Well, it does mean that the last two things Norrington has done (League and Blade) are both based on comic books, and we know that Blade was really good. I've heard positive murmurings about League as well, so I'm actually not that ready to damn him in advance of seeing what he does with Akira - if he does it as a new adaptation of the comic, rather than just trying to remake the film then it may turn out to be of interest.
"Even so, his post is an assult on this country. The First Amendment only forbids government from taking action against speech, not private entities. People like you who badmouth private enterprise can me sued or convicted (hopefully both) under certain statutes"
I'm not going to argue about whether or not I'm "Unamerican" right now, but there is one tiny factor thats probably worth mentioning about now. I'm Un-American in the 'not an American citizen' sense, at least. Lovely country, lovely people, but I live elsewhere in the world.
"My car runs 40+mph on an indoor track no bigger than 40x100ft. If I let it rip outside with the proper gearing it will climb to over 60mph."
These really are very different things. I don't doubt that your 1:12 scale car is both great fun and has far superior handling than the digital controls of a Bit Char-G car, but I race my tiny Char-G around my living room, which means we don't need to hire or own a 40x100ft track every time we feel like a quick go. They can dive between office pods quite well, too.
Don't accept any imitations - I've yet to see a single non-Tomy one with the same build quality as an official Bit Char-G. They are great - they may not have the range or manouverability of a larger car, as several have pointed out, but on my maple floor they go like a dream, and are small enough to let you do a decent course without having to resort to multi-room strangeness.
Obviously, the best are the limited edition Mario Kart ones - RC racing with Mario is so smart.
Its doing rather a lot more than acting as a remote control; that is his DVD player.
More to the point, its (as far as I can see) not acting as the remote control for anything at the same time as its DVD player duties. Its basically a hack to get a HTPC that doesn't leave you with an ugly on-screen display and sits nicely under the projector, unlike most HTPCs.
Why use a HTPC? Because a Radeon card playing back through a VGA or digital video out gives at picture quality through his projector that he would need to fork out at least 10 times as much to achieve with a Farjouda line doubler.
Heinlein probably would have mourned Starship Troopers, I agree, but it doesn't mean I don't like the film. Verhoeven just completely disagrees with Heinlein's views, and I got the distinct impression from the commentary track that they only bought the book rights as a way of avoiding lawsuits from Fox over their 'Colonial Marines shoot lots of Aliens that look like insects movie' they were planning anyway. The chance to attack everything Heinlein stood for was just a bonus, really.
"And, of course, I can still rip my Luc Besson - Atlantis DVD's soundtrack"
Where is Atlantis available on DVD? I'd guess Australia from your.au email, but then I know that you guys are even more keen than us Brits on importing. I'd rather like to replace my (admittedly widescreen, so not too bad) VHS tape.
Firstly, lets be honest here. Video quality gets degraded far more by the desire to pander to the lowest idiot who decides which film to buy by counting the number of extra features on the back of the box than the inclusion of a half-bitrate DTS track. Sony's MPEG2 encoder may be renowned for adding far too much edge enhancement, causing it to be a waste of time in practice, but the theory of Superbit is a good one.
Anyway, with that out of the way, can you please name me a single disc in existence (apart from known mistakes like the +3dB surrounds on the first Jurassic Park pressing, or the abysmal job that Universal made when unsupervised of their conversion for the first DVD release of the same film, as they used the wrong master) where the Dolby track (at any bitrate) sounds better than the DTS track (at any bitrate), because I've not heard one. I fully admit that in some cases (Saving Private Ryan, The Haunting) it would appear that a superior mix is used for the DTS master, but I've never heard DTS do a worse job, and it usually does a better one.
You're right, DD is smaller; I just question the number of cases where that really does matter.
I've got some really nice looking Laserdiscs, and yes my Star Wars Trilogy discs do kick several of my DVDs around the park, but even they are no Fight Club or Toy Story 2 in the looks department. DVD at its best is substantially better than the best Laserdisc or SVHS has to offer.
Not to say that it can't be worse, nor that SVHS and Laserdisc aren't very nice indeed, but on a good day for all three then DVD will win.
The situation with Sony's Playstation and PS2 region encoding is slightly different. Due to the freakish way its implemented for Sony games machines, disabling the region check also automatically disables the copy protection. The deliberateness or otherwise of this decision is left to the reader, but it does mean that they are on slightly better ground trying to stop mod chips for games than they are for films, since my region-hacked Pioneer still doesn't affect the macrovision on the output (more's the pity - it causes distortion on NTSC footage).
"Heck, I've even seen seasons of TV shows on DVDs that were region coded."
Lets just say I work for a DVD distributor in some random country. I'm looking at purchasing the local release rights for, say, Futurama. Will I pay more for them if the people I'm selling to cannot watch the US DVD release? Its exactly the same as for films. If you want to sell the distribution rights to a region, you don't want people there importing from elsewhere.
Have they actually stopped you bringing DVDs into the country, or is it merely illegal to sell them in Switzerland? I can easily understand the latter (we have the same in Britain, as all videos/DVDs sold must be certified by the BBFC first), but the former seems like a fairly fundamental restriction on your rights; are they searching your baggage at the border for discs like they were drugs?
"Why not instead of region encoding they just stay with their current use of PAL encoding in the UK... i think its easier to break a region code than change to a different standard completely."
They do in fact do this as well. Its just that I don't know anyone under 50 without access to a television that can cope with an NTSC signal. Not to mention the fact that many DVD players can convert NTSC to PAL on the fly.
This pseudo-code is correct. What they then normally forget to do, however, is put any restriction on what the player can do there. Allowing your player to complain, then play 'Title 1' to see the film anyway. Wonderfully, the disc will normally start the film anyway.
I'm really curious as to exactly where you've got the idea that GTA3 has come even close to being banned in the UK. Normally the only people claiming that are those trying to raise more than a tenner for their copies on ebay. Apart from anything, it was fully certificated by the BBFC and passed at 18 before hitting the shelves, and its normal to attempt to ban something before the millionth copy is sold, rather than after.
As for the original suggestion that Region Encoding is somehow Censorship, thats only in the sense that me not letting you see my home movies are, rather than any sensible definition of the term.
Actually, while PAL and Secam are slightly different standards, the player is converting the native 720x576 at 50Hz interlaced image to whichever TV standard its asked to - a French disc will play correctly on a UK tv and vice versa after all.
"I'm kind of shocked that you would let it get to this point, and then if it does, to roll over so easily."
Call me a wuss, but while I'd oppose the idea of making something like DRM-enforcement a law, if it gets passed I'd probably obey it. Federal ass-pounding institutions look like rather less fun than downloading and installing a patch that stops me doing something I don't want to anyway.
Ah, I thought there was a reason. I interpreted the story being about monitoring the playing of PS2 games on the PS2 - for some reason I have this mental blind spot about the idea of using consoles for anything other than playing games; thats why I have DVD and laserdisc players.
I suppose this article does actually back Nintendo's theory of making games machines for playing games on, and leaving the music and film stuff to the other manufacturers (he says trying to sweep the Panasonic Q under that rug over there).
huh? Did I miss a -2 post somewhere, or something? What has the medium the game is supplied on got to do with avoiding software that monitors your activity?
With a bigger print, you can shine more light through it for a sensible intensity. That way it looks much better blown up to such a huge size than the intensity levels they are having to use to blow a 35mm print onto a full IMAX screen. The 'amazing' technique they are using to get better transfers between the 35mm master and the IMAX print isn't that interesting, but as anyone who has seen the rather muddy effects of blowing a 35mm print that big will testify, this will help.
Basically, its not going to look anywhere near as good as a proper IMAX film, but it will look a lot better than current gimmick attempts at showing Star Wars, The Matrix etc. in IMAX theaters.
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Well, it does mean that the last two things Norrington has done (League and Blade) are both based on comic books, and we know that Blade was really good. I've heard positive murmurings about League as well, so I'm actually not that ready to damn him in advance of seeing what he does with Akira - if he does it as a new adaptation of the comic, rather than just trying to remake the film then it may turn out to be of interest.
"Even so, his post is an assult on this country. The First Amendment only forbids government from taking action against speech, not private entities. People like you who badmouth private enterprise can me sued or convicted (hopefully both) under certain statutes"
I'm not going to argue about whether or not I'm "Unamerican" right now, but there is one tiny factor thats probably worth mentioning about now. I'm Un-American in the 'not an American citizen' sense, at least. Lovely country, lovely people, but I live elsewhere in the world.
"My car runs 40+mph on an indoor track no bigger than 40x100ft. If I let it rip outside with the proper gearing it will climb to over 60mph."
These really are very different things. I don't doubt that your 1:12 scale car is both great fun and has far superior handling than the digital controls of a Bit Char-G car, but I race my tiny Char-G around my living room, which means we don't need to hire or own a 40x100ft track every time we feel like a quick go. They can dive between office pods quite well, too.
"Your name isn's Goerge W. by any change ?"
;-)
Nope. Given that wonderful new word you've invented, I don't suppose you are, are you?
Don't accept any imitations - I've yet to see a single non-Tomy one with the same build quality as an official Bit Char-G. They are great - they may not have the range or manouverability of a larger car, as several have pointed out, but on my maple floor they go like a dream, and are small enough to let you do a decent course without having to resort to multi-room strangeness.
Obviously, the best are the limited edition Mario Kart ones - RC racing with Mario is so smart.
Can I have some of Rupert's cash now? I've no evidence, or anything, but that doesn't seem a problem.
Its doing rather a lot more than acting as a remote control; that is his DVD player.
More to the point, its (as far as I can see) not acting as the remote control for anything at the same time as its DVD player duties. Its basically a hack to get a HTPC that doesn't leave you with an ugly on-screen display and sits nicely under the projector, unlike most HTPCs.
Why use a HTPC? Because a Radeon card playing back through a VGA or digital video out gives at picture quality through his projector that he would need to fork out at least 10 times as much to achieve with a Farjouda line doubler.
Heinlein probably would have mourned Starship Troopers, I agree, but it doesn't mean I don't like the film. Verhoeven just completely disagrees with Heinlein's views, and I got the distinct impression from the commentary track that they only bought the book rights as a way of avoiding lawsuits from Fox over their 'Colonial Marines shoot lots of Aliens that look like insects movie' they were planning anyway. The chance to attack everything Heinlein stood for was just a bonus, really.
"for $9500 I'm betting you could get the orignial band to come to your house and play into your computer!"
;)
Paul & Ringo, maybe, but thats not quite the same...
Thanks muchly. Amazon.de now have my order.
"And, of course, I can still rip my Luc Besson - Atlantis DVD's soundtrack"
.au email, but then I know that you guys are even more keen than us Brits on importing. I'd rather like to replace my (admittedly widescreen, so not too bad) VHS tape.
Where is Atlantis available on DVD? I'd guess Australia from your
Firstly, lets be honest here. Video quality gets degraded far more by the desire to pander to the lowest idiot who decides which film to buy by counting the number of extra features on the back of the box than the inclusion of a half-bitrate DTS track. Sony's MPEG2 encoder may be renowned for adding far too much edge enhancement, causing it to be a waste of time in practice, but the theory of Superbit is a good one.
Anyway, with that out of the way, can you please name me a single disc in existence (apart from known mistakes like the +3dB surrounds on the first Jurassic Park pressing, or the abysmal job that Universal made when unsupervised of their conversion for the first DVD release of the same film, as they used the wrong master) where the Dolby track (at any bitrate) sounds better than the DTS track (at any bitrate), because I've not heard one. I fully admit that in some cases (Saving Private Ryan, The Haunting) it would appear that a superior mix is used for the DTS master, but I've never heard DTS do a worse job, and it usually does a better one.
You're right, DD is smaller; I just question the number of cases where that really does matter.
I've got some really nice looking Laserdiscs, and yes my Star Wars Trilogy discs do kick several of my DVDs around the park, but even they are no Fight Club or Toy Story 2 in the looks department. DVD at its best is substantially better than the best Laserdisc or SVHS has to offer.
Not to say that it can't be worse, nor that SVHS and Laserdisc aren't very nice indeed, but on a good day for all three then DVD will win.
The situation with Sony's Playstation and PS2 region encoding is slightly different. Due to the freakish way its implemented for Sony games machines, disabling the region check also automatically disables the copy protection. The deliberateness or otherwise of this decision is left to the reader, but it does mean that they are on slightly better ground trying to stop mod chips for games than they are for films, since my region-hacked Pioneer still doesn't affect the macrovision on the output (more's the pity - it causes distortion on NTSC footage).
"Heck, I've even seen seasons of TV shows on DVDs that were region coded."
Lets just say I work for a DVD distributor in some random country. I'm looking at purchasing the local release rights for, say, Futurama. Will I pay more for them if the people I'm selling to cannot watch the US DVD release? Its exactly the same as for films. If you want to sell the distribution rights to a region, you don't want people there importing from elsewhere.
Have they actually stopped you bringing DVDs into the country, or is it merely illegal to sell them in Switzerland? I can easily understand the latter (we have the same in Britain, as all videos/DVDs sold must be certified by the BBFC first), but the former seems like a fairly fundamental restriction on your rights; are they searching your baggage at the border for discs like they were drugs?
"Why not instead of region encoding they just stay with their current use of PAL encoding in the UK... i think its easier to break a region code than change to a different standard completely."
They do in fact do this as well. Its just that I don't know anyone under 50 without access to a television that can cope with an NTSC signal. Not to mention the fact that many DVD players can convert NTSC to PAL on the fly.
This pseudo-code is correct. What they then normally forget to do, however, is put any restriction on what the player can do there. Allowing your player to complain, then play 'Title 1' to see the film anyway. Wonderfully, the disc will normally start the film anyway.
I'm really curious as to exactly where you've got the idea that GTA3 has come even close to being banned in the UK. Normally the only people claiming that are those trying to raise more than a tenner for their copies on ebay. Apart from anything, it was fully certificated by the BBFC and passed at 18 before hitting the shelves, and its normal to attempt to ban something before the millionth copy is sold, rather than after.
As for the original suggestion that Region Encoding is somehow Censorship, thats only in the sense that me not letting you see my home movies are, rather than any sensible definition of the term.
Actually, while PAL and Secam are slightly different standards, the player is converting the native 720x576 at 50Hz interlaced image to whichever TV standard its asked to - a French disc will play correctly on a UK tv and vice versa after all.
Yes. I'm a bad person who 'steals' from Webmasters by not showing their pop-ups.
Otherwise known as someone whose browser doesn't support them. Say what you like about banner ads, at least they still show on my machine as well.
"I'm kind of shocked that you would let it get to this point, and then if it does, to roll over so easily."
Call me a wuss, but while I'd oppose the idea of making something like DRM-enforcement a law, if it gets passed I'd probably obey it. Federal ass-pounding institutions look like rather less fun than downloading and installing a patch that stops me doing something I don't want to anyway.
Ah, I thought there was a reason. I interpreted the story being about monitoring the playing of PS2 games on the PS2 - for some reason I have this mental blind spot about the idea of using consoles for anything other than playing games; thats why I have DVD and laserdisc players.
I suppose this article does actually back Nintendo's theory of making games machines for playing games on, and leaving the music and film stuff to the other manufacturers (he says trying to sweep the Panasonic Q under that rug over there).
"Nintendo has no CD-based (or DVD-based) console"
huh? Did I miss a -2 post somewhere, or something? What has the medium the game is supplied on got to do with avoiding software that monitors your activity?
With a bigger print, you can shine more light through it for a sensible intensity. That way it looks much better blown up to such a huge size than the intensity levels they are having to use to blow a 35mm print onto a full IMAX screen. The 'amazing' technique they are using to get better transfers between the 35mm master and the IMAX print isn't that interesting, but as anyone who has seen the rather muddy effects of blowing a 35mm print that big will testify, this will help.
Basically, its not going to look anywhere near as good as a proper IMAX film, but it will look a lot better than current gimmick attempts at showing Star Wars, The Matrix etc. in IMAX theaters.