Not true. Guitar Hero III just came out for xBox360, PS3, and the Wii.
Really? Because last I checked, the release date was supposed to be sometime near the end of October. It's even too early for stores to break the release date, since they can't possibly have the game in stock yet more than a month before the release.
Regardless of whether or not it's required for downloading videos, I wouldn't call the $50 gold fee "tiny". I have a 360 but haven't paid for the gold account since I only want to play something online maybe once or twice a month for 30 minutes. It just doesn't make sense for me.
$50/year is $4.17/mo. That's approximately the cost of a latte. I can afford to skip one latte a month in order to pay for Gold, so it's "tiny" as far as I'm concerned. If you have trouble affording $4.17/mo, you have more important matters to tend to than playing video games online.
But now you can pay a fee, in order to pay a fee, to view a scaled down version of it!
Xbox Live Video Marketplace is available to free Silver accounts, so you don't have to pay the tiny $50/year Gold fee. Obviously the content will be for-pay, but TV shows on Xbox Live have typically gone for $3 or less for HD versions. And when available, Xbox Live does have HD episodes on the marketplace. That means your only objection is that you have to pay a fee to download the video.
Wait a minute. Go try to find a definition of independent that DOESN'T personify the object, and look at how it applies to these two processors. I could just as easily argue that this chip is only one core because the processor elements are connected electrically and physically. Luckily, it's a flexible word, and if you call your three cores separate, I call the PS3's eight cores separate.
I meant "independent" as in "Each core could function as a fully-featured stand-alone CPU." Bad choice of words on my part or deliberate misunderstanding on your part?
Sort of. Each core can run two threads at the same time (but both threads share the same cache, if I'm not mistaken) so it's somewhere between a hyper-threaded triple-core processor and 3 dual-core processors.
It's still three cores on a single chip, and thus "triple-core". The architecture and functionality of an individual core doesn't matter, so long as it's capable of working as a single core (thus the PS3 is not an "8-core" or "7-core" system, since the Cell units are not functional as independent cores).
Hmmm.... all the reports I have read about Comcast shutting down their customers have indicated that the first step your friend mentioned ("telling the customer to stop it") does not exist, that Comcast goes directly and without notice to pulling the plug.
Keep in mind that there are two sides to every story, and we rarely ever see both of them when the media gets ahold of it. Was there really no, "Please stop it," phone call, or is the slighted customer just omitting that part because he's pissed that he didn't stop it and Comcast cut him off? At the same time, the original poster represents the viewpoint of a Comcast employee, so of course that's going to spin in Comcast's favor ("We try to be nice and understanding. We really do. We give you multiple warnings and chances, but sometimes enough is enough"). The truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle, where it's neither newsworthy nor sensational.
What about a random DoS attack, do they get dinged for that 'incoming' too?
Random DoS? What are you doing? Maybe it's time to get off IRC. I haven't had problems DoS attacks since dropping IRC years ago. Now my only connection outages are related to Comcast incompetence.
Oh and I forgot to ask this as well: how do you get around firewalls/NAT? Most people these days are behind NAT. In my experience, UPnP only works out-of-the-box on very few systems because most routers have UPnP disabled by default.
Support linux-igd? The project started back up in the past year and a half or so, along with libupnp coming back from the dead after Intel abandoned it. Help these projects get to the point where they're trivial to setup, stable, and shipped with all distributions and you solve the problem for the large number of folks using linux NATs. Better yet, that will ultimately trickly down to the router market as well, since a fair number of those use (or have used in the past) linux-based firmware. I've been using linuxigd for 2.5 years now and it's worked great with only a few minor hiccups (Xbox, Xbox 360, Azureus, Messenger, etc all work well with it), but in the past it's been a real pain to setup and actually get working.
Once people can finally get over GRC's sensationalist crap from nearly six years ago, we might finally get a real solution in place for NAT users. We all know IPv6 won't ever be widely adopted enough to make NAT obsolete.
$120/month to get an HD DVR, Cartoon Network, SciFi, and Comedy Central
You definitely are getting ripped off if you're paying $120/mo for that. I pay slightly less than $100/mo for the same plus HBO and Starz (don't care about Starz but it came with the package, but I keep HBO around for Big Love now that Sopranos is done). Are you sure you're not rolling in the cost of your internet connection as well? Either that, or you have multiple HD DVR boxes at $10/box.
I wanted one of the 30" monsters as a new primary desktop monitor but none has component/s-video/composite inputs so I settled for the next best thing that had them and made it my secondary computer monitor. In terms of Power-on-Hours, I use it as a secondary display about 70% of the time, with most of the remainder going to my PS2 and Gran Turismo 4 in 1080i. Movies and TV combined currently account for less than 10%. Next year, the PS3's share will increase to 20-40% thanks to Gran Turismo 5.
Did you consider an Xbox 360 with Forza 2 and the VGA cable? Gran Turismo is a decent Pokemon simulator, but for racing on a console you really can't beat Forza's physics system. Sure, GT5 will be a bit prettier than Forza 2, but it's also not going to be out for another year yet, it still won't have damage modelling, and most likely it'll still have the same crap physics simulation that Polyphony has used since GT1.
Just for the record, I'm not too much of a Forza fanboy. I bought my original PS1 for GT2 and I bought my PS2 for GT3 and 4. I'll very likely buy a PS3 in order to play GT5, but probably not until the price drops significantly (most likely just in time for GT6). Even so, I enjoyed Forza 1 much more than GT4 (GT4 got about two months of play time, then Forza shipped and I played that for 2 years), and Forza 2 is just plain awesome.
But only 1080-lines display can display 1080i/p streams without rescaling and losing details. As for the definition of "True HD", for me it is 1080i/p stream displayed on a device capable of displaying all 1080 lines with no scaling in-between... anything less but still higher than SD I consider as enhanced definition.
In other words, you've bought hook, line, and sinker into the 1080p sales pitch. Good for you! Do you realize that 1080p is indistinguishable from 720p on a 50" screen at 6'? Do you also realize that much HD content is actually shipped in 720p format, meaning that your "True HD" set will actually have to upconvert? Pretty much all sports are broadcast at 720p (makes sense -- interlace sucks for fast action). HD-DVD movies are mostly natively 720p. Most Xbox 360 games use a 720p rendering buffer. All "HD" content on the 360 video marketplace is 720p. Where are you getting the "True HD" material for your "True HD" TV?
Also, "Enhanced Definition" is defined as 480p/576p, "Standard Definition" is 480i/576i, and "High Definition" is 720p/1080i/1080p. Obviously you're free to redefine those definitions for yourself if you like, but don't come crying to Slashdot when you buy an "enhanced definition" (480p) display and can't use it for 720p HD content.
The point was that all current x720/x768 sets will deinterlace and downscale 1080i to 720p since they lack the line count necessary for straight deinterlaced output.
That doesn't change the fact that 720p sets can still display 720p at its native resolution. When dealing with a fixed resolution display technology, you're going to have some trade-offs. A 1080p monitor can still show a 720p signal but it will be upscaled. By your definition, you're still not getting "true HD" on a 1080p set because the 720p HD resolution has to be manipulated (and upscaling can look just as bad as downscaling, which should be evident to anybody who's used an LCD monitor in the past 7 years).
Very few sources are 1080i/p-only. Every HD-capable set top box I've ever seen can switch its ouput mode and will do better upscaling/deinterlacing/downscaling than all but the most expensive TVs. Upconverting DVD players, HD-DVD players, Blu-Ray players, and the Xbox 360 are all the same way, allowing you to choose your output resolution and doing a high-quality digital-domain transformation prior to sending the picture. While the absolute ideal situation would be to watch all content in its native resolution, that's simply not a valid scenario when you have to deal with fixed-resolution devices. Converting the signal before sending it to the TV is the best compromise available right now.
Exactly. And I'd gladly trade the RF bits for a combination of reduced price, extra IO connectivity, improved image quality and longer warranty.
That's generally not how it works. The non-RF-bits monitors are the same as the tuner-enabled TVs minus the tuner bits. Creating a whole new model with more inputs, different image quality, etc is not cost effective. Besides, removing the tuner bits really doesn't save all that much money. 6 or 7 years ago, removing the HD tuner could save $200-300. Now you're lucky if it saves $100. Removing the SD tuner essentially costs nothing. It's nice to have the option to buy a monitor instead of full TV, but you can't really expect the monitor to be completely different from the TV it's based on.
1999 saw 1080p devices pumping the NASA shuttle launch at your local Magnolia Hifi Store.
1080p devices were not available until 2005, so there's no way you were watching a shuttle launch on a 1080p device in 1999.
Now the entire switchover is going to take 13 years?
You don't need to wait for the switchover in order to enjoy HD content now, or even 5 or 7 years ago. Most major markets have local stations that broadcast HD OTA (including PBS channels). Most cable operators provide local channels in HD as well, and have other HD content (premium channels like HBO and Showtime as well as non-premium HD channels like Discovery), and satellite operators have had HD channels available for years as well. DVDs look good on HD displays even with their 480p resolution limit (upconverting players can make the DVDs look somewhat better, but the main reason to buy an upconverting DVD player is to match the video output to your display's native resolution for fixed-resolution devices like LCD, DLP, and plasma). HD-DVD and Blu-Ray obviously have HD movies, but even if you don't care to hop on one of those bandwagons you can download HD movies on an Xbox 360 or you can download HD rips of TV shows and movies from your favorite torrent site. Current video game consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3 support HD resolutions (the 360 supports all resolutions for all games via upscaling game backbuffers that are typically 720p, while the PS3 only supports specific resolutions for specific games; the Xbox 360 solution is superior for fixed-resolution displays even if it means that 1080p games aren't really rendering in 1080p), and even the previous generation consoles like Xbox and PS2 supported some HD resolutions for some games (for example, Gran Turismo 4 on PS2 can run at 1080i).
The FCC switchover will only mandate how TV signals are broadcast. It says nothing about the quality of the content. Even if the switchover ever happens, you can expect to still get plenty of SD content on the new "digital" channels.
By 2012 the HDTV you bought today won't even be supported.
Won't be supported by what? If the TV has an OTA tuner, it'll still be able to receive OTA HD broadcasts. If it accepts HD signals via component or RGB/VGA, it will continue to accept those signals. The only thing that may break slightly older TVs (pre-HDMI sets, or broken-HDMI sets) will be the broadcast flag, but that's currently in legal limbo.
There is also the matter of brochures selling anything above 480p as HDTV (how many people have bought 1368x768 displays thinking they were getting full HD capability?) and the later drum-up of Full-HD 1080p TVs.
Uh... 1368x768 is enough to do 720p (1280x720). The "Full-HD 1080p" crap is just that -- crap. HD is defined as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (and 1080p isn't actually in the HD standard anyway). If you can do 720p or better, you have an "HD" display.
Since nearly no digital TVs come with CableCard slot, even people with shiny new FullHD TVs won't be able to have digital cable service without an external tuner box.
Every HDTV for the past 2+ years has come with a CableCard slot. The problem is not with TVs without CableCard slots but with cable companies that only support CableCard because they're legally obligated to do so. They'll run you through the ringer with broken cards, requiring a tech visit to plug a card into your TV and call a phone number, and that's assuming you can even get them to admit that they offer CableCard support.
Since digital TVs are currently useless (as a TV) without an external digital cable box
Assuming you purchase an HDTV with an HD tuner (as opposed to an "HD-Ready" TV which means it supports the resolutions but doesn't have a tuner), you can get ATSC HD channels over the air in nearly every market. So just how are HDTVs useless without an external cable box?
I'd vote for dropping tuners and selling large-area computer-entertainment/living-room display units instead of TVs - save $100 on redundant/unnecessary/unwanted RF bits (NTSC+ATSC+QAM tuners) and associated licenses/certifications/whatever.
That's exactly what TV manufacturers have been doing for at least the past 7 years, with "HD-Ready" sets. Most TVs still have SD tuners simply because it costs next to nothing to add, but you can even buy sets without that if you look around.
And what makes this more hysterical is that the early adopters got screwed, buying plasma TVs only to find out they didn't support HD.
Anybody who bought an EDTV plasma without realizing that EDTV is only 480p and not HD doesn't deserve any sympathy. Learn to read the material about what you're buying. If the price looks too good to be true (HDTV plasma for $1000 several years ago? You can bet it's EDTV and you just didn't read), it probably is.
Then the next set of adopters bought HDTVs, only to find out they were not HDMI compatible, and therefore, couldn't run HD content.
Huh? The only items that currently requires HDMI in order to play "HD" content are upconverting DVD players. True HD players (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray) can play their high-def content over component, as can HD video game consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3, and HD cable and satellite boxes.
If you really want to highlight poor early adopters, you only have to look at the guys who bought 1080p sets before those sets could actually accept 1080p signals. Again, that could've been avoided by reading reviews and such, but it's not quite the same as reading the sign in the store that says "EDTV (480p)".
The guarantee is that every 5 years, you need to spend 10 grand on another entertainment setup.
If you're spending $10K on video hardware (TV, video players), you're doing it wrong. I'm not quite an early adopter, yet I'm currently on my second HDTV. I've not paid more than $2000 for either set (first was a 46" RPTV CRT 480p/1080i in 2001, current is a 50" DLP 720p bought in 2005), and I'll probably upgrade again in 2009 or 2010, depending on how prices go and what's available. I can guarantee you that I won't pay more than $2000 for a new TV set. On the video player side of things, I bought a progressive scan DVD player to go with the first TV for $400. I replaced that with an upconverting DVD player for the second TV for $100. When I upgrade my TV next, I expect to be able to buy either a HD-DVD player for $100 or a Blu-Ray player for $200, depending on whichever finally "wins".
You might argue that $2000 every 5 years is still too much, but:
It's still 1/5th what you complained about.
I've gotten my money's worth out of both TVs so far (DVDs, video games, and HDTV via Comcast).
It's my money, and so long as I can afford it without going into debt I'll spend it as I like. If you can't or won't spend that money, that's your decision.
No Multiplayer. I realize the plot doesn't allow for it, but give us some death match.
And there's the mindset behind the downfall of truly good single player games. Why must everything have an online deathmatch component? It doesn't make sense for the story or the world, so there's no reason why the developer should waste precious time on a multiplayer component. Would you have preferred a buggy, tacked-on afterthought deathmatch implementation, or that Irrational take away resources from the single player component to build a good multiplayer system? Then you'd just be complaining that either the multiplayer sucks or the single player story was shafted by the addition of multiplayer. Some games just make sense as a single player experience and you shouldn't try to shoehorn multiplayer in (for example, multiplayer for Oblivion would be pretty silly, though an MMORPG set in Tamriel might actually get me playing MMOs again).
Constantly searching for items. The scenerey is amazing, but I find I'm always ignoring it, to find another health pack, ammo, etc.
So you'd rather have everything given to you? Part of the "horror" aspect is that supplies are limited. Yes, you can take down a splicer with two shots from your pistol with anti-personnel bullets, but what are you going to do when you run out? Should you kill that splicer with your fire plasmid or the flamethrower? What are you going to do if you just used up your last EVE hypo and now you can't use plasmids at all?
Later in the game on medium difficulty, I found that while I was still scrounging to find medkits, hypos, and ammo I had no problem actually finding money. Equip a few good engineering tonics for hacking, hack a vending machine or U-Invent, and buy or build what you need.
Some Plasmids are mostly useless, or quickly obsolete.
I'd say that really depends on your playing style. For example, I don't think I ever used the plasmid to charm a Big Daddy, but if you read through some guides you'll find plenty of recommendations to do just that.
Constantly have to listen to recordings for plot. It gets a little old.
So skip them. You'll get enough information from required bits (interactions with Atlas and the few other still-sane folks, and a couple of required diaries) to understand what's going on. If you want to go deeper, you can. That's what the audio diaries are for.
Re:Why no mention?
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BioShock Review
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· Score: 2, Informative
If the game is as good as CS for instance 25 installs is nothing. I have been installing that game on and off for 8 years now.
Irrational has said that they will turn off the installation counter at some point in the future, allowing unlimited installs. This is just to get through the main popularity stage of the game's life, where they actually make their money.
Why does a game need to limit the amount of installs I can do?
By limiting the number of installs you can do, it limits the number of people to whom you can give the game. Rather than buying it once and installing it on your PC, your friend's PC, your brother's PC, and your co-worker's PC, each of them would have to buy their own copy of the game. That makes sense from Irrational's viewpoint.
A better question would be, why are you re-installing so often?
As someone who has driven dark country roads for years, I'd like to see you and everyone else who buys those blasted things fined. I've always thought they should be illegal.
Properly installed and adjusted HIDs will never blind oncoming traffic. If you're being blinded, it's most likely cars with incorrectly installed and adjusted aftermarket HID kits, which should be illegal. Properly configured HID lights will have:
a sharp vertical cut-off pattern to prevent light from spilling up into the eye-line of oncoming traffic,
built-in washers, to clear the lens of dirt and surface contamination that may cause light to deflect,
an auto-levelling system such that lights will not blind oncoming drivers when going up a hill or over a speed bump, and
a driver-side light that is adjusted such that it has a lower vertical cut-off than the passenger side, and is angled in towards the passenger side. If you shine your lights against a wall, the cut-off pattern should look something like _/-- from the driver to passenger side, and the cut-off should be very sharp.
If you're installing an aftermarket kit, in general you're not going to get items 2 and 3, which is a big deal. Even so, the installer can configure items 1 and 4 to make sure that the light has minimal impact on other drivers will maximizing the benefit for the driver. Also, not all cars are made equal. An HID configuration on a low-slung sports car (like my car) must be completely different than on a high-riding SUV (the sports car can havethe lights at a shallower cut-off angle because the car is below oncoming drivers' sightline already, thus providing more light downfield).
Also, high beams will blind you whether they're halogen or xenon. There's no solution to that one aside from removing high beam capabilities from vehicles. (If you do that, how am I to signal that I want to pass you and you're hogging the left-hand lane?)
Either you should be expert and enthusiastic or you should work something out with some of the Math and Science teachers to coordindate your approaches would be helpful.
That assumes that the math and science teachers are expert and enthusiastici, which sadly is rarely the case. From my own experience, my high school biology teacher was also the football coach, and my high school math teacher was the vollyeball coach. While I'm not trying to stereotype athletics != geeks, when your teacher is more focused on the big game than on the big bang it makes learning science harder than it should be.
It's amazing the amount of waste. We could pull every second street light in the world and halve the amount of light without really making it visibly darker. I lay in bed with the curtains closed on a shitty overcast night (last night) and there is still enough light from the street lights coming through the curtains that the room is lit up. It's scary the many hundreds of watts of lighting running on my street alone.
No they're not. I often drive at night on unlit roads, in the rain, and even with cats eyes and headlights, you can barely see fifty yards ahead in a straight line. You can't see all the imperfections in the road, you can barely see the side of the road, and you can't see corners until you're on them. It's like driving blind.
Have you considered that the problem might be with your vehicle and not the road? If your car is old and the headlights have fogged over, either polish or replace them. If your windshield is filthy, clean it. If you're buying a new car, consider opting for the Xenon HID headlamps ("fake" HIDs are worthless, as they actually cut light output). The extra ~$1000 premium is completely worth it (my last two vehicles have had Xenon lights and I'll never buy another new car without them). If you don't buy HID headlamps from the factory, I would not recommend retrofitting them. Factory-installed units are generally auto-levelling, properly adjusted, with cleaner nozzles to keep the light from scattering due to surface contamination. Aftermarket HID lights generally have none of those features and thus are little better than halogens for the driver and much worse for any oncoming traffic (when you're blinded by an oncoming car with HID lights, there's a very good chance they're poorly installed aftermarket units rather than factory HID lights).
I grew up on a farm and quite often I could've driven with nothing but the light of the moon to illuminate my way. That's not really safe for other people on the road who won't see you, but if you're all alone and there's no other source of light pollution there's more than enough light from even a half moon to see everything. With a full moon and minimal light pollution you can see as if it's the middle of the day (except everything is black/white/blue rather than colored).
Call me confused, but I think Windows Live will still install on XP. You don't need to upgrade to Vista to run Windows Live, if you already have XP.
It's also not tying the online services to Windows any more than they already were. Live.com, Mail, Gallery, Maps, etc all will continue to work on IE and Firefox (and Opera in some cases), and on any OS that supports one or more of those browsers. Obviously the downloadable bits like Messenger are Windows-only (and IE-only, in the case of the toolbar), but that's nothing new.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Because last I checked, the release date was supposed to be sometime near the end of October. It's even too early for stores to break the release date, since they can't possibly have the game in stock yet more than a month before the release.
No it's not. It's multi-tasking!
$50/year is $4.17/mo. That's approximately the cost of a latte. I can afford to skip one latte a month in order to pay for Gold, so it's "tiny" as far as I'm concerned. If you have trouble affording $4.17/mo, you have more important matters to tend to than playing video games online.
Xbox Live Video Marketplace is available to free Silver accounts, so you don't have to pay the tiny $50/year Gold fee. Obviously the content will be for-pay, but TV shows on Xbox Live have typically gone for $3 or less for HD versions. And when available, Xbox Live does have HD episodes on the marketplace. That means your only objection is that you have to pay a fee to download the video.
here
I meant "independent" as in "Each core could function as a fully-featured stand-alone CPU." Bad choice of words on my part or deliberate misunderstanding on your part?
It's still three cores on a single chip, and thus "triple-core". The architecture and functionality of an individual core doesn't matter, so long as it's capable of working as a single core (thus the PS3 is not an "8-core" or "7-core" system, since the Cell units are not functional as independent cores).
Keep in mind that there are two sides to every story, and we rarely ever see both of them when the media gets ahold of it. Was there really no, "Please stop it," phone call, or is the slighted customer just omitting that part because he's pissed that he didn't stop it and Comcast cut him off? At the same time, the original poster represents the viewpoint of a Comcast employee, so of course that's going to spin in Comcast's favor ("We try to be nice and understanding. We really do. We give you multiple warnings and chances, but sometimes enough is enough"). The truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle, where it's neither newsworthy nor sensational.
Random DoS? What are you doing? Maybe it's time to get off IRC. I haven't had problems DoS attacks since dropping IRC years ago. Now my only connection outages are related to Comcast incompetence.
Support linux-igd? The project started back up in the past year and a half or so, along with libupnp coming back from the dead after Intel abandoned it. Help these projects get to the point where they're trivial to setup, stable, and shipped with all distributions and you solve the problem for the large number of folks using linux NATs. Better yet, that will ultimately trickly down to the router market as well, since a fair number of those use (or have used in the past) linux-based firmware. I've been using linuxigd for 2.5 years now and it's worked great with only a few minor hiccups (Xbox, Xbox 360, Azureus, Messenger, etc all work well with it), but in the past it's been a real pain to setup and actually get working.
Once people can finally get over GRC's sensationalist crap from nearly six years ago, we might finally get a real solution in place for NAT users. We all know IPv6 won't ever be widely adopted enough to make NAT obsolete.
You definitely are getting ripped off if you're paying $120/mo for that. I pay slightly less than $100/mo for the same plus HBO and Starz (don't care about Starz but it came with the package, but I keep HBO around for Big Love now that Sopranos is done). Are you sure you're not rolling in the cost of your internet connection as well? Either that, or you have multiple HD DVR boxes at $10/box.
Did you consider an Xbox 360 with Forza 2 and the VGA cable? Gran Turismo is a decent Pokemon simulator, but for racing on a console you really can't beat Forza's physics system. Sure, GT5 will be a bit prettier than Forza 2, but it's also not going to be out for another year yet, it still won't have damage modelling, and most likely it'll still have the same crap physics simulation that Polyphony has used since GT1.
Just for the record, I'm not too much of a Forza fanboy. I bought my original PS1 for GT2 and I bought my PS2 for GT3 and 4. I'll very likely buy a PS3 in order to play GT5, but probably not until the price drops significantly (most likely just in time for GT6). Even so, I enjoyed Forza 1 much more than GT4 (GT4 got about two months of play time, then Forza shipped and I played that for 2 years), and Forza 2 is just plain awesome.
In other words, you've bought hook, line, and sinker into the 1080p sales pitch. Good for you! Do you realize that 1080p is indistinguishable from 720p on a 50" screen at 6'? Do you also realize that much HD content is actually shipped in 720p format, meaning that your "True HD" set will actually have to upconvert? Pretty much all sports are broadcast at 720p (makes sense -- interlace sucks for fast action). HD-DVD movies are mostly natively 720p. Most Xbox 360 games use a 720p rendering buffer. All "HD" content on the 360 video marketplace is 720p. Where are you getting the "True HD" material for your "True HD" TV?
Also, "Enhanced Definition" is defined as 480p/576p, "Standard Definition" is 480i/576i, and "High Definition" is 720p/1080i/1080p. Obviously you're free to redefine those definitions for yourself if you like, but don't come crying to Slashdot when you buy an "enhanced definition" (480p) display and can't use it for 720p HD content.
That doesn't change the fact that 720p sets can still display 720p at its native resolution. When dealing with a fixed resolution display technology, you're going to have some trade-offs. A 1080p monitor can still show a 720p signal but it will be upscaled. By your definition, you're still not getting "true HD" on a 1080p set because the 720p HD resolution has to be manipulated (and upscaling can look just as bad as downscaling, which should be evident to anybody who's used an LCD monitor in the past 7 years).
Very few sources are 1080i/p-only. Every HD-capable set top box I've ever seen can switch its ouput mode and will do better upscaling/deinterlacing/downscaling than all but the most expensive TVs. Upconverting DVD players, HD-DVD players, Blu-Ray players, and the Xbox 360 are all the same way, allowing you to choose your output resolution and doing a high-quality digital-domain transformation prior to sending the picture. While the absolute ideal situation would be to watch all content in its native resolution, that's simply not a valid scenario when you have to deal with fixed-resolution devices. Converting the signal before sending it to the TV is the best compromise available right now.
That's generally not how it works. The non-RF-bits monitors are the same as the tuner-enabled TVs minus the tuner bits. Creating a whole new model with more inputs, different image quality, etc is not cost effective. Besides, removing the tuner bits really doesn't save all that much money. 6 or 7 years ago, removing the HD tuner could save $200-300. Now you're lucky if it saves $100. Removing the SD tuner essentially costs nothing. It's nice to have the option to buy a monitor instead of full TV, but you can't really expect the monitor to be completely different from the TV it's based on.
1080p devices were not available until 2005, so there's no way you were watching a shuttle launch on a 1080p device in 1999.
You don't need to wait for the switchover in order to enjoy HD content now, or even 5 or 7 years ago. Most major markets have local stations that broadcast HD OTA (including PBS channels). Most cable operators provide local channels in HD as well, and have other HD content (premium channels like HBO and Showtime as well as non-premium HD channels like Discovery), and satellite operators have had HD channels available for years as well. DVDs look good on HD displays even with their 480p resolution limit (upconverting players can make the DVDs look somewhat better, but the main reason to buy an upconverting DVD player is to match the video output to your display's native resolution for fixed-resolution devices like LCD, DLP, and plasma). HD-DVD and Blu-Ray obviously have HD movies, but even if you don't care to hop on one of those bandwagons you can download HD movies on an Xbox 360 or you can download HD rips of TV shows and movies from your favorite torrent site. Current video game consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3 support HD resolutions (the 360 supports all resolutions for all games via upscaling game backbuffers that are typically 720p, while the PS3 only supports specific resolutions for specific games; the Xbox 360 solution is superior for fixed-resolution displays even if it means that 1080p games aren't really rendering in 1080p), and even the previous generation consoles like Xbox and PS2 supported some HD resolutions for some games (for example, Gran Turismo 4 on PS2 can run at 1080i).
The FCC switchover will only mandate how TV signals are broadcast. It says nothing about the quality of the content. Even if the switchover ever happens, you can expect to still get plenty of SD content on the new "digital" channels.
Won't be supported by what? If the TV has an OTA tuner, it'll still be able to receive OTA HD broadcasts. If it accepts HD signals via component or RGB/VGA, it will continue to accept those signals. The only thing that may break slightly older TVs (pre-HDMI sets, or broken-HDMI sets) will be the broadcast flag, but that's currently in legal limbo.
Uh ... 1368x768 is enough to do 720p (1280x720). The "Full-HD 1080p" crap is just that -- crap. HD is defined as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (and 1080p isn't actually in the HD standard anyway). If you can do 720p or better, you have an "HD" display.
Every HDTV for the past 2+ years has come with a CableCard slot. The problem is not with TVs without CableCard slots but with cable companies that only support CableCard because they're legally obligated to do so. They'll run you through the ringer with broken cards, requiring a tech visit to plug a card into your TV and call a phone number, and that's assuming you can even get them to admit that they offer CableCard support.
Assuming you purchase an HDTV with an HD tuner (as opposed to an "HD-Ready" TV which means it supports the resolutions but doesn't have a tuner), you can get ATSC HD channels over the air in nearly every market. So just how are HDTVs useless without an external cable box?
That's exactly what TV manufacturers have been doing for at least the past 7 years, with "HD-Ready" sets. Most TVs still have SD tuners simply because it costs next to nothing to add, but you can even buy sets without that if you look around.
Anybody who bought an EDTV plasma without realizing that EDTV is only 480p and not HD doesn't deserve any sympathy. Learn to read the material about what you're buying. If the price looks too good to be true (HDTV plasma for $1000 several years ago? You can bet it's EDTV and you just didn't read), it probably is.
Huh? The only items that currently requires HDMI in order to play "HD" content are upconverting DVD players. True HD players (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray) can play their high-def content over component, as can HD video game consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3, and HD cable and satellite boxes.
If you really want to highlight poor early adopters, you only have to look at the guys who bought 1080p sets before those sets could actually accept 1080p signals. Again, that could've been avoided by reading reviews and such, but it's not quite the same as reading the sign in the store that says "EDTV (480p)".
If you're spending $10K on video hardware (TV, video players), you're doing it wrong. I'm not quite an early adopter, yet I'm currently on my second HDTV. I've not paid more than $2000 for either set (first was a 46" RPTV CRT 480p/1080i in 2001, current is a 50" DLP 720p bought in 2005), and I'll probably upgrade again in 2009 or 2010, depending on how prices go and what's available. I can guarantee you that I won't pay more than $2000 for a new TV set. On the video player side of things, I bought a progressive scan DVD player to go with the first TV for $400. I replaced that with an upconverting DVD player for the second TV for $100. When I upgrade my TV next, I expect to be able to buy either a HD-DVD player for $100 or a Blu-Ray player for $200, depending on whichever finally "wins".
You might argue that $2000 every 5 years is still too much, but:
And there's the mindset behind the downfall of truly good single player games. Why must everything have an online deathmatch component? It doesn't make sense for the story or the world, so there's no reason why the developer should waste precious time on a multiplayer component. Would you have preferred a buggy, tacked-on afterthought deathmatch implementation, or that Irrational take away resources from the single player component to build a good multiplayer system? Then you'd just be complaining that either the multiplayer sucks or the single player story was shafted by the addition of multiplayer. Some games just make sense as a single player experience and you shouldn't try to shoehorn multiplayer in (for example, multiplayer for Oblivion would be pretty silly, though an MMORPG set in Tamriel might actually get me playing MMOs again).
So you'd rather have everything given to you? Part of the "horror" aspect is that supplies are limited. Yes, you can take down a splicer with two shots from your pistol with anti-personnel bullets, but what are you going to do when you run out? Should you kill that splicer with your fire plasmid or the flamethrower? What are you going to do if you just used up your last EVE hypo and now you can't use plasmids at all?
Later in the game on medium difficulty, I found that while I was still scrounging to find medkits, hypos, and ammo I had no problem actually finding money. Equip a few good engineering tonics for hacking, hack a vending machine or U-Invent, and buy or build what you need.
I'd say that really depends on your playing style. For example, I don't think I ever used the plasmid to charm a Big Daddy, but if you read through some guides you'll find plenty of recommendations to do just that.
So skip them. You'll get enough information from required bits (interactions with Atlas and the few other still-sane folks, and a couple of required diaries) to understand what's going on. If you want to go deeper, you can. That's what the audio diaries are for.
Irrational has said that they will turn off the installation counter at some point in the future, allowing unlimited installs. This is just to get through the main popularity stage of the game's life, where they actually make their money.
By limiting the number of installs you can do, it limits the number of people to whom you can give the game. Rather than buying it once and installing it on your PC, your friend's PC, your brother's PC, and your co-worker's PC, each of them would have to buy their own copy of the game. That makes sense from Irrational's viewpoint.
A better question would be, why are you re-installing so often?
Properly installed and adjusted HIDs will never blind oncoming traffic. If you're being blinded, it's most likely cars with incorrectly installed and adjusted aftermarket HID kits, which should be illegal. Properly configured HID lights will have:
- a sharp vertical cut-off pattern to prevent light from spilling up into the eye-line of oncoming traffic,
- built-in washers, to clear the lens of dirt and surface contamination that may cause light to deflect,
- an auto-levelling system such that lights will not blind oncoming drivers when going up a hill or over a speed bump, and
- a driver-side light that is adjusted such that it has a lower vertical cut-off than the passenger side, and is angled in towards the passenger side. If you shine your lights against a wall, the cut-off pattern should look something like _/-- from the driver to passenger side, and the cut-off should be very sharp.
If you're installing an aftermarket kit, in general you're not going to get items 2 and 3, which is a big deal. Even so, the installer can configure items 1 and 4 to make sure that the light has minimal impact on other drivers will maximizing the benefit for the driver. Also, not all cars are made equal. An HID configuration on a low-slung sports car (like my car) must be completely different than on a high-riding SUV (the sports car can havethe lights at a shallower cut-off angle because the car is below oncoming drivers' sightline already, thus providing more light downfield).Also, high beams will blind you whether they're halogen or xenon. There's no solution to that one aside from removing high beam capabilities from vehicles. (If you do that, how am I to signal that I want to pass you and you're hogging the left-hand lane?)
That assumes that the math and science teachers are expert and enthusiastici, which sadly is rarely the case. From my own experience, my high school biology teacher was also the football coach, and my high school math teacher was the vollyeball coach. While I'm not trying to stereotype athletics != geeks, when your teacher is more focused on the big game than on the big bang it makes learning science harder than it should be.
You can take care of that, you know ...
A chastity belt might prevent rape, but it won't prevent theft and murder.
Have you considered that the problem might be with your vehicle and not the road? If your car is old and the headlights have fogged over, either polish or replace them. If your windshield is filthy, clean it. If you're buying a new car, consider opting for the Xenon HID headlamps ("fake" HIDs are worthless, as they actually cut light output). The extra ~$1000 premium is completely worth it (my last two vehicles have had Xenon lights and I'll never buy another new car without them). If you don't buy HID headlamps from the factory, I would not recommend retrofitting them. Factory-installed units are generally auto-levelling, properly adjusted, with cleaner nozzles to keep the light from scattering due to surface contamination. Aftermarket HID lights generally have none of those features and thus are little better than halogens for the driver and much worse for any oncoming traffic (when you're blinded by an oncoming car with HID lights, there's a very good chance they're poorly installed aftermarket units rather than factory HID lights).
I grew up on a farm and quite often I could've driven with nothing but the light of the moon to illuminate my way. That's not really safe for other people on the road who won't see you, but if you're all alone and there's no other source of light pollution there's more than enough light from even a half moon to see everything. With a full moon and minimal light pollution you can see as if it's the middle of the day (except everything is black/white/blue rather than colored).
It's also not tying the online services to Windows any more than they already were. Live.com, Mail, Gallery, Maps, etc all will continue to work on IE and Firefox (and Opera in some cases), and on any OS that supports one or more of those browsers. Obviously the downloadable bits like Messenger are Windows-only (and IE-only, in the case of the toolbar), but that's nothing new.