Actually, you're not quite right about 3 and 4. The Blu-Ray standard only mandates the same minimum of Dolby on a disc, wheras HD-DVD discs must have one of the new higher-definition audio tracks. These are all optional on Blu-Ray as well, so they _can_ be used.
Sony have already announced they won't. They're putting mpeg2 and bog-standard DD on 25Gb single-layer Blu-Ray discs. The current HD-DVD discs already have VC-1 video and DD+ audio on 30Gb dual-layer HD-DVD discs. So the superiority on paper of Blu-Ray won't be appearing on the discs at launch.
Also, while the XBox 360 can have regions, they're optional. And, as you point out, slightly irrelevant when the machine uses DVDs. But both HD formats are regionless - people are already playing Japanese discs on US players and vice-versa.
Wrong target, sorry. Microsoft's main objection to BluRay is that they had a hand in the VM for HD-DVD's menu code, wheras BluRay uses a variant of Java.
I'll quote the AC, as the comment has probably been missed:
Yeah, an interesting argument on the FSF's boycott blu-ray / HD-DVD site is that advanced modern compression formats like XviD make new media unneccessary for HD anyway, since HD quality files could easily fit on a standard or dual layer DVD.
Purely for amusement, really, as Xvid is just an implementation of the Mpeg4 standard, and not even as good a one as the VC-1 codec used for the current HD-DVD releases.
And yet the video encode for Phantom Of The Opera, before we start counting the various audio streams (including a fecking huge Dolby Lossless one) is 15Gb. Last Samurai's video is 20Gb, and so doesn't get a lossless track. So can we please stop it with the "9Gb is good enough to store a HD movie" nonsense?
On the other hand, I've spent 4 years having fun playing PS2 games, which you haven't. So I don't consider that much of a loss for my £150.
The ones buying straight out of the gate at top-of-the-line prices might have lost a pretty penny on their investment, but even with HD-DVD today, the $500 Toshiba player is actually a pretty damn good upscaling player anyway; I could easily see it going for well north of $200 even without the new format stuff.
I know that people keep saying that one of Blu-Ray's big advantages is the studio support. I've seen the list of studios, and I agree where they're coming from.
So why is it that there are already a bunch of films either lined up for release in the couple of months, and even one or two already appearing on shelves, that I want to watch in HD, but Blu-Ray don't have anything other than rubbish officially announced?
Meanwhile, I normally play it for around 20 minutes at a time on the PC. It's not the length of the game that matters, but how reasonable they are about you saving when you have to stop.
As someone who has been playing Morrowind recently in 20-minute (or so) blocks, I'd definitely agree with you on that one.
Meanwhile, I've got Black sitting virtually untouched, because I don't have time to play the whole second level in order to reach the next savepoint, and I never actually managed to get past the opening cutscene of MGS2.
I abandoned GTA3 at that level for well over a year as well. Fortunately, when I eventually went back to it I noticed that the coffee stands are always in the same place - if you can figure out a good route (start from the furthest one away, to give yourself the easiest route back after the last one has gone) it's actually pretty simple.
I've since abandoned it again, however. The final level is difficult in the cheapest possible ways; right from the off it steals all your weaponry so you have to do it on foot with rubbish firepower. Thank God they didn't pull the same stunt for the finale of Vice City, which is much more satisfying.
Inverse Telecine should solve all this, yes. However, a great many sets seem to be disturbingly crap at it, so a proper 1080p output (which should be in Tosh's next generation of players; they went with a slightly cheaper display chip that can't do it for the current models) is a good thing to have.
I'll get one once I've got a HD display to make use of it. Until then, standard-def DVD is all I need.
Furthermore, that's not happening until my son reaches an age where he understands that you can't attract the attention of the giraffe in the big box by banging on the glass.
The discs and hardware weren't supposed to be available until today. These two, plus Phantom Of The Opera (presumably ignored on the ground it wouldn't appeal to geeks, though it's the disc with Dolby TrueHD and so shows off the improved sound more than the others), were the ones that Best Buy managed to break street date on.
Personally, I'm not desperate for virtualization at all.
After all, what do you want to run Windows for? In my case it's either Games, where I don't want the resource overheads of running two operating systems, or assorted obscure software for nerdy things like learning remotes and overly-complex amplifiers. In the latter case direct hardware access is important, and I don't do it very often so the inconvenience is minor anyway.
Everyone has their own needs, so it's perfectly possible you want it for something else - maybe you just don't want to fork over hundreds of pounds for OSX versions of Office and whatever. But Boot Camp gives me most of what I'd want already.
I'm prepared to accept that offering Linux is difficult for them for political reasons.
So I'd settle for the company now claiming to have helped push 64-bit on the desktop to offer their desktop machines with the 64-bit version of Windows, rather than just Home, Pro or Media Centre. That would be a nice start, don't you think?
They both did. But that doesn't terribly bother me. What really annoyed me about that comment was that only the other week I was speccing up Dell box for my in-laws.
It came with a 64-bit Pentium D, which is fairly common on their site. It offered me the choice of OS; Windows Home, Windows Pro, Windows Media Centre.
Yep, Mr. "We're responsible for the take up of 64-bit processors" doesn't offer a single 64-bit OS to use them with. No Linux, no XP 64-bit Edition. What is the point of that, exactly?
I'll mostly agree with you. I'm agnostic myself, but there are a LOT of hardline atheists on this site that annoy me with their teenage insults to anyone who considers the possibility of there being a God.
I think that's what annoys me most about the ID argument, though. If there _is_ a God, and I'm open to the possibility, then I credit Him with the intelligence to create something as astoundingly clever as evolution. Would you rather sit around designing half a million different species of beetle by hand, when your much-acclaimed omniscience gives you the tools to automate the process?
"Better to silence the heretics then heaven forbid try to respond to them."
Just because he called the fucking supercilious moron a fucking supercilious moron doesn't mean he didn't explain precisely why his questions were so totally stupid. All of them have been answered by at least 7 other people and on about 1500 websites that are quickly and easily Googled, as well.
The only question is if he is just really, really dumb, or just trolling for kicks. I strongly suspect the latter.
Also, I've just read that very passage on the site. I'll quote it for those that don't want to RTFA:
"Why can't an upgrade version of Windows XP or a full version of Windows XP that does not include Service Pack 2 (SP2) be used for installation?
"You would be required to insert your original Windows CD during installation, however there is no way to eject the first disc until after Windows installation is complete and the drivers from the Macintosh Driver CD created by Boot Camp Assistant Beta are installed."
Now I've done that, would anyone like to speculate how the merry heck I'm supposed to eject the first disc after Windows installation in order to insert the Macintosh Driver CD that contains the driver necessary to eject the disc? That makes precisely no sense to me, unless we're expected to have two drives in order to run the install.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, you're not quite right about 3 and 4. The Blu-Ray standard only mandates the same minimum of Dolby on a disc, wheras HD-DVD discs must have one of the new higher-definition audio tracks. These are all optional on Blu-Ray as well, so they _can_ be used.
Sony have already announced they won't. They're putting mpeg2 and bog-standard DD on 25Gb single-layer Blu-Ray discs. The current HD-DVD discs already have VC-1 video and DD+ audio on 30Gb dual-layer HD-DVD discs. So the superiority on paper of Blu-Ray won't be appearing on the discs at launch.
Also, while the XBox 360 can have regions, they're optional. And, as you point out, slightly irrelevant when the machine uses DVDs. But both HD formats are regionless - people are already playing Japanese discs on US players and vice-versa.
Wrong target, sorry. Microsoft's main objection to BluRay is that they had a hand in the VM for HD-DVD's menu code, wheras BluRay uses a variant of Java.
Purely for amusement, really, as Xvid is just an implementation of the Mpeg4 standard, and not even as good a one as the VC-1 codec used for the current HD-DVD releases.
And yet the video encode for Phantom Of The Opera, before we start counting the various audio streams (including a fecking huge Dolby Lossless one) is 15Gb. Last Samurai's video is 20Gb, and so doesn't get a lossless track. So can we please stop it with the "9Gb is good enough to store a HD movie" nonsense?
On the other hand, I've spent 4 years having fun playing PS2 games, which you haven't. So I don't consider that much of a loss for my £150.
The ones buying straight out of the gate at top-of-the-line prices might have lost a pretty penny on their investment, but even with HD-DVD today, the $500 Toshiba player is actually a pretty damn good upscaling player anyway; I could easily see it going for well north of $200 even without the new format stuff.
I know that people keep saying that one of Blu-Ray's big advantages is the studio support. I've seen the list of studios, and I agree where they're coming from.
So why is it that there are already a bunch of films either lined up for release in the couple of months, and even one or two already appearing on shelves, that I want to watch in HD, but Blu-Ray don't have anything other than rubbish officially announced?
"At any rate, "profit" doesn't necessarily have to be monetary."
Exactly - these heathens are trying to persuade people not to beat them to death. Sounds like they profit to me.
Ebert is a film critic, his entire definition of "art" seems to be based around how much like a film something is, because that's his benchmark.
So it's not that surprising that the games that come closest are the ones that just require a bit of button pressing inbetween the DVD chapters.
I don't know about you, but I already give enough of my money to publicans on a Friday night...
Meanwhile, I normally play it for around 20 minutes at a time on the PC. It's not the length of the game that matters, but how reasonable they are about you saving when you have to stop.
As someone who has been playing Morrowind recently in 20-minute (or so) blocks, I'd definitely agree with you on that one.
Meanwhile, I've got Black sitting virtually untouched, because I don't have time to play the whole second level in order to reach the next savepoint, and I never actually managed to get past the opening cutscene of MGS2.
I abandoned GTA3 at that level for well over a year as well. Fortunately, when I eventually went back to it I noticed that the coffee stands are always in the same place - if you can figure out a good route (start from the furthest one away, to give yourself the easiest route back after the last one has gone) it's actually pretty simple.
I've since abandoned it again, however. The final level is difficult in the cheapest possible ways; right from the off it steals all your weaponry so you have to do it on foot with rubbish firepower. Thank God they didn't pull the same stunt for the finale of Vice City, which is much more satisfying.
Given that my cable decoder crashes around once per evening on average already, how will I notice if I have to start rebooting it to change channel?
Inverse Telecine should solve all this, yes. However, a great many sets seem to be disturbingly crap at it, so a proper 1080p output (which should be in Tosh's next generation of players; they went with a slightly cheaper display chip that can't do it for the current models) is a good thing to have.
Sad, but true.
Obligatory whine about missing options, then:
I'll get one once I've got a HD display to make use of it. Until then, standard-def DVD is all I need.
Furthermore, that's not happening until my son reaches an age where he understands that you can't attract the attention of the giraffe in the big box by banging on the glass.
The discs and hardware weren't supposed to be available until today. These two, plus Phantom Of The Opera (presumably ignored on the ground it wouldn't appeal to geeks, though it's the disc with Dolby TrueHD and so shows off the improved sound more than the others), were the ones that Best Buy managed to break street date on.
Oh, XP-64bit isn't perfect yet. But we're not hitting any real issues at work with it, and the performance is noticeably better.
Personally, I'm not desperate for virtualization at all.
After all, what do you want to run Windows for? In my case it's either Games, where I don't want the resource overheads of running two operating systems, or assorted obscure software for nerdy things like learning remotes and overly-complex amplifiers. In the latter case direct hardware access is important, and I don't do it very often so the inconvenience is minor anyway.
Everyone has their own needs, so it's perfectly possible you want it for something else - maybe you just don't want to fork over hundreds of pounds for OSX versions of Office and whatever. But Boot Camp gives me most of what I'd want already.
Lucky you. None of the Dimension home range have the option, even the shiny 64-bit Core Duo machines.
I'm prepared to accept that offering Linux is difficult for them for political reasons.
So I'd settle for the company now claiming to have helped push 64-bit on the desktop to offer their desktop machines with the 64-bit version of Windows, rather than just Home, Pro or Media Centre. That would be a nice start, don't you think?
They both did. But that doesn't terribly bother me. What really annoyed me about that comment was that only the other week I was speccing up Dell box for my in-laws.
It came with a 64-bit Pentium D, which is fairly common on their site. It offered me the choice of OS; Windows Home, Windows Pro, Windows Media Centre.
Yep, Mr. "We're responsible for the take up of 64-bit processors" doesn't offer a single 64-bit OS to use them with. No Linux, no XP 64-bit Edition. What is the point of that, exactly?
I'll mostly agree with you. I'm agnostic myself, but there are a LOT of hardline atheists on this site that annoy me with their teenage insults to anyone who considers the possibility of there being a God.
I think that's what annoys me most about the ID argument, though. If there _is_ a God, and I'm open to the possibility, then I credit Him with the intelligence to create something as astoundingly clever as evolution. Would you rather sit around designing half a million different species of beetle by hand, when your much-acclaimed omniscience gives you the tools to automate the process?
"Better to silence the heretics then heaven forbid try to respond to them."
Just because he called the fucking supercilious moron a fucking supercilious moron doesn't mean he didn't explain precisely why his questions were so totally stupid. All of them have been answered by at least 7 other people and on about 1500 websites that are quickly and easily Googled, as well.
The only question is if he is just really, really dumb, or just trolling for kicks. I strongly suspect the latter.
Ah, I didn't realise they did that. That's the missing information - thanks.
Also, I've just read that very passage on the site. I'll quote it for those that don't want to RTFA:
"Why can't an upgrade version of Windows XP or a full version of Windows XP that does not include Service Pack 2 (SP2) be used for installation?
"You would be required to insert your original Windows CD during installation, however there is no way to eject the first disc until after Windows installation is complete and the drivers from the Macintosh Driver CD created by Boot Camp Assistant Beta are installed."
Now I've done that, would anyone like to speculate how the merry heck I'm supposed to eject the first disc after Windows installation in order to insert the Macintosh Driver CD that contains the driver necessary to eject the disc? That makes precisely no sense to me, unless we're expected to have two drives in order to run the install.
Hmm. Paperclip, anyone?