"Cleverness" is the highest value, and thus you have an increasing spiral of clever coders each trying to outdo the other in a language that allows for extremely flexible syntax and usage.
These must be real new, as the last time I looked (last summer?) I never found any.
I've run across a couple since then (google, doh!) but they're almost always complete enclosures, which I guess isn't bad from a space conservation perspective, however, it does automatically limit you to 3 or 4 disks out of the box -- with the small advantage that the drives are probably on a couple (S)ATA channels internally, and not further slowed by a USB/FW connection.
A hub-only device would be superior, though, as you'd be able to add disks and add/grow the RAID container as needed, vs. fscking around adding a whole new box when you wanted to add capacity.
What's not made clear from the few I've looked at how RAID is actually handled in the box or on the host. To pass my test, the device would have to _only_ present logical volumes to the host as mass storage devices and use actual hardware RAID internal to the box.
What concerns me is that the devices aren't real hardware RAID; they're presented to the host as some nonstandard USB device and you have to install a USB driver that does software RAID to the drives.
Nor has it been shown to prevent any crimes from being committed, as was touted by its proponents.
In the world I live in, defined by liberty and freedom from government interference, we don't bar actions by citizens that don't cause a problem.
If carrying a gun by law-abiding citizens doesn't cause problems (and it clearly doesn't in Minnesota or any of the 30-odd other states where it has been allowed), why bar it?
It will be reinstated with almost complete certainty on in early April when the appellate court hands down its ruling on the matter. The lower court ruling was about as bad a bit of jurisprudence as you can have, both politically motivated *and* setting the precedent for overturning a large number (I've heard 40-60%) of all laws for lack of "germaneness".
The opposing attorney, David Lillehaug, wouldn't even argue his lower court case in the appellate court, choosing instead to send a poorly prepared underling. The law was defended in person by the Attorney General himself, underscoring the gravity of allowing half the state's laws to be overturned by a ridiculous, politically motivated decision.
I'm sure that me and the few drunks I've managed to hoodwink with this concept are the only market for it, but why not a USB2/1394 hub that's actually a RAID controller?
The hub could present whatever defined logical volumes to the OS as additional mass storage devices on the hub, and a configuation application would be all that was needed since the logical volumes would be presented to the OS as generic mass storage devices.
I think this could have a real market; while the bus would certainly be a limitation in performance (perhaps 1394b would help), it:
* Wouldn't require a massive case with internal bays and power taps for the drives. (S)ATA RAID is cheap, but scaling beyond 3 or 4 drives is a huge challenge in all but the biggest cases. Using external connectors like 1394/USB2 would solve this easily.
* Wouldn't require any drivers beyond existing USB/1394 generic mass storage support. Yes, you would need a special application to configure the hub's logical volumes or to perform stupid RAID tricks, but beyond that you wouldn't.
* Portability to other systems, either in the event of a host failure or, since it doesn't require drivers and once configured, it could be moved to another platform that only supported the generic mass storage device.
* OK, speed would suck, but it's about adding big, reliable mass storage with a trivial interface, not about transfer rates. The hub could actually have distinct USB/1394 channels to individual ports, since it's not really a _real_ hub and the host OS wouldn't see the individual disks, just the defined logical volumes presented as mass storage devices.
I think this would be great for "backup" applications or other small-time/home user data warehousing (keeping your native DV-AVI files, DVD backups, CD backups, MP3 backups, yadda...) Tape is nice, but SDLT or LTO drives are expensive, as are the media. For $600 you can do better than half a terrabyte of RAID-5 disk, but you need almost an entire PC to house internal disks.
Given how cheap RAID cards are, I can't believe that merging RAID into a hub would be all that expensive, especially since you're actually removing a lot of the disk control logic from the controller.
It reminds me of a girlfriend I once had. We had to have "dates" and "birthdays" and "presents", all of which were expressly designed to mislead me into spending as much money as possible, regardless of how much "service" I actually consumed.
This is what appealed to me about FreeBSD; stuff went where it went and stayed there; upgrading to new releases via/usr/src self-build mechanism was a huge plus as well, but the let's-reinvent-the-wheel syndrome I got running RH releases was frustrating.
It's been years (6?) since I even bothered with a Linux distribution; are they still this way? I'd imagine some of the newer distros have their growing spurts, but I'd imagine some of the older ones (Suse, perhaps Fedora and certainly the commercial RHL) would have stopped that. Or have they?
No need to read all the comments. Just realize that in any article relating to censorship, you'll have three kinds of posts:
1) Vocabulary pedants reminding you that only governments can censor and that ____ isn't government censorship.
2) Replies to vocabulary pedants claiming that any sufficiently powerful and/or monopolistic entity hindering communications isn't functionally different than government censorship.
3) People suggesting that Linux be deployed as a remedy.
I think the biggest problem Tivo has is that they didn't have a hardware stratedgy; it was all software. This has left them with nothing new to offer even Tivo stalwarts like me in the face of needed digital cable recording (CableCard), digital audio recording, or HD (which would be combinable with CableCard, although an SD CableCard solution wouldn't be bad, either).
I've seen tripod/screen combos that let you do this. It's like a rear-projection screen that you point your camera at. I guess the advantage is brightness and maybe some clarity, since you're recording projected light and not reflected light (depending on the quality of the mirror).
But it's not like 40 year old super 8 stock is known for clarity or color fastness anyway.
I think scanning individual film frames (like with some kind of self-feeding film scanner) would be too time consuming and storage intensive for the home user.
I know I've seen these tripod/screen setups that let you essentially project a film onto a screen and have a video recorder perfectly aligned with the screen for transfering to video. With DV, you could import to the your PC as AVI and do some basic fixes depending on what your software will do and your willingness to devote CPU-days to processing.
If you end up being like my and my vinyl LP collection, you end up transfering about 10 LPs and then giving up and buying the CDs.
Where are AMD's dual core chips? Sure as hell can't buy them today...
I had a vendor's SE tell me that AMD's dual core chips are "practically sitting in boxes at a warehouse" so that the day Intel starts shipping developer samples they can start shipping actual products to end users immediately, giving them a huge head start in terms of marketing and, if you believe they've already been manufacturing them, the ability to discount them faster than Intel can.
I think that's a strange strategy, but I was also told that AMD has gotten burned by being too far ahead of the curve before (Athlon?); apparently having Intel do it, too, lends credibility and mindshare to technologies, enabling greater acceptance of an AMD solution.
Of course this is conspiracy theory and marketing speak from an SE, so who knows, but it's not completely implausable. Having a huge supply of readily-MB-compatible dual core CPUs you can start shipping immediately as your competitor's product is just beginning production (and requires new mainboard designs to boot) could allow you to steal their marketing hoopla for your _available_ product.
Last I paid attention to plasma, you pretty much HAD to have one of the 'industrial' Panasonics, although this was right about the time that Pioneer came out with their updated line of plasmas.
Dell is NOT making this (any more than they "make" anything else), so who is? Sampo? I can only guess its one of the lower end companies, especially to meet Dell's price point.
Your point that the broader TV viewing population is too dumb/naive/uneducated/unequipped to take advantage of newer technology is taken, but these are also the same clowns that are going to use the cable company DVR because the difference between Tivo and the cable DVR also escapes them.
But those people are also not Tivo's market; it's for people with the money and willingness to get into the better gear.
CableCARD is already out, the FCC requires they support it. It's mildly crippled, but would be more than adequate now. Tivo is letting the cable companies defeat them.
Re:Lack of hardware innovation the problem
on
Can TiVo be Saved?
·
· Score: 1
v7.x ("Tivo2Go") level software makes it even worse. LiveTv->Now Playing is like a 3-5 second operation, and all menus are noticably slower than they used to be.
Just out of curiousity, what percentage of cable TV users have HD TVs? Not HD-Ready, but real, honest to goodness HD tuners and are enjoying HD Content?
I disagree with your split between "HD ready", which I interpret as a TV with DVI/component inputs fully capable of displaying an HD signal, and the same set with an over-the-air ATSC tuner. Nobody really watches TV OTA anymore, so it's a moot distinction.
Crime-Warner has had HD boxes forever (I have one), and while the amount of content is kind of thin (sports, headlining network shows, HBO), it's definitely there.
Digital audio is even more important -- almost ALL the digital cable movie channels show their movies with 5.1 sound, and not being able to record this is a crime. Splitting the audio path doesn't help, as the Tivo introduces a meaningful delay between picture and audio.
Lack of hardware innovation the problem
on
Can TiVo be Saved?
·
· Score: 1
Why is my SA Series 2, bought in 2002, no more technically capable than a new SA Tivo right now?
To me this is the killer -- where's digital audio? CableCard? Expandable storage via firewire? Digital RF remotes?
Sure, all those things have baggage and problems, but they all get me spending on Tivo (and moving the other boxes to other rooms). HMO and 2Go just make me tired.
1. "My cable company's DVR works just fine, why should I pay extra for a TiVO?"
A cable DVR from Crime-Warner is like $8 a month and does several things SA Tivos don't do, like digital sound and HD, and doesn't require hackery like IR emitters and glacial channel changing speeds.
I'll agree that it's substandard software to be sure, but when ordinary people make decisions it comes down to money -- an SA Tivo takes YEARS (box + lifetime) before its ROI exceeds the cable box, and the cable box can be traded in through a cable retail store any time for a newer box.
It's not that Tivo isn't better, but to most people the "better" doesn't matter, the worse does (IR hackery, no HD, etc), and it's a much more expensive hardware INVESTMENT.
If a community really wanted to do municipal broadband and was barred by law from doing so, the thing to do would be to form a private, non-profit to sell IP/broadband services and then have the municipality favor it politically -- streamline approvals, dig permits, sweetheart deals on use of municipal property for towers/repeaters, switch the municipality over to this as their ISP.
And then do the oppposite for for-profit companies -- sandbag their requests and tie them up in red tape to make it difficult to gain any traction.
Exactly! If I had known ahead of time that they were going to ruin my backyard when I remodeled, I would have considered a vertical version of the piped geothermal system.
My high school had 2000 students, student:teacher was around 30:1, I'd say salaries were median; we were the largest district in the state, but as an urban district, money was always an issue.
It's not clear to me why you would oppose RFID tagging based on this, unless you believe that teacher salaries should be increased vs. spending on RFID tech.
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What were the substantial challenges?
"Cleverness" is the highest value, and thus you have an increasing spiral of clever coders each trying to outdo the other in a language that allows for extremely flexible syntax and usage.
The result is too often gibberish.
These must be real new, as the last time I looked (last summer?) I never found any.
I've run across a couple since then (google, doh!) but they're almost always complete enclosures, which I guess isn't bad from a space conservation perspective, however, it does automatically limit you to 3 or 4 disks out of the box -- with the small advantage that the drives are probably on a couple (S)ATA channels internally, and not further slowed by a USB/FW connection.
A hub-only device would be superior, though, as you'd be able to add disks and add/grow the RAID container as needed, vs. fscking around adding a whole new box when you wanted to add capacity.
What's not made clear from the few I've looked at how RAID is actually handled in the box or on the host. To pass my test, the device would have to _only_ present logical volumes to the host as mass storage devices and use actual hardware RAID internal to the box.
What concerns me is that the devices aren't real hardware RAID; they're presented to the host as some nonstandard USB device and you have to install a USB driver that does software RAID to the drives.
Nor has it been shown to prevent any crimes from being committed, as was touted by its proponents.
In the world I live in, defined by liberty and freedom from government interference, we don't bar actions by citizens that don't cause a problem.
If carrying a gun by law-abiding citizens doesn't cause problems (and it clearly doesn't in Minnesota or any of the 30-odd other states where it has been allowed), why bar it?
It will be reinstated with almost complete certainty on in early April when the appellate court hands down its ruling on the matter. The lower court ruling was about as bad a bit of jurisprudence as you can have, both politically motivated *and* setting the precedent for overturning a large number (I've heard 40-60%) of all laws for lack of "germaneness".
The opposing attorney, David Lillehaug, wouldn't even argue his lower court case in the appellate court, choosing instead to send a poorly prepared underling. The law was defended in person by the Attorney General himself, underscoring the gravity of allowing half the state's laws to be overturned by a ridiculous, politically motivated decision.
I'm sure that me and the few drunks I've managed to hoodwink with this concept are the only market for it, but why not a USB2/1394 hub that's actually a RAID controller?
The hub could present whatever defined logical volumes to the OS as additional mass storage devices on the hub, and a configuation application would be all that was needed since the logical volumes would be presented to the OS as generic mass storage devices.
I think this could have a real market; while the bus would certainly be a limitation in performance (perhaps 1394b would help), it:
* Wouldn't require a massive case with internal bays and power taps for the drives. (S)ATA RAID is cheap, but scaling beyond 3 or 4 drives is a huge challenge in all but the biggest cases. Using external connectors like 1394/USB2 would solve this easily.
* Wouldn't require any drivers beyond existing USB/1394 generic mass storage support. Yes, you would need a special application to configure the hub's logical volumes or to perform stupid RAID tricks, but beyond that you wouldn't.
* Portability to other systems, either in the event of a host failure or, since it doesn't require drivers and once configured, it could be moved to another platform that only supported the generic mass storage device.
* OK, speed would suck, but it's about adding big, reliable mass storage with a trivial interface, not about transfer rates. The hub could actually have distinct USB/1394 channels to individual ports, since it's not really a _real_ hub and the host OS wouldn't see the individual disks, just the defined logical volumes presented as mass storage devices.
I think this would be great for "backup" applications or other small-time/home user data warehousing (keeping your native DV-AVI files, DVD backups, CD backups, MP3 backups, yadda...) Tape is nice, but SDLT or LTO drives are expensive, as are the media. For $600 you can do better than half a terrabyte of RAID-5 disk, but you need almost an entire PC to house internal disks.
Given how cheap RAID cards are, I can't believe that merging RAID into a hub would be all that expensive, especially since you're actually removing a lot of the disk control logic from the controller.
It reminds me of a girlfriend I once had. We had to have "dates" and "birthdays" and "presents", all of which were expressly designed to mislead me into spending as much money as possible, regardless of how much "service" I actually consumed.
This is what appealed to me about FreeBSD; stuff went where it went and stayed there; upgrading to new releases via /usr/src self-build mechanism was a huge plus as well, but the let's-reinvent-the-wheel syndrome I got running RH releases was frustrating.
It's been years (6?) since I even bothered with a Linux distribution; are they still this way? I'd imagine some of the newer distros have their growing spurts, but I'd imagine some of the older ones (Suse, perhaps Fedora and certainly the commercial RHL) would have stopped that. Or have they?
Blocking is often futile, but rate limiting it with a Packeteer to unusable levels works much better.
No need to read all the comments. Just realize that in any article relating to censorship, you'll have three kinds of posts:
1) Vocabulary pedants reminding you that only governments can censor and that ____ isn't government censorship.
2) Replies to vocabulary pedants claiming that any sufficiently powerful and/or monopolistic entity hindering communications isn't functionally different than government censorship.
3) People suggesting that Linux be deployed as a remedy.
I think the biggest problem Tivo has is that they didn't have a hardware stratedgy; it was all software. This has left them with nothing new to offer even Tivo stalwarts like me in the face of needed digital cable recording (CableCard), digital audio recording, or HD (which would be combinable with CableCard, although an SD CableCard solution wouldn't be bad, either).
Right, but you left that part out.
I've seen tripod/screen combos that let you do this. It's like a rear-projection screen that you point your camera at. I guess the advantage is brightness and maybe some clarity, since you're recording projected light and not reflected light (depending on the quality of the mirror).
But it's not like 40 year old super 8 stock is known for clarity or color fastness anyway.
I think scanning individual film frames (like with some kind of self-feeding film scanner) would be too time consuming and storage intensive for the home user.
I know I've seen these tripod/screen setups that let you essentially project a film onto a screen and have a video recorder perfectly aligned with the screen for transfering to video. With DV, you could import to the your PC as AVI and do some basic fixes depending on what your software will do and your willingness to devote CPU-days to processing.
If you end up being like my and my vinyl LP collection, you end up transfering about 10 LPs and then giving up and buying the CDs.
I don't think he meant VHS, I think he might have actually meant *film*, as in one of the 8mm variants.
Where are AMD's dual core chips? Sure as hell can't buy them today...
I had a vendor's SE tell me that AMD's dual core chips are "practically sitting in boxes at a warehouse" so that the day Intel starts shipping developer samples they can start shipping actual products to end users immediately, giving them a huge head start in terms of marketing and, if you believe they've already been manufacturing them, the ability to discount them faster than Intel can.
I think that's a strange strategy, but I was also told that AMD has gotten burned by being too far ahead of the curve before (Athlon?); apparently having Intel do it, too, lends credibility and mindshare to technologies, enabling greater acceptance of an AMD solution.
Of course this is conspiracy theory and marketing speak from an SE, so who knows, but it's not completely implausable. Having a huge supply of readily-MB-compatible dual core CPUs you can start shipping immediately as your competitor's product is just beginning production (and requires new mainboard designs to boot) could allow you to steal their marketing hoopla for your _available_ product.
Last I paid attention to plasma, you pretty much HAD to have one of the 'industrial' Panasonics, although this was right about the time that Pioneer came out with their updated line of plasmas.
Dell is NOT making this (any more than they "make" anything else), so who is? Sampo? I can only guess its one of the lower end companies, especially to meet Dell's price point.
Your point that the broader TV viewing population is too dumb/naive/uneducated/unequipped to take advantage of newer technology is taken, but these are also the same clowns that are going to use the cable company DVR because the difference between Tivo and the cable DVR also escapes them.
But those people are also not Tivo's market; it's for people with the money and willingness to get into the better gear.
CableCARD is already out, the FCC requires they support it. It's mildly crippled, but would be more than adequate now. Tivo is letting the cable companies defeat them.
v7.x ("Tivo2Go") level software makes it even worse. LiveTv->Now Playing is like a 3-5 second operation, and all menus are noticably slower than they used to be.
Just out of curiousity, what percentage of cable TV users have HD TVs? Not HD-Ready, but real, honest to goodness HD tuners and are enjoying HD Content?
I disagree with your split between "HD ready", which I interpret as a TV with DVI/component inputs fully capable of displaying an HD signal, and the same set with an over-the-air ATSC tuner. Nobody really watches TV OTA anymore, so it's a moot distinction.
Crime-Warner has had HD boxes forever (I have one), and while the amount of content is kind of thin (sports, headlining network shows, HBO), it's definitely there.
Digital audio is even more important -- almost ALL the digital cable movie channels show their movies with 5.1 sound, and not being able to record this is a crime. Splitting the audio path doesn't help, as the Tivo introduces a meaningful delay between picture and audio.
Why is my SA Series 2, bought in 2002, no more technically capable than a new SA Tivo right now?
To me this is the killer -- where's digital audio? CableCard? Expandable storage via firewire? Digital RF remotes?
Sure, all those things have baggage and problems, but they all get me spending on Tivo (and moving the other boxes to other rooms). HMO and 2Go just make me tired.
1. "My cable company's DVR works just fine, why should I pay extra for a TiVO?"
A cable DVR from Crime-Warner is like $8 a month and does several things SA Tivos don't do, like digital sound and HD, and doesn't require hackery like IR emitters and glacial channel changing speeds.
I'll agree that it's substandard software to be sure, but when ordinary people make decisions it comes down to money -- an SA Tivo takes YEARS (box + lifetime) before its ROI exceeds the cable box, and the cable box can be traded in through a cable retail store any time for a newer box.
It's not that Tivo isn't better, but to most people the "better" doesn't matter, the worse does (IR hackery, no HD, etc), and it's a much more expensive hardware INVESTMENT.
If a community really wanted to do municipal broadband and was barred by law from doing so, the thing to do would be to form a private, non-profit to sell IP/broadband services and then have the municipality favor it politically -- streamline approvals, dig permits, sweetheart deals on use of municipal property for towers/repeaters, switch the municipality over to this as their ISP.
And then do the oppposite for for-profit companies -- sandbag their requests and tie them up in red tape to make it difficult to gain any traction.
...or whatever he was called. His posts were highly amusing.
Exactly! If I had known ahead of time that they were going to ruin my backyard when I remodeled, I would have considered a vertical version of the piped geothermal system.
My high school had 2000 students, student:teacher was around 30:1, I'd say salaries were median; we were the largest district in the state, but as an urban district, money was always an issue.
It's not clear to me why you would oppose RFID tagging based on this, unless you believe that teacher salaries should be increased vs. spending on RFID tech.