If an arcade stick for the PC is what you're after, I can confirm that both the Dreamcast arcade stick (possibly the greatest arcade stick ever released in the West for home use) and Hori's Soul Calibur 2 work with the PC MagicBox (at your nearest Lik-Sang, Play-Asia and goodness where else).
I use my MagicBox with the DC stick, and a Joybox-13 with my Gamecube SC2 stick in MAME for two-player fun; its highly recommended.
All the sticks I've mentioned are likely to be more easy to find than the (overrated, in my view) Namco PS1 stick is now.
Maybe I've missed something obvious here. If its minor and unrecognisable, how will the copyright owner know its happened?
Personally, I'm entirely behind the idea that if your sample is recognisable as someone else's song, then you've got to license it. If you can't tell, then you've obviously done something new with the sound and its fair game.
"And, for classical music lovers, that's an actual problem."
I'm curious - is that a property of the music itself, or merely that (as in my experience) classical music is more likely to be listened to by the audiophile?
As someone who likes a bit of Steve Reich on the move (Music For 18 Musicians blows away 99% of the electronic stuff that passes for downtempo 'chill' music these days), I'm now concerned about my plan to switch from a CD Walkman to an iRiver.
Several PS2 games, including Vice City, can output realtime DTS - they have an API that basically hogs the second vector unit to do it.
Hardly an ideal solution, and the XBox does its realtime Dolby in dedicated hardware, but many developers aren't very good at pushing both units in parallel anyway.
Soundstorm is the only way to get realtime Dolby out of a PC on a consumer-level budget. All other methods (Creative etc) just give you six analogue outputs.
Since most of us even vaguely interested in using 5.1 sound already have proper setups for watching DVDs on, and most of these amps have only digital input for surround, Creative's "solution" is as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
If someone has an amp good enough to actually have a six-channel analogue input, then they've probably already got DVD-A or SACD running to it, anyway.
According to the manual, its Chris Vrenna, who's definitely ex-NIN, but I've never heard him called Tweaker before. That him? (ah, a Google says "Yes")
Personally, I just thought the title track sounded remarkably like Vrenna's usual work, really. Never made the Tool connection, but then they've always sounded similar anyway.
"Trust me DVD audio even at its' worst is much better than the analog or digital tracks on a Laserdisc."
Thus speaks the man who has never heard a half-decent laserdisc, then. I doubt very much either the McLaren amp or full complement of Monitor speakers are at fault.
Ah - if you're talking video on the move, then a laptop is probably a better purchase than one of those little handheld DVD player things. I was talking about the home situation, where I'd much rather have a neat little dedicated box by the amplifier and TV, than run a computer in the living room; even if the image quality was as good on a PC (and it isn't unless your screen takes a VGA input), the fan noise on 99% of them is a killer.
Preditor apologised about half a page up for the mistake. Radio 2 is the most listened to station, by a fair margin. Even Radio 4 is currently snapping at 1's heels.
Oh, I know there's a problem, all right. Its just that most of the/. crowd don't seem to overly care as long as mplayer works using a codec that is legally questionable in the US, but easily available.
I don't know for certain its artifacts I'm hearing or just an inferior mix (the reason that nine out of ten fanboys whine for DTS support), but I do think that the uncompressed PCM stereo tracks on my laserdiscs sound audibly nicer than the DD 2.0 ones on their DVD equivalents.
Sure, for many titles a high-bitrate DD or DTS track will be fine, but for things where the sound is important, I'm definitely more interested in having an uncompressed audio mix than a superior picture to what we already get with 'normal' DVD.
Its just that I care about as much about playing them under linux as I do about playing them in XP; i.e. not enough to bother installing this disc I've got here. If I want to watch films, I'll use a dedicated box designed for the job.
"This is tantamount to telling people what gasoline they have to put in their car"
Quite the reverse, actually. Its mandating that Blu-Ray players have to be able to accept the Microsoft-brand fuel (i.e. codec) as well as the Mpeg 4 and Mpeg 2 ones.
"Even if we have a much better Free codec, that codec is worthless if every single DVD/movie released *must* be encoded in Microsoft's codecs because the standard mandates it"
The support for Media Player 9 codec is mandated for the players, to ensure that they are capable of showing video files encoded in that format. They are also mandated to do good ol' Mpeg 2 (just like DVD) and Mpeg 4 as well.
Of course, Mpeg 2 has its patents as well, but that doesn't seem to be hugely bothering people when discussing what this does over DVD, just because "Microsoft = Bad".
I'm just happy because a more efficient video codec leaves more room for audio on the discs, and we might see some MLP-encoded films.
"Like when an installation program tell them to turn off every running program."
Has anyone ever done this, then? I've never bothered, and yet everything seems to work just fine. Sure, I could probably get installs to run quicker if I turned off virus checking first, but surely that kind of negates the point of having one?
SP2 is available from Windows Update now - I downloaded it from the site last night and installed it ok (after making a System Restor point first). If you want to give it a whirl, I'd suggest just going there.
I'm seeing reports all over the shop that its easy to spoof the security centre into claiming that (for example) the firewall is turned on when it isn't.
What I've yet to see is any indication that its possible to actually do the turning off of things, which would be rather more serious.
As it is, surely the only problem is if you forget that you turned something off? I've no big plans to make my box insecure now I've done configuring it on installation.
I was almost with you, right up to the "Any.exe not installed by the MS Installer should be marked as "dirty", and windows should refuse to run it" comment.
I understand your concern, but this would break compatibility with absolutely everything, which would be enough to make people avoid upgrading. I agree that it would make virus-writers lives more difficult, but its at too high a price on the user's experience.
Maybe an alternative would be an Admin-controlled "install mode" - drop into that, and for the duration of the session anything can be installed, and will automatically marked as 'good'. Disconnecting from the network while that is running would obviously be handy, too.
Re:I'll stick to my LaserDiscs....
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 1
Aaah, so it was.
Anyway, going back to my original point, I was merely pointing out that the poster's player only had an unmodulated AC3 out, and not a digital output for the PCM track.
But the pre-Special Edition laserdiscs that we're all using to make DVDs of don't have AC3 tracks, and so his player won't be outputting a digital signal of any kind. Which is a bummer, but buying a whole new player just to get slightly better sound from three films is a touch silly.
At least its true with NTSC discs - PAL ones only had either/or, which is why PAL-land never got any 5.1 discs.
For bonus points, the PCM digital stereo track could be replaced with a DTS bitstream, which sounded _really_ nice, as its double the bitrate of most modern DTS DVDs.
Re:I'll stick to my LaserDiscs....
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 1
That's very helpful if your amp or soundcard only has optical inputs and you've got an spdif to work with.
However, what the grandparent is referring to is that rather obscure Laserdisc-only format of an rf-modulated AC-3 signal. This was used because the Dolby 5.1 signal had to go on the right analogue stream of the disc.
A good late-edition LD player will have two seperate digital outputs - the RF one I've just described for getting Dolby 5.1, and also a 'normal' digital stream (more usually optical than spdif, in my experience) that you need to get either DTS, or as I was describing doing with the Star Wars discs, a PCM bitstream.
Slashdot Mirror
If an arcade stick for the PC is what you're after, I can confirm that both the Dreamcast arcade stick (possibly the greatest arcade stick ever released in the West for home use) and Hori's Soul Calibur 2 work with the PC MagicBox (at your nearest Lik-Sang, Play-Asia and goodness where else).
I use my MagicBox with the DC stick, and a Joybox-13 with my Gamecube SC2 stick in MAME for two-player fun; its highly recommended.
All the sticks I've mentioned are likely to be more easy to find than the (overrated, in my view) Namco PS1 stick is now.
"oh that toy database, from a company in redmond?"
;p
Really? Have Nintendo released a DBMS for the Gamecube now?
Maybe I've missed something obvious here. If its minor and unrecognisable, how will the copyright owner know its happened?
Personally, I'm entirely behind the idea that if your sample is recognisable as someone else's song, then you've got to license it. If you can't tell, then you've obviously done something new with the sound and its fair game.
"And, for classical music lovers, that's an actual problem."
I'm curious - is that a property of the music itself, or merely that (as in my experience) classical music is more likely to be listened to by the audiophile?
As someone who likes a bit of Steve Reich on the move (Music For 18 Musicians blows away 99% of the electronic stuff that passes for downtempo 'chill' music these days), I'm now concerned about my plan to switch from a CD Walkman to an iRiver.
Wac-Wac-Oops.
Several PS2 games, including Vice City, can output realtime DTS - they have an API that basically hogs the second vector unit to do it.
Hardly an ideal solution, and the XBox does its realtime Dolby in dedicated hardware, but many developers aren't very good at pushing both units in parallel anyway.
Soundstorm is the only way to get realtime Dolby out of a PC on a consumer-level budget. All other methods (Creative etc) just give you six analogue outputs.
Since most of us even vaguely interested in using 5.1 sound already have proper setups for watching DVDs on, and most of these amps have only digital input for surround, Creative's "solution" is as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
If someone has an amp good enough to actually have a six-channel analogue input, then they've probably already got DVD-A or SACD running to it, anyway.
According to the manual, its Chris Vrenna, who's definitely ex-NIN, but I've never heard him called Tweaker before. That him? (ah, a Google says "Yes")
Personally, I just thought the title track sounded remarkably like Vrenna's usual work, really. Never made the Tool connection, but then they've always sounded similar anyway.
"No game since has ever matched DOOM/DOOM2's music effect upon the player"
This is true. No (well, few, anyway) games have caused me to quit back to the options screen and turn off the music quite so quickly.
Come on; the sound effects might have been pretty good for their time, but that cheesy rock shite in Doom was absolutely hideous.
Wake me when we get to Magical Sound Shower - that's music that really enhances gameplay.
"Trust me DVD audio even at its' worst is much better than the analog or digital tracks on a Laserdisc."
Thus speaks the man who has never heard a half-decent laserdisc, then. I doubt very much either the McLaren amp or full complement of Monitor speakers are at fault.
Ah - if you're talking video on the move, then a laptop is probably a better purchase than one of those little handheld DVD player things. I was talking about the home situation, where I'd much rather have a neat little dedicated box by the amplifier and TV, than run a computer in the living room; even if the image quality was as good on a PC (and it isn't unless your screen takes a VGA input), the fan noise on 99% of them is a killer.
Preditor apologised about half a page up for the mistake. Radio 2 is the most listened to station, by a fair margin. Even Radio 4 is currently snapping at 1's heels.
Yes, its a well known fact that it is impossible to be sincere in music without at least one electric guitar.
Oh, I know there's a problem, all right. Its just that most of the /. crowd don't seem to overly care as long as mplayer works using a codec that is legally questionable in the US, but easily available.
I don't know for certain its artifacts I'm hearing or just an inferior mix (the reason that nine out of ten fanboys whine for DTS support), but I do think that the uncompressed PCM stereo tracks on my laserdiscs sound audibly nicer than the DD 2.0 ones on their DVD equivalents.
Sure, for many titles a high-bitrate DD or DTS track will be fine, but for things where the sound is important, I'm definitely more interested in having an uncompressed audio mix than a superior picture to what we already get with 'normal' DVD.
That's fair enough, I'm not going to force you.
Its just that I care about as much about playing them under linux as I do about playing them in XP; i.e. not enough to bother installing this disc I've got here. If I want to watch films, I'll use a dedicated box designed for the job.
"This is tantamount to telling people what gasoline they have to put in their car"
Quite the reverse, actually. Its mandating that Blu-Ray players have to be able to accept the Microsoft-brand fuel (i.e. codec) as well as the Mpeg 4 and Mpeg 2 ones.
Surely this is a good thing?
"Even if we have a much better Free codec, that codec is worthless if every single DVD/movie released *must* be encoded in Microsoft's codecs because the standard mandates it"
The support for Media Player 9 codec is mandated for the players, to ensure that they are capable of showing video files encoded in that format. They are also mandated to do good ol' Mpeg 2 (just like DVD) and Mpeg 4 as well.
Of course, Mpeg 2 has its patents as well, but that doesn't seem to be hugely bothering people when discussing what this does over DVD, just because "Microsoft = Bad".
I'm just happy because a more efficient video codec leaves more room for audio on the discs, and we might see some MLP-encoded films.
"Like when an installation program tell them to turn off every running program."
Has anyone ever done this, then? I've never bothered, and yet everything seems to work just fine. Sure, I could probably get installs to run quicker if I turned off virus checking first, but surely that kind of negates the point of having one?
SP2 is available from Windows Update now - I downloaded it from the site last night and installed it ok (after making a System Restor point first). If you want to give it a whirl, I'd suggest just going there.
Cool! Now I can justify buying a replacement mouse on the grounds that a working wheel is a "Security Feature".
I'm seeing reports all over the shop that its easy to spoof the security centre into claiming that (for example) the firewall is turned on when it isn't.
What I've yet to see is any indication that its possible to actually do the turning off of things, which would be rather more serious.
As it is, surely the only problem is if you forget that you turned something off? I've no big plans to make my box insecure now I've done configuring it on installation.
I was almost with you, right up to the "Any .exe not installed by the MS Installer should be marked as "dirty", and windows should refuse to run it" comment.
I understand your concern, but this would break compatibility with absolutely everything, which would be enough to make people avoid upgrading. I agree that it would make virus-writers lives more difficult, but its at too high a price on the user's experience.
Maybe an alternative would be an Admin-controlled "install mode" - drop into that, and for the duration of the session anything can be installed, and will automatically marked as 'good'. Disconnecting from the network while that is running would obviously be handy, too.
Aaah, so it was.
Anyway, going back to my original point, I was merely pointing out that the poster's player only had an unmodulated AC3 out, and not a digital output for the PCM track.
But the pre-Special Edition laserdiscs that we're all using to make DVDs of don't have AC3 tracks, and so his player won't be outputting a digital signal of any kind. Which is a bummer, but buying a whole new player just to get slightly better sound from three films is a touch silly.
Thats true - forgot to mention that.
At least its true with NTSC discs - PAL ones only had either/or, which is why PAL-land never got any 5.1 discs.
For bonus points, the PCM digital stereo track could be replaced with a DTS bitstream, which sounded _really_ nice, as its double the bitrate of most modern DTS DVDs.
That's very helpful if your amp or soundcard only has optical inputs and you've got an spdif to work with.
However, what the grandparent is referring to is that rather obscure Laserdisc-only format of an rf-modulated AC-3 signal. This was used because the Dolby 5.1 signal had to go on the right analogue stream of the disc.
A good late-edition LD player will have two seperate digital outputs - the RF one I've just described for getting Dolby 5.1, and also a 'normal' digital stream (more usually optical than spdif, in my experience) that you need to get either DTS, or as I was describing doing with the Star Wars discs, a PCM bitstream.