Well, first off, I do keep things around for long periods of time. I think I still have some Good Eats episodes from a marathon that ran over 2 years ago sitting on my Tivo. I moved recently, and even though I was on Comcast, and kept Comcast, I had to turn in all my equipment and get new equipment at the new place. I'm guessing that would spell the end of any programming kept on the Comcast DVR.
Secondly, over the long run, it makes more sense price wise. You can currently get a 80 hour TiVo for $99, and lifetime service is $300. Within about 2.5 years of use, the price of that, and the price of $13/mo for a Comcast DVR, will be the same. After that point, the TiVo is essentially free, while you're still paying $13/mo for the Comcast DVR.
Well, for one thing, Comcast's DVR is tied to Comcast's cable system. I own my Tivo outright, and have a lifetime service agreement, which means wherever I go, it goes, regardless of provider.
Granted, I'd rather not see pop-up ads in the middle of shows, and I hope to hell this gets worked out, but I hardly think of a DVR that ties me to a cable provider as an alternative.
There's a couple good reasons you need more than 30FPS. For one thing, you never want the framerate to drop below smooth. So, even if you can average 30FPS, that doesn't mean you aren't going to sometimes drop to 15FPS or lower.
However, there's a much more important factor at work here that confounds the film-vs-video-card comparison: video game frames are not the same as film frames. The biggest problem in this regard is motion blur. Here's a little exercise. Try it out in real life if you have the equipment, or just think along through it:
Let's say you were to use a video camera and capture 30 frames in 1 second. The subject is your own hand, waving up and down quickly.
Now let's say you rendered a 1 second video using the 3D engine du jour, also 30 frames, of a hand waving up and down quickly.
If you were to look at the 30 film frames, they would not be crisp. Each one of them would likely exhibit motion blur. However, when played at a rate of 30fps, to the human eye, that motion blur looks smooth.
If you were to look at the 30 rendered frames, there is no motion blur. Each frame is rendered crisply. The problem with this is, when played at 30fps, instead of smoothly moving from one frame to the next, the hand appears to jump between frames. There is no intermediate data to allow a smooth flow from frame to frame.
There are two ways around this: first, you could simulate motion blur in the engine. Second, you can pump the FPS up high enough that there is intermediate data for your eye to take in, and do the motion blur on it's own. The former of these options seems much more likely.
Yeah, after all, protesters are only roped off at Republican events. Nobody would ever think to force protesters into a chain link cage at a Democrat event/sarcasm
eh. I wouldn't call it 'castrated'. Photoshop Elements does everything most non-pro photographers need. If you need more, you're probably getting paid for what you're doing, and can afford Photoshop.
Are there some features in the full version of PS that PSE is missing? Yes. Are most tutorials written assuming you've got the full version of PS, since obviously all home users have legal licenses for an $800 software package (/sarcasm)? Yes. But Elements is hardly 'castrated'.
The "McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit", as it has become known, was vastly misrepresented by the press. If you look at the actual facts, McDonalds deserved what happened. For more information:
Yeah, something weird is going on today. I have topic logos turned off, but about half of them are showing up anyways. Hasn't been a problem before, I don't think.
I built a homebrew Tivo. I did so mainly because I had a bunch of parts around, and I felt like seeing what I could do with it.
On the one hand, it was kind of fun getting set up.
On the other hand, it took a hell of a lot of time, the video quality was substandard, and it was a pain in the ass to set the programming. I couldn't do good compression in realtime, so I had to save in crappy MJPEG compression and then later recompress in batches. Even with a 80GB scratch drive in it, the thing was always battling for more space due to the large initial files.
Did I mention that 2 or 3 different times, kernel upgrades broke my TV card?
I eventually dismantled the system. I'm considering buying a real Tivo soon, but even if I don't, I will not be making another homebrew one. It just isn't worth the time and effort. The V1 Tivos can be configured so you can pull the video right off via ethernet, and people are working on that functionality for the V2 ones. And if you care about playing DivX and stuff like that, mod an XBox. You can play pretty much anything on them, with a lot less effort.
This is a really bad comparison. Dubbing versus subtitling is not irrevocably changing a work. It is much more akin to different casts performing the same play.
In fact, it's exactly that. And sometimes the original cast is so perfect that it can never be equalled. Still, there are many cases where a new group of actors and actresses can pull off something even better than the first, and claiming that the original is always superior is just asinine.
You've still managed to ignore the fact that "Bush's Buddies" would be hurt by more oil imports from Iraq, not helped. Please, explain to me how this is all about Bush wanting to get oil for his buddies, when they'd actually lose money due to it. I'd love to hear that explanation.
You realize that what you just said makes absolutely no sense, right?
Bush's friends have interests in U.S. oil companies. Foreign oil is cheaper than domestic oil. Thus, bringing oil from Iraq into the U.S. would actually hurt his friends' bottom line, because it will drive prices down more, and thus cause domestic producers to have lower profits.
But hey, never let facts get in the way of some good ol' Bush hating! And nevermind that Iraq supplies only 2% or so of the U.S.'s oil!
That may be, but they're not about to jump to Iraq's aid, now are they?
It may sound shitty, but you have to pick your battles sometimes. Iraq is a battle we can win, despite other countries being against it. NK, as it currently stands diplomatically, is a battle we would have great difficult winning. Because of this, it makes no sense to go into NK right now.
Will this change in the future? That entirely depends on NK's actions, and China. We shall see how it all turns out in time.
The reason NK is being treated differently is that it's a different situation entirely.
We cannot move on NK without China being OK with it. Well, we could, but then we'd have to deal with a very pissed off China. Why? Well, how do you think we'd feel if China invaded Mexico, even if it was provoked? Now, multiply that by about 10, because China does not want the U.S. installing a democracy to their south. See why we can't do jack and shit until China decides diplomacy has failed?
I don't feel like getting into the rest of your post, because I"m tired of arguing about the war. However, claiming that NK is a more pressing issue is just uninformed. It's a big deal, yes, but not one that we can do much about right now, especially given how quiet they've been since China's new leader was installed. Until China believes diplomacy has failed with NK, us moving on NK would likely cause China to move in on thier side, if only to assure that no democratic government was installed. And that is something that we really can't risk happening right now.
I mean, I still try to put a lot of thought into my shots. The difference with digital is, I'm not afraid to try weird things out, because I'm not spending $3/shot or more.
Case in point: I'm hoping to do some weird forced perspective shots in the near future, similar to some early films used for creating huge monsters, or tiny people. It's just something I've wanted to try out, and I'm sure it's going to take me a lot of tinkering. If I was paying for film, I don't know that I'd do it; it'd be pretty expensive just to play around with for the sake of playing around (I don't think I'm ever going to use this for any sort of serious work).
So, for me, it's not a downside. Hell, sometimes I shoot without thinking about framing too much, and I like how it turns out. With a traditional film camera, I just don't think I'd be willing to experiment so much, given the cost per shot.
The comparisons that I've seen were done with equivalent ISO ratings. Like, they'd use high quality ISO 100 film, and a digital camera set on ISO 100 equivalent.
Uh. Where do I say I wrote it? My name in front of it is simply so I don't have 2 lines (one for my name, one for the quote). That seems rather wasteful, IMHO.
This is false due to missing an inherent weakness in film: grain.
It's been shown in side by side tests of large prints that 10-11Mp is far superior to 35mm film. Despite 35mm being technically able to hold more information than that, the grain of the film causes the images to come out looking worse.
Yeah, and you don't have to buy film for a digital camera.
Don't think this is a big deal? I'm into amateur photography, and I have a camera that I only bought 9 months ago that I've taken 1500 shots with. Have I kept them all? No. Have I printed them all? No.
And that's the point, for me. I paid $1k for a camera, and now I can take as many pictures as I'd like, without having to pay for it every damn time. The pictures that I do want printed, I can get done for very reasonable prices at places like Shutterfly. And the ones that turn out bad, or I just don't feel like printing, cost me exactly $0.
Do some math. How much would I have spent on film and processing for a traditional 35mm camera in the last 9 months, had I gone that route instead of the digital? By my reckoning, it'd be at least $500, if not more, depending on the quality of the film I purchased. Within another year or so, the camera will have paid for itself, if only in reduced cost per image.
And as for artistic purposes... uhh... what? A lot of professionals and artists have begun switching to digital. There's nothing about digital that makes it any less artistic. In fact, if nothing else, it gives the artist more freedom, in that they can more easily review their work, and learn from their mistakes. The turnaround time is far shorter (ie. instantaneous), and that means that they can take more shots, and more quickly tell if they're getting the effect they desire.
The fact that you haven't read the book is the reason you can't understand why people don't like the movie.
I liked the movie, Starship Troopers. However, it had almost nothing to do with the book. A lot of the spirit and intent of Heinlein's work was entirely ignored, and the end message was in many ways contrary to the message that the book put forth.
Put simply, it wasn't Starship Troopers. It was a movie that had the name "Starship Troopers" just so it could rope in a few more people to see it. And that's a pretty shitty thing for a director to do, don't you think?
It's not "not getting out much". It's mostly due to being able to a) trust artists that I've bought before and b) trust friends when I ask them about new music. I actually do pick up quite a few new albums, and yes, once in a great while I end up with an album I don't particularly care for, but it's pretty rare. I like a fairly broad range of music, which also helps.
As for the media, it's not that I want to carry it around all the time, it's that I want to be able to have it. I personally rip all my music to FLAC, so I can later do whatever I want with it. The point is, if I'm going to pay $15 for an album either way, I'd rather have it at the original quality so that I can reencode it for various devices as needed.
Anyways, my point still stands: this service is useless to people who actually want to buy full albums. It costs just as much, and you get a lower quality product. If it cost less, it'd be a fast and easy way to sample new music, but $1 per song is just too expensive for real use by me, and I would be willing to bet I'm not alone.
I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm not threatened by this, and I really don't get what that means in the first place.
When I buy a CD for $15, I'm usually getting 15 or so songs. I buy CDs from artists that I trust to deliver a full album of good songs. Thus, I typically get at least 14 good songs on an 15 song album, if not 15.
Thus, paying $0.99 per song to download a shitty mp3 is pointless to me. If I'm going to pay $15 for the album, I'd rather have the CD, at the higher quality that it affords. The only way that $0.99 per song is at all useful is if you're in the habit of buying music from artists that are only capable of a few good songs per CD.
Now, if it was $0.25 per song, then yes, this would be pretty cool. But the way it currently is, for the music I like, it's the same price, without getting the original, full quality version, and without physical media. And frankly, that sucks.
I disagree. Look at Battlefield 1942. The game might not be completely realistic, but it's 100 times more realistic than most FPS's, and 100 times more fun to boot. I prefer games that take skill, where you can't just run around taking enough damage to kill 20 men, rocket jumping, and such. And I'm definately not the only one.
You do realize that you're just as bad as the PC police that you seem to hate, don't you?
I don't think people need to walk on eggshells just to not offend people. But at the same time, going to the other extreme is equally as bad. You're basically preaching "fuck anyone else, if they ever say I said something obnoxious they're just too goddamn PC!!" And that's pretty sad.
And I defy you to point out anywhere in the english language that "The Trail of Tears" has had any meaning prior to the event in question. It's a specific reference to a specific event, and would be just as obnoxious as comparing a company laying people off to the mass murder and cremation of jews at Auschwitz. If you can't see that, then you've devolved so far into anti-PC zealotry that you're beyond hope.
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Well, first off, I do keep things around for long periods of time. I think I still have some Good Eats episodes from a marathon that ran over 2 years ago sitting on my Tivo. I moved recently, and even though I was on Comcast, and kept Comcast, I had to turn in all my equipment and get new equipment at the new place. I'm guessing that would spell the end of any programming kept on the Comcast DVR.
Secondly, over the long run, it makes more sense price wise. You can currently get a 80 hour TiVo for $99, and lifetime service is $300. Within about 2.5 years of use, the price of that, and the price of $13/mo for a Comcast DVR, will be the same. After that point, the TiVo is essentially free, while you're still paying $13/mo for the Comcast DVR.
Well, for one thing, Comcast's DVR is tied to Comcast's cable system. I own my Tivo outright, and have a lifetime service agreement, which means wherever I go, it goes, regardless of provider.
Granted, I'd rather not see pop-up ads in the middle of shows, and I hope to hell this gets worked out, but I hardly think of a DVR that ties me to a cable provider as an alternative.
There's a couple good reasons you need more than 30FPS. For one thing, you never want the framerate to drop below smooth. So, even if you can average 30FPS, that doesn't mean you aren't going to sometimes drop to 15FPS or lower.
However, there's a much more important factor at work here that confounds the film-vs-video-card comparison: video game frames are not the same as film frames. The biggest problem in this regard is motion blur. Here's a little exercise. Try it out in real life if you have the equipment, or just think along through it:
Let's say you were to use a video camera and capture 30 frames in 1 second. The subject is your own hand, waving up and down quickly.
Now let's say you rendered a 1 second video using the 3D engine du jour, also 30 frames, of a hand waving up and down quickly.
If you were to look at the 30 film frames, they would not be crisp. Each one of them would likely exhibit motion blur. However, when played at a rate of 30fps, to the human eye, that motion blur looks smooth.
If you were to look at the 30 rendered frames, there is no motion blur. Each frame is rendered crisply. The problem with this is, when played at 30fps, instead of smoothly moving from one frame to the next, the hand appears to jump between frames. There is no intermediate data to allow a smooth flow from frame to frame.
There are two ways around this: first, you could simulate motion blur in the engine. Second, you can pump the FPS up high enough that there is intermediate data for your eye to take in, and do the motion blur on it's own. The former of these options seems much more likely.
Yeah, after all, protesters are only roped off at Republican events. Nobody would ever think to force protesters into a chain link cage at a Democrat event /sarcasm
eh. I wouldn't call it 'castrated'. Photoshop Elements does everything most non-pro photographers need. If you need more, you're probably getting paid for what you're doing, and can afford Photoshop.
Are there some features in the full version of PS that PSE is missing? Yes. Are most tutorials written assuming you've got the full version of PS, since obviously all home users have legal licenses for an $800 software package (/sarcasm)? Yes. But Elements is hardly 'castrated'.
Worst Example Ever.
The "McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit", as it has become known, was vastly misrepresented by the press. If you look at the actual facts, McDonalds deserved what happened. For more information:
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
Please, stop using this as an example of a specious lawsuit. It is, in fact, a case of the judicial system working as it is supposed to work.
Yeah, something weird is going on today. I have topic logos turned off, but about half of them are showing up anyways. Hasn't been a problem before, I don't think.
I built a homebrew Tivo. I did so mainly because I had a bunch of parts around, and I felt like seeing what I could do with it.
On the one hand, it was kind of fun getting set up.
On the other hand, it took a hell of a lot of time, the video quality was substandard, and it was a pain in the ass to set the programming. I couldn't do good compression in realtime, so I had to save in crappy MJPEG compression and then later recompress in batches. Even with a 80GB scratch drive in it, the thing was always battling for more space due to the large initial files.
Did I mention that 2 or 3 different times, kernel upgrades broke my TV card?
I eventually dismantled the system. I'm considering buying a real Tivo soon, but even if I don't, I will not be making another homebrew one. It just isn't worth the time and effort. The V1 Tivos can be configured so you can pull the video right off via ethernet, and people are working on that functionality for the V2 ones. And if you care about playing DivX and stuff like that, mod an XBox. You can play pretty much anything on them, with a lot less effort.
This is a really bad comparison. Dubbing versus subtitling is not irrevocably changing a work. It is much more akin to different casts performing the same play.
In fact, it's exactly that. And sometimes the original cast is so perfect that it can never be equalled. Still, there are many cases where a new group of actors and actresses can pull off something even better than the first, and claiming that the original is always superior is just asinine.
You've still managed to ignore the fact that "Bush's Buddies" would be hurt by more oil imports from Iraq, not helped. Please, explain to me how this is all about Bush wanting to get oil for his buddies, when they'd actually lose money due to it. I'd love to hear that explanation.
You realize that what you just said makes absolutely no sense, right?
Bush's friends have interests in U.S. oil companies. Foreign oil is cheaper than domestic oil. Thus, bringing oil from Iraq into the U.S. would actually hurt his friends' bottom line, because it will drive prices down more, and thus cause domestic producers to have lower profits.
But hey, never let facts get in the way of some good ol' Bush hating! And nevermind that Iraq supplies only 2% or so of the U.S.'s oil!
Did someone forget to take their medicine today?
Better look out! The CIA's coming with it's mind control sattelites! Where's my tinfoil hat?!
That may be, but they're not about to jump to Iraq's aid, now are they?
It may sound shitty, but you have to pick your battles sometimes. Iraq is a battle we can win, despite other countries being against it. NK, as it currently stands diplomatically, is a battle we would have great difficult winning. Because of this, it makes no sense to go into NK right now.
Will this change in the future? That entirely depends on NK's actions, and China. We shall see how it all turns out in time.
The reason NK is being treated differently is that it's a different situation entirely.
We cannot move on NK without China being OK with it. Well, we could, but then we'd have to deal with a very pissed off China. Why? Well, how do you think we'd feel if China invaded Mexico, even if it was provoked? Now, multiply that by about 10, because China does not want the U.S. installing a democracy to their south. See why we can't do jack and shit until China decides diplomacy has failed?
I don't feel like getting into the rest of your post, because I"m tired of arguing about the war. However, claiming that NK is a more pressing issue is just uninformed. It's a big deal, yes, but not one that we can do much about right now, especially given how quiet they've been since China's new leader was installed. Until China believes diplomacy has failed with NK, us moving on NK would likely cause China to move in on thier side, if only to assure that no democratic government was installed. And that is something that we really can't risk happening right now.
Eh. Is this really a downside?
I mean, I still try to put a lot of thought into my shots. The difference with digital is, I'm not afraid to try weird things out, because I'm not spending $3/shot or more.
Case in point: I'm hoping to do some weird forced perspective shots in the near future, similar to some early films used for creating huge monsters, or tiny people. It's just something I've wanted to try out, and I'm sure it's going to take me a lot of tinkering. If I was paying for film, I don't know that I'd do it; it'd be pretty expensive just to play around with for the sake of playing around (I don't think I'm ever going to use this for any sort of serious work).
So, for me, it's not a downside. Hell, sometimes I shoot without thinking about framing too much, and I like how it turns out. With a traditional film camera, I just don't think I'd be willing to experiment so much, given the cost per shot.
The comparisons that I've seen were done with equivalent ISO ratings. Like, they'd use high quality ISO 100 film, and a digital camera set on ISO 100 equivalent.
Uh. Where do I say I wrote it? My name in front of it is simply so I don't have 2 lines (one for my name, one for the quote). That seems rather wasteful, IMHO.
This is false due to missing an inherent weakness in film: grain.
It's been shown in side by side tests of large prints that 10-11Mp is far superior to 35mm film. Despite 35mm being technically able to hold more information than that, the grain of the film causes the images to come out looking worse.
Yeah, and you don't have to buy film for a digital camera.
... uhh ... what? A lot of professionals and artists have begun switching to digital. There's nothing about digital that makes it any less artistic. In fact, if nothing else, it gives the artist more freedom, in that they can more easily review their work, and learn from their mistakes. The turnaround time is far shorter (ie. instantaneous), and that means that they can take more shots, and more quickly tell if they're getting the effect they desire.
Don't think this is a big deal? I'm into amateur photography, and I have a camera that I only bought 9 months ago that I've taken 1500 shots with. Have I kept them all? No. Have I printed them all? No.
And that's the point, for me. I paid $1k for a camera, and now I can take as many pictures as I'd like, without having to pay for it every damn time. The pictures that I do want printed, I can get done for very reasonable prices at places like Shutterfly. And the ones that turn out bad, or I just don't feel like printing, cost me exactly $0.
Do some math. How much would I have spent on film and processing for a traditional 35mm camera in the last 9 months, had I gone that route instead of the digital? By my reckoning, it'd be at least $500, if not more, depending on the quality of the film I purchased. Within another year or so, the camera will have paid for itself, if only in reduced cost per image.
And as for artistic purposes
The fact that you haven't read the book is the reason you can't understand why people don't like the movie.
I liked the movie, Starship Troopers. However, it had almost nothing to do with the book. A lot of the spirit and intent of Heinlein's work was entirely ignored, and the end message was in many ways contrary to the message that the book put forth.
Put simply, it wasn't Starship Troopers. It was a movie that had the name "Starship Troopers" just so it could rope in a few more people to see it. And that's a pretty shitty thing for a director to do, don't you think?
It's not "not getting out much". It's mostly due to being able to a) trust artists that I've bought before and b) trust friends when I ask them about new music. I actually do pick up quite a few new albums, and yes, once in a great while I end up with an album I don't particularly care for, but it's pretty rare. I like a fairly broad range of music, which also helps.
As for the media, it's not that I want to carry it around all the time, it's that I want to be able to have it. I personally rip all my music to FLAC, so I can later do whatever I want with it. The point is, if I'm going to pay $15 for an album either way, I'd rather have it at the original quality so that I can reencode it for various devices as needed.
Anyways, my point still stands: this service is useless to people who actually want to buy full albums. It costs just as much, and you get a lower quality product. If it cost less, it'd be a fast and easy way to sample new music, but $1 per song is just too expensive for real use by me, and I would be willing to bet I'm not alone.
I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm not threatened by this, and I really don't get what that means in the first place.
When I buy a CD for $15, I'm usually getting 15 or so songs. I buy CDs from artists that I trust to deliver a full album of good songs. Thus, I typically get at least 14 good songs on an 15 song album, if not 15.
Thus, paying $0.99 per song to download a shitty mp3 is pointless to me. If I'm going to pay $15 for the album, I'd rather have the CD, at the higher quality that it affords. The only way that $0.99 per song is at all useful is if you're in the habit of buying music from artists that are only capable of a few good songs per CD.
Now, if it was $0.25 per song, then yes, this would be pretty cool. But the way it currently is, for the music I like, it's the same price, without getting the original, full quality version, and without physical media. And frankly, that sucks.
Maybe you should stop buying shitty music.
I can't recall the last disc I bought that had more than a single song on it that I didn't like.
I disagree. Look at Battlefield 1942. The game might not be completely realistic, but it's 100 times more realistic than most FPS's, and 100 times more fun to boot. I prefer games that take skill, where you can't just run around taking enough damage to kill 20 men, rocket jumping, and such. And I'm definately not the only one.
You do realize that you're just as bad as the PC police that you seem to hate, don't you?
I don't think people need to walk on eggshells just to not offend people. But at the same time, going to the other extreme is equally as bad. You're basically preaching "fuck anyone else, if they ever say I said something obnoxious they're just too goddamn PC!!" And that's pretty sad.
And I defy you to point out anywhere in the english language that "The Trail of Tears" has had any meaning prior to the event in question. It's a specific reference to a specific event, and would be just as obnoxious as comparing a company laying people off to the mass murder and cremation of jews at Auschwitz. If you can't see that, then you've devolved so far into anti-PC zealotry that you're beyond hope.
But whatever. I should stop feeding trolls.