... I've read through all posts in this thread now, and I've seen _loads_ of "my TV picture is just fine, why do we need anything better than NTSC?".
Well, go to Europe and watch some PAL analog TV then - a lot better than NTSC. Then watch the same PAL analog TV with a 100Hz TV - wow! Now watch DVD piped through Svideo or RGB to that 100Hz widescreen TV - we're really getting interested now!
Now imagine DTV and HDTV, more resolution (HDTV) than DVD, TV sets that don't even convert to analog before displaying (Plasma TV, anyone?).
Why you need anything better than that _incredibly_ crappy NTSC shit?
Because of the same f*cking reasons you don't use 8086 computers, black&white TVs, crap AM radio (oh wait, maybe you still do.. ), analog cellphone systems (damn, you do)!
I'm happy I don't live in that 3rd world country called USA - technology from the 60's all the way through.
Flamebait? Yes, but only if you're moderating with your personal US ego in front of your eyes.
What was this all about? Finding the encrypted data on a server!
*** The ENCRYPTED data ***
All persons involved in this "discovery" should know that if the data is encrypted with good enough methods they could hand out that encrypted data to everyone on their website without risking being compromised!
Stupid stupid stupid stupid.
I'll go and decrypt all those nude photos I currently have encrypted using 128 bit IDEA on my harddrive now. Someone could search for their randomness and get hold of my encrypted data... scary. They could even try to view that encrypted data with an image viewer and see... well... random noise.
There's a thing called EON that means that traffic announcements etc can get through no matter what channel you're listening in. I assume that's what they use to "hijack" the radios to their frequency.
Added bonus is that most radios are configured to up the volume when traffic info comes on:)
D*mn. Forgot to point out that you don't need DeCSS, Dodrip or any other ripper to make dvd-rips. A nice little capture card suffices. I'd recommend the Matrox Marvel G400 - excellent quality captures in MJPEG that can be encoded to VCD mpeg1 using Premiere and the Panasonic encoder plugin.
Dvd-rips existed long before DeCSS - if anyone needs that info for the injunction... I'd gladly make a documentary of how to make one from my own personal DVDs (legal in Sweden) if that's needed.
I don't get it. Everything you seem to be afraid of already exists.
DeCSS (or dodrip) + a nice little mpeg2 resizer will make you what's known as a "miniDVD". That's 352*480 mpeg2 with AC3 audio. You'll need 2 or maybe 3 discs for a complete DVD movie, with _really_ good quality. So far they're only playable in very few stand-alone DVD players, but on computers they work really well.
Dodrip (or DeCSS) + another little mpeg-manipulator will make you a VCD. Worse picture quality, and "only" Dolby Surround, but most movies fit on 2 discs, and are playable in consumer DVD players.
Dodrip (or any other ripper) + some Microsoft software will make you an ASF movie. Picture quality can be anywhere from terrible to better-than-VCD depending on bitrate, sound is good (Dolby Surround). Can be 1 to 2 cds for a whole movie, again depending on bitrate.
Who in their right mind actually takes the time to copy movies this way?
The ones living in countries where the cinemas lag 6 months behind the US. The solution is of course to release movies world-wide, both cinema-wise and DVD wise. That'll kill a LOT of the piracy.
Reply from the author of DeCSS (I'm just the messenger):
"what I find hilarious is that linux people are interested in windows code" "the decss source code is available but if you've got a lamers brain you won't find it that easily"
You're talking about the 17 year old Swede who linked to mp3s?
He was freed once again, this time by a higher court than the one before (makes sence or not depending on how much you know about the Swedish court system)
So - THE FIRST TRIAL EVER ABOUT SPREADING MP3S (LINKING TO THEM IN FACT) HAS BEEN DECIDED TWICE IN FAVOUR OF THE PERSON OWNING THE WEB PAGE
Yup, yours and all the follow ups regarding which other US agency should deal with the issue instead.
It's hard to accept that the world is bigger than the US, right?
There's no need for a universal IM standard - just drop everything except ICQ. Outside the US, that's the reality already... (and as soon as the wonderful craft of reverse engineering produces free servers and clients, we drop AOL:)
If we find water on Mars it will probably mean terraforming within the next few centuries. Mars seems to have been, and could very well be again, very much like Earth.
This probably won't happen with DVD players though - too many different kinds...
Duh.
Region hacks, anyone? I haven't seen a stand alone DVD player in a loooong time that didn't have a few extra ICs and stuff soldered in to defeat region and/or macrovision protection.
Too many different kinds? Oh no - the consumers do pay for that kind of service... I know, I did.
DeCSS (which I assume the industry is talking about) wasn't made to make watching DVDs in Linux possible. It was made to rip DVD.vobs to your local harddrive.
99% of what has been done to those.vobs afterwards involves mpeg2avi and then re-encoding to either VCD (mpeg1) or miniDVD (mpeg2).
... now, there are _other_ advances being made possible by the hack of CSS, among those Linux support, but that really didn't catch on in the media as much as DeCSS did.
Dumbing down.... are we really getting more stupid???
Yes.
At the same time we have more information available to us (us == humanity) we're beginning to just look at the headlines and skip the actual content. (Yeah, I mean both real stuff here and Slashdot stories;)
There are so many areas today in which you can become an expert, so if you indeed follow one of those paths, you're bound to loose out on the rest of them.
... someone else will probably write the same thing as I'm doing now, but better, and more insightful. I haven't got the time to sit down and think more about this, haven't got the energy to write everything down (gotta see that movie, gotta cuddle with my girlfriend, gotta go to sleep so I can work tomorrow, gotta...)
uh
I'm actually quite close to look into that "back to basics" thing.. nice little cottage out on the country... chopping wood... no computers...
That is, the ongoing battle between AMD and Intel. I seriously hope that AMD will be able to continously deliver CPUs with a higher MHz rating than Intel (_real_ speed not that important, we all know MHz is what counts when bragging/marketing)
Intel has had a close-to-be monopoly for all too long, and AMD is the best chanse we have to change that.
I've already done my part, I've strongly advocated the buy of Athlon-based computers for the software developers where I work, and hopefully they'll come (I'm not in IS, but they usually listen to what we developers have to say;)
So, all you tech-people with a chance to make a statement out there - you _are_ helping AMD in breaking Intels monopoly, right?
(and if you ask me, yes, Athlon is the better CPU also... if it wasn't, I wouldn't recommend it...)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, go to Europe and watch some PAL analog TV then - a lot better than NTSC. Then watch the same PAL analog TV with a 100Hz TV - wow! Now watch DVD piped through Svideo or RGB to that 100Hz widescreen TV - we're really getting interested now!
Now imagine DTV and HDTV, more resolution (HDTV) than DVD, TV sets that don't even convert to analog before displaying (Plasma TV, anyone?).
Why you need anything better than that _incredibly_ crappy NTSC shit?
Because of the same f*cking reasons you don't use 8086 computers, black&white TVs, crap AM radio (oh wait, maybe you still do .. ), analog cellphone systems (damn, you do)!
I'm happy I don't live in that 3rd world country called USA - technology from the 60's all the way through.
Flamebait? Yes, but only if you're moderating with your personal US ego in front of your eyes.
Buy a real VCD sometime, yes, they're available. Done the right way, they surpass VHS played on high-end VCRs (I know, I own one).
That's what we've had in Sweden since ... umm ... well, longer than I've had one. And I've had one for a long time :)
*** The ENCRYPTED data ***
All persons involved in this "discovery" should know that if the data is encrypted with good enough methods they could hand out that encrypted data to everyone on their website without risking being compromised!
Stupid stupid stupid stupid.
I'll go and decrypt all those nude photos I currently have encrypted using 128 bit IDEA on my harddrive now. Someone could search for their randomness and get hold of my encrypted data ... scary. They could even try to view that encrypted data with an image viewer and see ... well ... random noise.
Go hide in the corner now, please.
Added bonus is that most radios are configured to up the volume when traffic info comes on :)
SW 1,3,4,5 are all available on DVD.
TPM is the same film-rip as the one seen on the VCD scene. Widescreen, surround, malaysian subtitles. Ep 3,4,5 are from the Laserdiscs.
Nicely pressed pirate-DVDs. Yes, they exist.
Maybe not in the US - but not everyone lives there ...
Dvd-rips existed long before DeCSS - if anyone needs that info for the injunction ... I'd gladly make a documentary of how to make one from my own personal DVDs (legal in Sweden) if that's needed.
DeCSS (or dodrip) + a nice little mpeg2 resizer will make you what's known as a "miniDVD". That's 352*480 mpeg2 with AC3 audio. You'll need 2 or maybe 3 discs for a complete DVD movie, with _really_ good quality. So far they're only playable in very few stand-alone DVD players, but on computers they work really well.
Dodrip (or DeCSS) + another little mpeg-manipulator will make you a VCD. Worse picture quality, and "only" Dolby Surround, but most movies fit on 2 discs, and are playable in consumer DVD players.
Dodrip (or any other ripper) + some Microsoft software will make you an ASF movie. Picture quality can be anywhere from terrible to better-than-VCD depending on bitrate, sound is good (Dolby Surround). Can be 1 to 2 cds for a whole movie, again depending on bitrate.
Who in their right mind actually takes the time to copy movies this way?
The ones living in countries where the cinemas lag 6 months behind the US. The solution is of course to release movies world-wide, both cinema-wise and DVD wise. That'll kill a LOT of the piracy.
You relly need to learn a thing or few about CPU manufactoring before trying to lecture the ones that do.
Read the article. The die in a 550E is the same as in a faster model. The reason they're stamped with a lower MHz rating is pure marketing.
"what I find hilarious is that linux people are interested in windows code"
"the decss source code is available but if you've got a lamers brain you won't find it that easily"
He was freed once again, this time by a higher court than the one before (makes sence or not depending on how much you know about the Swedish court system)
So - THE FIRST TRIAL EVER ABOUT SPREADING MP3S (LINKING TO THEM IN FACT) HAS BEEN DECIDED TWICE IN FAVOUR OF THE PERSON OWNING THE WEB PAGE
"Interesting", I think.
Wow - a lot of the defendants don't live in the US.
Wow - a lot of the defendants live in countries where reverse engineering is legal.
This is what I've heard several times, and I have no reason to doubt it.
Yup, yours and all the follow ups regarding which other US agency should deal with the issue instead.
It's hard to accept that the world is bigger than the US, right?
There's no need for a universal IM standard - just drop everything except ICQ. Outside the US, that's the reality already ... (and as soon as the wonderful craft of reverse engineering produces free servers and clients, we drop AOL :)
Now, whether that's good or bad, I don't know ;)
Duh.
Region hacks, anyone? I haven't seen a stand alone DVD player in a loooong time that didn't have a few extra ICs and stuff soldered in to defeat region and/or macrovision protection.
Too many different kinds? Oh no - the consumers do pay for that kind of service ... I know, I did.
99% of what has been done to those .vobs afterwards involves mpeg2avi and then re-encoding to either VCD (mpeg1) or miniDVD (mpeg2).
Yes.
At the same time we have more information available to us (us == humanity) we're beginning to just look at the headlines and skip the actual content. (Yeah, I mean both real stuff here and Slashdot stories ;)
There are so many areas today in which you can become an expert, so if you indeed follow one of those paths, you're bound to loose out on the rest of them.
uh
I'm actually quite close to look into that "back to basics" thing .. nice little cottage out on the country ... chopping wood ... no computers ...
Dumb?
Intel has had a close-to-be monopoly for all too long, and AMD is the best chanse we have to change that.
I've already done my part, I've strongly advocated the buy of Athlon-based computers for the software developers where I work, and hopefully they'll come (I'm not in IS, but they usually listen to what we developers have to say ;)
So, all you tech-people with a chance to make a statement out there - you _are_ helping AMD in breaking Intels monopoly, right?
(and if you ask me, yes, Athlon is the better CPU also ... if it wasn't, I wouldn't recommend it ...)