gadget, there are newer toys, tivo (ok bad idea).
DVD are recorded in 480p: 480 line, progressive, non-interlaced scan. An accepted digital TV standard.
Downconversion happens in the player.
Some DVD's are anamorphic ("widesceen" enhanced), and use all 480 lines for information. Other are just widescreen with black bars at the top and the bottom.
It would still play DVD's. Just not the collection of $4.49 coasters.
Now if they had stuck with the original, did not play dvd player, then they would be in deep %&*$. Of course this is probably why it has DVD compatibility. Can you imagine all those people with DIVX players and long term extended warrenties returning dvix ony players to CC when divx went belly up.
"It no longer works, repair it. Can't digital video express is no longer in bussiness. Well make it work.... Well give me a new one!"
DVD compatibility saves them for when the venture goes ass up.
Beta is still used by almost all professional video companies. Any time you see a news videographer wandering around with a camera on his shoulder, it's a Betacam.
-- Meet the Residents -- http://www.residents.com/
Ever try to fit an 8" wide device in a 5.25" bay?
The relatively large amount of CD-form-factor infrastructure around also makes life more convenient.
Plus, 8" disks would be too damned big.
-k. ^-^ ^D
DVDs are better quality with more stuff included
DVDs are rented for the same price and can be played on any DVD player
DVDs can be returned if scratched.
DVDs are returned so you dont have to manage a whole library of discs you've rented before
DVDs can be copied
DVDs dont require your CC# or a phone line plugged into your player to run
DVDs are supported by everyone, DIVX is circuit city only.
Folks, this is why BetaMax lost to VHS.
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
David Garrett
Never attribute to malice that which can be more easily attributed to stupidity -- Hanlon's Razor
Actually, dual-layer DVD is used quite often. I'd say half of my movie collection arrived on dual-layer DVD. I'm going to be impressed when DVD-18 (dual-layer, double sided) arrives.
David Garrett
Never attribute to malice that which can be more easily attributed to stupidity -- Hanlon's Razor
DIVX is a pay-per-view format. Once the disk has been watched once, the consumer has recieved his or her money's worth. At this point, DIVX's obligation to the consumer ends. If the consumer had wanted to watch the movie again, he or she would have had to "purchase" the movie again, and therefore, DIVX owes the consumer nothing.
They might be forced to give refunds on all of the "Silver" disks that they had activated, but I suspect that very few disks have been converted to silver in the first place.
David Garrett
Never attribute to malice that which can be more easily attributed to stupidity -- Hanlon's Razor
Yeah, well, most places do....
---- Dave
I thought the last DIVX story here stated that Circuit City said they would fund DIVX for another year, but needed additional partners to keep it going beyond that. This report is more an analysis of how DIVX is confusing for investors.
I see nothing here to indicate that Circuit City is about to dump DIVX anytime this year.
Too bad.
Woohoo!
--John Riney
jwriney@awod.com
The thing in life is to demand the best, but settle for compromise.
There are many choices made for the tradeoffs seen in DVD, and for the most part are liveable.
Good compression, good quality, good sound, many pluses like multi-language, multi-scene, multi-subtitle, extra footage, etc.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Can a player be made to ignore everything except to read the data on the disk? IE, assume Divx goes down in flames, if it is legal, could one release a player that ignores all the phone line stuff and play the content regardless?
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Ok, its dying, but I'm just glad that DVIX AND are finally on their way to loser hell......
That was supposed to be AND Circut City
:-)
And I am in favor of legalizing most drugs, but I still can't imagine them wanting you high at work! Alcohol is legal, but you shouldn't go to work drunk.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Tell me about it. Circuit City lost me a while ago.
Me: Is it interlaced?
CC Drone: Oh yes, sir, it's fully interlaced.
Me: Um, that's bad...do you even know what you're selling?
CC Drone: [Blank stare].
They could at least tell these people something.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
IIRC, one of the other things that killed Betamax was that a single tape would only hold 1 hour on it, so you'd have to swap tapes in the middle of a movie. This annoyed people. VHS' ability to hold an entire (average, 2-hour) movie on one tape was a major consideration.
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
Privacy is really a non-issue when you are considering video rentals. People who rented "The Tin Drum" in Oklahoma City (I think) got cops knocking on their doors one fine day to get any copies of the movie from them.
Video stores _do_ track that kind of thing, and privacy be damned. You're best off to just shut yourself away from the world anymore.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
I still have a BetaMax. If only I could find that Ghostbusters video...
"There are no cool guys in musicals." -- Coach McGuirk
For the record, a private company requiring
/. can censor this post to hell and it
drug testing is not, as you put it, a
"constitutional violation". The Constitution
applies only to the government, and not to
individuals.
E.g.,
would still be "constitutional", because this
is a privately-run forum.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you not like about DVD. Divx I understand, but what consumer format can hold a candle to the beauty that is DVD?
--
InstantCool
LD was great and it does have a lot of titles, but it won't be long before DVD titles exsist in mass. It seems like Best Buy is adding another row to their DVD section every month.
Handling those giant LDs is something I won't miss.
--
InstantCool
Super VHS came into the picture too late. By the time it came out, nobody wanted to spend extra money on a tape format. Discs are the only way to go. You can talk about how they should have made DVDs work with HDTV, but HDTV isn't really here. At least not on a consumer level. So if you want to wait for something better, then wait. But something even better will always be around the corner whenever you decide to upgrade. The same is true of computers. You may wait for that 800Mhz processor, but a 1.2Ghz will be waiting when the 800Mhz is available. Today's technology best serves today's needs.
Until then, I enjoy watching my movies on the best looking consumer format available. Dolby 5.1 rocks too.
--
InstantCool
Exactly. There are much better recording formats than S VHS. DV format comes to mind. DV offers a picture nearly as good as Betacam SP and it's much cheaper.
--
InstantCool
I saw the Star Wars Trailer on DIVX, it was awsome
toot!
Best Buy (at least the ones I frequent) seems to have really backed off from an initially aggressive philosophy that would have lent itself to abuses like the above. When they first opened in our area, they were pretty insistent on checking your bags at the door (this was just catching on with other retailers at the time, as well). After about two months, they'd ended that policy, and now seem to only do checks on very large purchases. In addition, the level of harrasment on the part of the clerks ("May I help you" in every aisle) has reduced dramatically as well. My one beef with them now is that they've gutted what used to be one of the best world music selections in town. Just to make room for Judith Krantz books.
Best Buy is very much a "grab it off the shelf yourself" type of store. Though every time I go in there, there are enough people in blue and yellow shirts everywhere that I'm asked at least once if I'm finding everything alright. They may not know anything, but they're cheerful about it. ;o)
At Circuit City, you *have* to go through a salesperson for most products, which means if you already know what you want, you have to wait 30 minutes to get someone from the "right department" to give you the time of day. It took me an hour once to buy a VCR that I'd picked out in five minutes. Needless to say, that was the last time I've bought anything from Circuit City.
Sony still makes Beta tapes. I still buy them.
The quality was better than VHS but the length
was not there. Also Sony held on to the rights
to the format so that no one could compete without
licensing fees paid to Sony. I still copy macro-
vision protected VHS movies to my Beta that
records 100% of the information, including the
copy protection itself. I can't however, copy it
back to the VHS because the macrovision kicks in.
Sony Beta Hi-Fi. Works just as good as my
LaserDisc player. (don't get me started on that
one!!!)
Johnny O
but what consumer format can hold a candle to the beauty that is DVD?
LD. Picture quality is equivalent within 5%, DD is a pretty-much standard feature with new titles, and it offers something DVD can't hope to achieve: an enormous library of back titles. That's the very reason I own a LD player, actually. The existance of old media that aren't physically decaying.
I'll probably spring for DVD myself, one of these days... just as soon as something I desperately want isn't available on LD. So far, new LD releases are becoming a little thin, but there hasn't been a must-have title on DVD only yet.
But isn't it annoying having to deal with a drawer full of Divx discs? That's one annoyance I've not seen mentioned - sure you can buy a load o' Divx discs cheap, but then where do you keep 'em?
:-)
If video collecting is pathetic, then how much more pathetic is collecting Divx discs which you don't even really own?
If you don't like a Divx disc, where does THAT go? Do you throw it out? Great, more garbage that lasts forever in the landfill! At least I can take a DVD like Lost In Space or Zorro (both of which I got for free) that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and sell it to a used CD store for some money. Sure it'll go into a landfill later, but at least it's off my mind!
And also, if you are paying more than $16 for just about any DVD you are paying too much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've got one more - Divx is also inherantly not a collectable item, since you own nothing. Therefore it precludes building any kind of collection of movies... thus it stifles the right of everyone to be a packrat.
Now we can die happy!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
DIVX is the reason I will no longer step foot in a circuit city store. That and they're crappy service.
THX is not in competition with Dolby, Dolby is the THX of the sytem. Or if talking about Lucas's THX, they are still not in competition. Lucas's THX is a standard for sound reproduction. It can use Dolby, or other digital systems like DTS
You are partially correct. THX is a certification given to A/V electronics that adhere to a minimum of standards regarding such things as signal quality, power, and other goodies - depending on the type of equipment (i.e. speakers or amps, etc.) THX certification does not have anything to do with listening to two different sources in two different rooms.
Side note Dolby labs spearheaded the THX certification movement.
(In response to your original post and what appear to be your followups):
It seems the only complaint you have here is with the video store employees. On every other point, DVD at least matches DIVX. The only one that isn't comparable is "convenience". To some people, having multiple video stores down the street is convenient. To others, paying for multiple movies rentals and watching them later is convenient. This is personal preference, so it's not really worth an argument.
However, back to the salespeople. How are the CC salespeople any better than the video store ones? I am constantly pestered by CC drones whenever I stand still and look at an item for more than 2 seconds. This makes sense (in a wacked out way), since those folks work on commission. They're constantly wanting to sell you something.
On the other hand, rental store droids pretty much leave you alone while you're browsing. As long as you don't look iat them, they will generally go about their business. CC, however, is all about high pressure sales tactics.
I ask, in all honesty, how are video store folks worse than CC folks?
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Or Betamax tapes :)
DVD's are great, but I can't figure out how to rewind the damn thing and my video store charges me $1 each time I return one, ;-)
I can see where you are coming from here.
Its the difference between walking to a local rental place (with good 'bulk' prices) in the U District (of Seattle), versus driving to a Blockbuster in Bellevue.
I guess its that old "guy who runs the small shop" versus "MegaCorp (TM) (R) (C)" all over again.
The clerks at my grocery store (OK, Safeway) always say "thank you mr/ms last-name-from-your-check-or-CC-or-debit-card". I suppose I can always pay in cash if this starts bugging me too much.
As far as Godiva goes, they purposefully have self-help boxes and people at the counter waiting to help you, because they know that some people prefer not to be hassled, while those that need help will either (1) ask for it or (2) be fairly obvious in a store the size of a Godiva.
The whole HDTV thing is a joke. Especially considering the monster TV's they expect people to buy.
Riddle me this.
If I'm not mistaken, the SGI LCD monitor can support HDTV resolution.
Why don't they use *that* for HDTV TV's? Granted, it's a little small for typical living rooms, but it's big enough to watch TV or movies on if you move the couch up a bit. And you'll have to move the couch up to really see the difference in picture quality.
That LCD is cheaper than the HDTVs they're selling; it's not a gargantuan room-filling, back-breaking, spouse-upsetting monster; and it would easily used in a dual-purpose mode, switching between PC use and video use. It's hard to carry a 50" HDTV back to the den after you're done watching a flick.
Actually, I bet there's a market for HDTV-delivered financial market information. You could fit an enormous amount of data on there, clearly, in addition to video feeds from multiple cable news channels. Finance wizzes would probably buy such things. One for the bedroom, one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom...
With a more reasonable price and form factor, this could help popularize HDTV a lot more; it'd help lower the price of big high-res LCD's; and it'd hasten the demise of big-box TV's you could fit a VW in.
Over time, the LCD size would probably grow, so only the first generation would have the small ones.
The ambitions are: wake up, breathe, keep breathing.
That it (Beta) was only Sony was part of the problem. The main reason VHS won out over Beta (in home machines) was that VHS tapes had a longer recording time -- long enough to contain a full feature length movie, which Beta couldn't (except at lower resolution).
1. Beta picture on the worst recording speed was way better than VHS on its best speed. You are way off base. Did you ever look at one?
2. Beta lost for 2 reasons: Sony wanted to rule the market and thought they could be the IBM or APPLE of the home eletronics market. Open platforms weren't considered important at the time. The other reason is the same reason that the net is so popular: Porn. Porn was on VHS because the cameras were cheaper. It the same reason the net is so popular. Without Porn neither would have flourished in the ways they have.
Yeah, that's going to happen. Imagine everyone picking up those $4.99 discs. All of a sudden the studios can't sell you a $25.00 DVD because everyone who doesn't care about quality (ie, average consumer) is snapping up the cheap disks. Hell, they'll probably be sitting in cut out bins for a buck and a quarter.
I can't imagine the studios allowing that to happen. I can't even imagine them snapping up the ones left in the stores and then telling those people that already had the DIVX movies that they can watch them whenever they want. If DIVX goes belly up, you can bet the distributors are going to want to sell you a DVD movie to replace your worthless DIVX, count on it.
I seriously think those people that invest in the DIVX technology are going to be seriously out of luck when things fail.
...the sad thing is, CC is trying to get people to buy the silver package so they can watch the movie as many times as they want, except, it costs the same as a DVD, looks crappier, and if DIVX goes belly up.... well, we discussed that, didn't we?
-------------------------------------------------
I boycott CC over DIVX because of all the lies they have told over it. Why should I trust them on anything else they say about products if they are telling me what I know to be lies about one of the products (DIVX)?
I would rather suffer through the crappy help at Best Buy than support CC and their DIVX system.
OK, this post has got to be from an anonymous coward, 'cause I predict it will generate a napalm barrage, not to mention the obligatory 'this guy must be a Circuit Shitty plant' comments.
I like DIVX. It was pretty easy to set up, the picture is excellent, and it has saved my wife and I countless hastle and coin dealing with Video Stores. Yea, I feel guilty about giving into the Big Brother aspects of it, but not too guilty, in my book Blockbuster and my cable company are much higher on the list of _Evil Companies that Should Die_ than CC could ever hope to be.
Yea, I don't get to play with multiple aspect ratios, blah, blah, but the picture is sharp and clear as hell on my Proscan. We head over to Circuit City every couple of weeks, buy a handful of discs for the price of one DVD, stick 'em in a drawer, and don't worry about them till we have a few spare hours to watch a movie. No muss, no fuss, and no on-going relationship with video rental store droids, "Hi, welcome to BallBuster, where would you like to be kicked today?"
Of course, if DIVX does go south, I can always use regular DVD. Btw, I have to say that Video 'Collecting' has to be the most pathetic activity ever. Unless we're talking about a genuine classic that you might want to watch again and again, like 2001, or something to pacify your kids I suposse, dropping $25 bucks on 'Armeggedon' or some other piece o' shit Hollywood offereing just so it can sit on your shelf, and you can impress you friends with your DD sound effects is lame, lame, lame. I suspect (beyond the very real privacy concerns) that a lot of the venom behind the DIVX attacks comes from people with more money than sense who went out and dropped major money on DVD discs.
I think I can hear those F-111s heading my way allready...
An enterprising gentleman built himself an Excel spreadsheet to help him compare prices on big screen TVs, then he loaded said spreadsheet onto a notebook computer and went shopping. When he got to Best Buy and started jotting down prices, the store manager called the cops and threw him out. The next day the same gentleman went back with a pad of paper and a pen, and was immediately thrown out, again, with more cops and an arrest this time. When he got to court, the judge threw out the case with lots of nasty words about Best Buy. Eventually said gentleman sued Best Buy, but that case got thrown out by the (different) judge too.
At the time Circuit City got a lot of good press by inviting said gentleman to spend as much time as he wanted comparison-pricing their TVs.
That said, while I may go to Circuit City to check prices, I'll never buy there ... I hate having to fend off the sales-critters.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
This was all old news to me, except for one point which I found very amusing: Circuit City owns a piece of Carmax, a used car dealership. I wonder if they sponsor some sort of employee exchange program among their salespeople...
--
Jake
Beta was a better technology than VHS. That it was only a Sony technology killed it. DVDs in general use MacroVision to introduce nastiness in the picture quality if you try to copy it. There are ways to defeat this however. Sima for instance makes a MacroVision scrubber.
How can you talk about the advantages of DVD over DIVX and NOT mention privacy??
:) After the MP3 fiasco they'll never let the best technology win.. when bandwidth and storage get cheaper look for the MP3 wars to expand to video. Information wants to be free.... corporations want to control it.
This is MY big problem with DIVX... everything you watch with it goes to some soulless corporate database which will later be exploited.
It should be a crime for corporations to collect and sell information on you without your consent. It's a form of privacy theft borderline on stalking.
To put it another way, privacy is threatened enough without the TELEVISION WATCHING US!
Additionally, DIVX is very environmentally unfriendly. How can they cheer this on as "disposable movies"? It's bad enough that America Online sends unrequested CD software to people who don't even HAVE a computer... now we're going to throwaway movies after viewing? We ARE destroying ourselves... just keep consuming to keep your mind off it.
How do you copy DVD?? Using CDDA??
Good point about video collecting. You guys should take a look at "Widescreen Review", a magizine aimed at high end videophiles who purchase about $100,000 worth of equipment just so they can watch the latest Batman movie without having to walk their big fat asses down to the movie theater. Pretty funny read - all these big technical analyses of the color shift tonal qualities of some totally low brow movie running on top end hardware.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The whole Beta-was-better-than-VHS is a classic Internet legend. First of all, Beta (because of the smaller tape size), couldn't hold a 2 hour movie at SP speed. Eventually recitified, but killed Beta in the early rental market.
Second, I doubt you could even tell the difference between a $400 1983 Beta machine from and a $400 1983 VHS machine. They both suck by the modern standard of a $100 1999 VHS machine. People just wanted to rent movies using the cheapest deck they could get, and that was VHS.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I've noticed that today whatever I post has a score of 2 automatically(watch this prove me wrong). You seem to have several 3s. What's going on?
There's just not enough information on a DVD to do that. In about 6 years, there will be HD-DVD or something like that, with a shorter wavelength laser and more information on the disc. They'll still play normal DVDs. Who has an HDTV anyway? The highest quality stuff you can see on that is the broadcast HDTV stuff (all six hours a week). Then I guess comes Satellite feed. Then DVD is the highest quality pre-recorded video source availible (I guess actual film might be better). It may not support HDTV yet (but anamorphic discs support at least the widscreen aspect), but it's the best thing out there to date.
The downside to LCDs is viewing angle and latency, which may smear the image where there's a lot of action. Or not - I don't know how well the latest LCDs handle this.
But hell, HDTV on a 17" CRT computer monitor would be fine - just sit closer to the damn screen.
I'd like to see a HDTV tuner with an SVGA output...
-- Alastair
That it (Beta) was only Sony was part of the problem. The main reason VHS won out over Beta (in home machines) was that VHS tapes had a longer recording time -- long enough to contain a full feature length movie, which Beta couldn't (except at lower resolution).
That rapidly led to more software being available for VHS than for Beta.
-- Alastair
Everyone seems to have commented on my first sentence only. May the flames begin.
Perhaps if I had worded it: If DVD was what it could be, it wouldn't blow, but as it stays with the technological and cultural shortcomings which are standard with Laserdisc which it closely emulates, it is nowhere near the fabulous technological advance it could be.
It is easily scratched, and the info on both sides makes it hard to handle compared to Minidiscs, which with the new 6 Gig format will prove very interesting.
but compared to what it could be, DVD blows.
I would have written all that, but I was at work.
I would also like to personally thank all who have emailed me flames for making Slashdot what it is today
Bitter.....
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Guys, DVD blows, but don't even get me started on Divx.
Hopefully this will sound as a warning to Divx distributors....
No one (who knows better) wants it, movie companies don't support it, video retal houses don't support, it has no extra features like DVD (a plus) and the hardware setup requires a credit card (?!?)
Go away soon Divx, you won't be missed
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Only in the case of Blade Runner did it bother me, but it bothered me a *lot* less than having to watch a Pan-n-Scan blurry bulky VHS tape with metal oxides flaking off of it...
Sure they might have come up with a solution that doesn't fit in notebook computers or on your bookshelf or in the palm of your hand. Every consumer product has tradeoffs. Complaining about DVD because of artifacting is like complaining about sex because of the wet spot.
I know my post on another topic was moderated up to five (I watched it go), and then somehow wound up back down at three; and another post on yet another topic seemed to go right to three and stick there, but not automatically.
That's one reason not to invest any money in a Divx player or a Divx disk. Why take a chance that they'll go belly up and you'll never be able to watch all those movies again?
Heh. Just remember, you can rent DVD's from a video store. There is no need to shell out the $25 bucks to buy something you'll only watch once.
The Divx v. DVD thing had been beaten to death, but let us summarize:
Advantages of Divx v. DVD:
-- Able to watch the limited number of movies available in Divx format only.
-- Do not have to return disks after renting them.
Advantages of DVD v. Divx:
-- PRIVACY. You don't need to let the DVD company know that you bought a disk. With Divx you'll be required to do that to get repeat views or to "purchase" the CD permanently.
-- Price. Divx is more expensive.
-- DVD does not tie up a phone line. Nor does it require a credit card to charge.
-- DVD is more popular and thus is likely to win the format war, making Divx disks obsolete. This is especially bad given that if you don't "own" the disk and Divx goes under, you can't watch any of your movies.
-- DVD is availble for computers. Divx is not.
-- The DVD people are not resorting to questionable "astroturf" campaigns to prop up sales.
I'm writing this off the top of my head and might have missed something, but this right here shows that DVD is the no brainer choice. I wonder how many of the people who bought Divx were unsophisticated consumers talked into it by a Circuit City sales person? I'd guess a lot of them. I bet that few people who know the issues are choosing Divx.
Just to clarify, what specific aspects of dealing with video stores do you find hateful?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
BTW, has anybody else here noticed exactly how unhelpful the Best Buy web site is? I mean, for Christ's sake, I've seen better sites churned out by 12 year olds using Hotdog....
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.