Also, it would be cool to have a downloadable ISO, to burn directly to a DVD and watch on a TV instead of in the computer.
Most modern videocards have a TV-out.
MPEG-2 (particularly with the DVD-standard GOP size) is extremely large. Would you rather download the 145MB h.264 version, or the 4000MB DVD version?
Programs like MPlayer and ffmpeg make it extremely easy (and fast) to re-encode any playable videos into standard DVDs/SVCDs/VCDs/etc. So I don't see the problem.
Both of these play Ogg Theora for example on Linux, Mac, and Windows. If you're already using a format that doesn't work by default with, say, QuickTime and Windows Media Player, why not go all out and use Theora?
VP3/Theora work wonderfully on VCD resolutions (1/4th PAL/NTSC). However, once you try to get up even to D1 res, the performance drops ridiculously, using 70% CPU-time on my AMD 2000+ (which plays D1 MPEG-4 at ~1% CPU-time)! h.264, the most modern (and very CPU-intensive) video codec, uses far less CPU time than VP3/Theora (a 10 year-old codec).
Additionally, I don't know why people suggest Theora, anyhow. VP3 support is far more widespread, playback is faster, and Theora (despite 5 years of development) still doesn't have the slightest improvements over the stock VP3 codec.
The patent-free codec everyone has forgotten about is MPEG-1. It's nearly as good as MPEG-2 (for non-interlaced video) and the patents have long sinced expired.
MP2 audio is in the same boat, with MP2 (toolame/twolame) being on-par with AC3, except for lacking multi-channel coupling.
IMO, (joint-stereo, psy=1, toolame/twolame) 128K MP2 audio sounds better than (joint-stereo, aq=2, lame) MP3 at the same bitrate, due to the lack of MP3 distortion artifacts.
Did tiny portable televisions supplant the living room television?
No, because you can't get your 900 cable channels if you're not at home.
Something (portable) like the video iPod, however, certainly is shaping up to really challenge TV, since screen size is really the only difference, compared to watching your Tivo at home.
Mobile phones have largely replaced landline phones for a lot of people because they're able to do almost everything better than landline phones
Oh yeah, except for sound dropouts, and lower sound quality, and lack of high-speed internet on them, etc. Cell phones are winning, and they're not nearly as nice. Form a new theory.
PCs will be several orders of magnitudes more powerful than mobile devices when it comes to storage capacity, power, display, and input devices.
I don't think you know what an "order of magnitude" is.
Processing power is less than an order of magnitude difference, between handhelds and desktops. Slightly larger handhelds can have standard notebook hard drives, making them less than an order of magnitude of difference.
"Display" isn't even near an order of magnitude, unless you compare the lowest-end portable devices, with the very highest-end PC displays.
As for input. My 10 year-old, pocket-sized Psion has a keyboard that is much more comfortable than most laptops/desktop, unless you've got EXTREMELY large fingers.
I can't for example, run an instance of word which displays on my screen, from another computer without bringing the entire desktop, and all of it's bells and whistles along with it.
Yes you can. Citrix allows you to publish individual Windows apps.
However the era of the putty colored tower with a 2 ton monitor, is IMHO already going bye bye.
The monitor is going away because of HDTVs. The tower is never going to die, the case will just be changing into something that looks better next to your TV.
I believe the era of the PC is going away, but for mostly different reasons than you. I believe the increasing performance, storage density, and portablity of devices is going to mean you can have 99% of your basic PC apps (web, e-mail, openoffice, etc.) in your shirt pocket.
Yes, connectivity makes up a significant part of it, as you'll want to send your more CPU-intensive jobs over the network, but I don't believe dumb XTerms will be making a comeback (latency and serious reliability problems).
When I'm spending $100 on a socket 745 mobo/CPU, with a 16x PCIe slot (a "top computer" as you call it) I don't want to spend more than an extra $50 on a videocard.
but the fact is they have never had an OS that could replace Linux and other popular OS that everybody could run on their desktop with enough functionality.
Oh? How about L4Linux? I know this is/., but did you even READ the F'ing Article?
Why is so much angst being spent over this database that the NSA is collecting, but no one says anything at all about the database that the IRS is collecting?
I'll skip the lecture on "openness and legality" as others have already covered that.
The real issue is that widespread spying VIOLATES the freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other rights explicitly enumerated in the constitution.
OTOH, the right of the government to collect taxes is explicitly PERMITTED in the constitution.
Imagine the sound and fury from Fox and the neocons if this was being done by President Hilary Clinton.
Everyone likes to blame Fox News for ALL the problems with the press, today. Frankly, nothing Fox is doing should have any effect on CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. And yet, they've got their tails between their legs, only occasionally, sheepishly bringing these things up, and getting instantly distracted by PR moves like the illegal immigration campaign-year issue, and the like.
People like to talk about 1984, but I think it's more likely we're living in a "Wag the Dog" senario.
So right now it's nearly ten times more expensive to watch something over the net. Not to mention how it's not entirely a good use of broadcast resources.
Sounds good! I'm not watching TV 24/7.
Make it on-demand, with better selection, and 2.4 hours/day is more than enough.
Besides that, I haven't seen any $60/mo packages that have 24/7 HDTV on all (900) channels, so the analogy is extremely one-sided.
Internet (HD)TV is right on the edge of working... right now.
I should amend that banks can still outright FAIL, if they're run poorly... the Fed doesn't protect against that.
Actually, the FDIC DOES protect against that, to a degree. To be FDIC insured, the bank has to be subject to the regular review of the Fed, and they can outright tell them to change their practices.
For ISPs, overselling bandwidth is the ONLY way they can sell it to end-users cheaply.
Not true. It's just the way they WANT to sell it. They don't WANT to lower their advertised speeds, or raise their advertised price, but they certainly CAN.
Nobody ever said they have any RIGHT to do so. They are selling bandwidth on the margins, hoping they can keep enough to satisfy everyone, and hoping that the price they pay for bandwidth will drop as customers continue to pay the same price.
It is a gamble, on their part. Like any gamble, if they are right, they'll win big. If they're wrong, though, they do have to pay. Trying to push users and companies into covering their bets is absolutely ridiculous.
Do you realize that 8Mbps of bandwidth is costing your ISP THOUSANDS (maybe hundreds, if they're in a big city) of dollars?
Even in small cities, I've gotten quotes in the "hundreds" range, and I'm sure an ISP who has THOUSANDS of 8Mbit customers could get a much better deal than that on their service. So even if we say it costs them $200 for 8Mbit service, they're still okay as long as users are only spending 1/4th of their time COMPLETELY maxing-out their modems, which seems very unlikely, even in the case of regular HD downloads.
Besides, this is their price, and their speed. The only choice I have is to say yes or no. Cable companies typically don't provide a lower speed service at all, forcing those who just want to browse the web to pay $50/mo for the 128k they need... So it's really scam on top of scam on their part, any way you look at it.
... building or obtaining a circumvention device, which is prohibited in the United States...
Not true. It's only the "access control" portion that is illegal, and even then only if it: "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work"
So, a "device" that decrypts the media, but ONLY if you are authorized to view it in the first place, should be legal, as well as if it has other uses than purely a circumvention device (and only if it isn't marketed as a circumvention device).
What are the chances that this guy just did something against the Chinese Government's wishes, and so they faked this whole scandal.
Zero chance.
This is CHINA we are talking about here. They don't need to fake anything. If they want him gone, he's gone... nobody will ask questions. No reason is necessary.
Besides, this isn't exactly a surprise. From the first minute this story hit the presses, people were speculating that this is exactly what happened. China isn't exactly known for discouraging this kind of thing, either.
Please feel free. You can take a *copy* of any property of mine that you see.
Sounds good. I'll take copies of your credit cards, birth certificate, passport, driver's license, etc.
I believe the patent system has gone of the deep end, but those advocating the abolition of it (and particularly copyright) are only those people who lack the ability to envision how a world like that would look. Nobody would be stupid enough to put any effort into developing anything, as they would have no way to profit off of it.
Pardon me, but according to the DMCA we are explicitly NOT allowed to format shift.
This is absolutely ridiculous! Has ANYONE (else) here on/. actually READ the DMCA?
"This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumvent- ing a technological measure that prevents copying."
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Most modern videocards have a TV-out.
MPEG-2 (particularly with the DVD-standard GOP size) is extremely large. Would you rather download the 145MB h.264 version, or the 4000MB DVD version?
Programs like MPlayer and ffmpeg make it extremely easy (and fast) to re-encode any playable videos into standard DVDs/SVCDs/VCDs/etc. So I don't see the problem.
VP3/Theora work wonderfully on VCD resolutions (1/4th PAL/NTSC). However, once you try to get up even to D1 res, the performance drops ridiculously, using 70% CPU-time on my AMD 2000+ (which plays D1 MPEG-4 at ~1% CPU-time)! h.264, the most modern (and very CPU-intensive) video codec, uses far less CPU time than VP3/Theora (a 10 year-old codec).
Additionally, I don't know why people suggest Theora, anyhow. VP3 support is far more widespread, playback is faster, and Theora (despite 5 years of development) still doesn't have the slightest improvements over the stock VP3 codec.
The patent-free codec everyone has forgotten about is MPEG-1. It's nearly as good as MPEG-2 (for non-interlaced video) and the patents have long sinced expired.
MP2 audio is in the same boat, with MP2 (toolame/twolame) being on-par with AC3, except for lacking multi-channel coupling.
IMO, (joint-stereo, psy=1, toolame/twolame) 128K MP2 audio sounds better than (joint-stereo, aq=2, lame) MP3 at the same bitrate, due to the lack of MP3 distortion artifacts.
You are aware of that? Kind-of like how some people are aware that UFOs exist and are abducting people?
No matter how much I've looked, I've never heard of these mythical AMD chip shortages. I have heard of plenty of Intel chip shortages though.
This is just a tempest in a teacup...
You might as well send Greenpeace to investigate Joe Blow, who drips a little oil on the ground when working on his car.
If you want to make a point, try to make it about something with some significance.
As opposed to traditional newspapers, which post retractions in bold headlines on the front page... </SARCASM>
The world sucks. Get used-to it.
Yeah, but the end guy is hard.
That's fine and all, except for that fact that you EXPLICITLY included them in your comparison, and are now backpedaling:
"cellphones and other mobile devices"
"mobile phones and PDAs"
"mobile devices"
No, because you can't get your 900 cable channels if you're not at home.
Something (portable) like the video iPod, however, certainly is shaping up to really challenge TV, since screen size is really the only difference, compared to watching your Tivo at home.
Oh yeah, except for sound dropouts, and lower sound quality, and lack of high-speed internet on them, etc. Cell phones are winning, and they're not nearly as nice. Form a new theory.
I don't think you know what an "order of magnitude" is.
Processing power is less than an order of magnitude difference, between handhelds and desktops. Slightly larger handhelds can have standard notebook hard drives, making them less than an order of magnitude of difference.
"Display" isn't even near an order of magnitude, unless you compare the lowest-end portable devices, with the very highest-end PC displays.
As for input. My 10 year-old, pocket-sized Psion has a keyboard that is much more comfortable than most laptops/desktop, unless you've got EXTREMELY large fingers.
Yes you can. Citrix allows you to publish individual Windows apps.
The monitor is going away because of HDTVs. The tower is never going to die, the case will just be changing into something that looks better next to your TV.
I believe the era of the PC is going away, but for mostly different reasons than you. I believe the increasing performance, storage density, and portablity of devices is going to mean you can have 99% of your basic PC apps (web, e-mail, openoffice, etc.) in your shirt pocket.
Yes, connectivity makes up a significant part of it, as you'll want to send your more CPU-intensive jobs over the network, but I don't believe dumb XTerms will be making a comeback (latency and serious reliability problems).
"IBM to Adopts" it? What great news!
/.
I to Reads
When I'm spending $100 on a socket 745 mobo/CPU, with a 16x PCIe slot (a "top computer" as you call it) I don't want to spend more than an extra $50 on a videocard.
And it only took them 14 click-through pages to come to that conclusion...
Plus that conclusion is mostly based on the fact that WMP10 vastly downgrades video quality on the other two cards...
We desperately need to get some new video testing standards, so pulling crap like this doesn't fool people anymore.
Okay, then lets compare Linux (a general-purpose OS that runs on PC hardware) to QNX (a general-purpose OS that runs on PC hardware).
See: http://get.qnx.com/
Oh? How about L4Linux? I know this is
No.
Monolithic kernels, and their programming model and concepts, have been around far, far longer.
I'll skip the lecture on "openness and legality" as others have already covered that.
The real issue is that widespread spying VIOLATES the freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other rights explicitly enumerated in the constitution.
OTOH, the right of the government to collect taxes is explicitly PERMITTED in the constitution.
Everyone likes to blame Fox News for ALL the problems with the press, today. Frankly, nothing Fox is doing should have any effect on CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. And yet, they've got their tails between their legs, only occasionally, sheepishly bringing these things up, and getting instantly distracted by PR moves like the illegal immigration campaign-year issue, and the like.
People like to talk about 1984, but I think it's more likely we're living in a "Wag the Dog" senario.
Sounds good! I'm not watching TV 24/7.
Make it on-demand, with better selection, and 2.4 hours/day is more than enough.
Besides that, I haven't seen any $60/mo packages that have 24/7 HDTV on all (900) channels, so the analogy is extremely one-sided.
Internet (HD)TV is right on the edge of working... right now.
Actually, the FDIC DOES protect against that, to a degree. To be FDIC insured, the bank has to be subject to the regular review of the Fed, and they can outright tell them to change their practices.
Not true. It's just the way they WANT to sell it. They don't WANT to lower their advertised speeds, or raise their advertised price, but they certainly CAN.
Nobody ever said they have any RIGHT to do so. They are selling bandwidth on the margins, hoping they can keep enough to satisfy everyone, and hoping that the price they pay for bandwidth will drop as customers continue to pay the same price.
It is a gamble, on their part. Like any gamble, if they are right, they'll win big. If they're wrong, though, they do have to pay. Trying to push users and companies into covering their bets is absolutely ridiculous.
Even in small cities, I've gotten quotes in the "hundreds" range, and I'm sure an ISP who has THOUSANDS of 8Mbit customers could get a much better deal than that on their service. So even if we say it costs them $200 for 8Mbit service, they're still okay as long as users are only spending 1/4th of their time COMPLETELY maxing-out their modems, which seems very unlikely, even in the case of regular HD downloads.
Besides, this is their price, and their speed. The only choice I have is to say yes or no. Cable companies typically don't provide a lower speed service at all, forcing those who just want to browse the web to pay $50/mo for the 128k they need... So it's really scam on top of scam on their part, any way you look at it.
Baring any objections... I have a new sig
Not true. It's only the "access control" portion that is illegal, and even then only if it: "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work"
So, a "device" that decrypts the media, but ONLY if you are authorized to view it in the first place, should be legal, as well as if it has other uses than purely a circumvention device (and only if it isn't marketed as a circumvention device).
Zero chance.
This is CHINA we are talking about here. They don't need to fake anything. If they want him gone, he's gone... nobody will ask questions. No reason is necessary.
Besides, this isn't exactly a surprise. From the first minute this story hit the presses, people were speculating that this is exactly what happened. China isn't exactly known for discouraging this kind of thing, either.
Sounds good. I'll take copies of your credit cards, birth certificate, passport, driver's license, etc.
I believe the patent system has gone of the deep end, but those advocating the abolition of it (and particularly copyright) are only those people who lack the ability to envision how a world like that would look. Nobody would be stupid enough to put any effort into developing anything, as they would have no way to profit off of it.
This is absolutely ridiculous! Has ANYONE (else) here on
Perhaps, sometimes, it's best that we're ignorant to how hard it's going to be... Otherwise, we might not start at all.