Funny, QT6 is free. You can download it now from www.apple.com/quicktime.
Oh, and before you start calling other people slaves, you might look at the ideology you are advocating, and that of the people you support. RMS's communism made more slaves than capitalism ever had.
People say those who work for companies are "slaves" to them, but they ignore the fact that those employees could leave any time they wanted- but in the socialist paradises they advocate, leaving your job means death.
Lets stop with the doublespeak. If you want QT then help make such technology for Linux.
Or buy it. IF you don't then stop complaining.
Or do you think you have the right to something for nothing? Thats you're business model? Historically, it never works.
Some facts about Quicktime people don't seem to know:
1) Quicktime doesn't have a "Pro" version-- the PLAYER has one, but quicktime itself comes in only one version for multiple platforms.
If you didn't want to pay for the pro player, all you had to do was write your own player-- which, since quicktime provides really high level APIs-- is like a dozen lines of code. I've done it in 6 lines of code.
2) Apple makes money on Quiktime by driving media professionals to the Mac OS Platform. That is why its not in their best interest to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to license sorenson or MPEG4 video or other codecs in order to ship a free linux player.
If Linux users were willing to pay the money necessary, someone could easily port Quicktime to Linux and would have apple blessing. They just aren't going to spend the hundreds of millions to pay the license fees and give a free player out-- and the person who did this port would have to pay licensing fees themselves and therefore charge for the Quicktime Linux... and then you'd complain about that.
It really is simple-- if you want a technology and don't have it, create it or join a project to help create it. If it is availible but you have to pay for it and don't want to, then create your own or join a project to create your own.
IF the effort of helping to create it is too much for you, but you sitll don't want to pay for it, then you DON'T really want it.
Otherwise what you are asking for is something for nothing. Unless you're a communist (and therefore intend to get your something for nothing using a gun-- ie a looter) then you're a hypocrite when you complain that someone hasn't paid your way to have something you aren't even motivated enough to help create yourself.
QuickTime doesn't really have any major advantages over other technologies as far as I can tell
Because you're ignoring them. The technology for instant on streaming isn't setting the buffer to zero. It involves a lot of things, an it was quite amazing when I saw it. Like bending light- it seemed to violate the laws of physics. but it does work and it wasn't a hack.
But according to you, they just didn't buffer. Funny, that's why the stream kept playing when steve pulled the cable connecting the boxes? (And before someone jumps in and says "SEE! LAN LAN! They cheated!" a 100kbit stream is still a 100kbit stream even when its going over a 100mbit cable.
A Sorensen or MPEG-4 stream encoded at between one and two megabits per second is not, and cannot be considered, "DVD quality."
This statement is the logical equivilent of saying "A Yugo or Mercedies that goes 60 MPH is not , and cannot be considered "Buick Quality".
No. MPEG4 is not "DVD Quality" Its FAR SUPERIOR to DVD. MPEG2 is pretty ugly to my eye, and an MPEG4 stream a 1megabits compared to a 5-8megabit MPEG2 stream is no comparison-- the MPEG4 looks MUCH BETTER THAN DVD QUALITY.
Excuse me for all capsing, but sheesh, this is a new technology. Recognize that.
Whether Apple will allow a native linux player is kinda like asking whether Apple will allow a player that uses Sorenson.
This is just plain bigotry on your part.
First off, Apple doesn't own the patents on the MPEG4 video stream. Apple does own the Quicktime file format, and that they have opened.
so as far as technology Apple does own, they have opened it widely on free licensing terms. So your position is proven false.
As to the video codecs, which Apple, AGAIN, does not own, Apple has been throwing its weight around to get better licensing-- the current scheme calls for a 2 cents per hour streaming content fee if you serve an MP4 video stream. Apple has threatened not to ship QT6 with MP4 if this cost is in the final license... and has had QT6 complete for 3 months waiting for this to be resolved.
So, in fact, Apple is doing the opposite of what you claim. Why the bigotry?
Look - this is just doublespeak, and end-runs around the truth. The truth is that Microsoft and REAL are not committed to MPEG-4,
Is this why Real has licensed MPEG4 and is a member of the IMSA? (A major MPEG4 streaming group.)
They haven't decided yet how to make money off it (probably a per-use streaming fee on streaming video), but they will. And, because they have patents behind them, they can decide to change their business plan whenever they like.
Of course this isn't true. Once the licensing terms are set, they can't change them. That's part of the standardization process.
The fact that Apple's QuickTime 6 tools can produce MPEG-4 files doesn't mean that Apple is going to put its proprietary Sorenson codecs to bed
Right. Its hte fact that the MP4 video codec is really superior thats going to put the Sorenson codec to bed.
Remember, the Sorenson codec isn't Apples "proprietaryness"! ITs a shame that all this hatred goes Apples way for licensing someone elses codec and giving it away for free! That's silly!
Quicktime has always, from the beginning, supported multiple codecs. As a content producer, you could create content in any codec you wanted and ship it, and if Quicktime didn't come natively with that codec, you could have licensed it to Apple and they would have shipped it. IT ships with a grab bag of codecs and always has-- leaving it up to the content producer which codec they would use, and attempting to support all the codecs they could for consumers.
The reason Sorenson was so popular was that the content producers CHOSE IT, not because Apple "made" anyone use it!
MPEG4, however, has better licensing terms (its just as proprietary as Sorenson! Exactly as "proprietary to Apple").
Yet, notice that Apple has threatened to withhold its support for MPEG4 unless these licensing issues are resolved-- and as the largest supplier of consumer playback software in the world, Apple's throwing a lot of weight around (100M Quicktime shipped last year compared ot 90M for Real)
So, once again, Apple fights the good fight, and you guys bash them.
I disagree. USB is a great low-bandwidth protocol. I think they should just stop trying to compete with firewire and use firewire! Its not like its expensive or anything.
That way we'd have USB and FireWire everywhere and both would be better supported.
Instead we have USB bringing a knife to a gunfight. Its never going to beat firewire, without trying to become firewire (which its unsuited to) and the "comparison" only detracts from the standardization we need.
FireWire is ready to go at 3.2Gbps over very long runs...
Excuse me? I have a 21" monitor at work on a PC that runs at 1600x1200 at approx 150 DPI. There is no way a 15" 1024x768 can come close to that.
Of course not. The iMac is legible.
150 DPI is unreadable.
This reminds me of the arguments I used to have with BBS weenies back in the day every PC came with a el-cheapo 13 inch (though it claimed to be 15 inch) monitor with.38mm pixels and they'd claim that their display was super superior cause it would do 1280x960 compared to the 72dpi 800x600 Mac display I was using... course they also complained of headaches alot.
Again, you're using silly specs to compare with a product you haven't seen. Running 150 dpi makes your display useless.
The fact that all applications in Mac OS share a menu bar at the top of the screen might save some real estate, but I have a hard time believing that it's such a huge difference (especially for someone like me, whose screen is mostly covered with Eterms). And the inability to set "focus follows mouse" is a crying shame.
These are usability issues. Ok, the menu-bar thing is a screen real-estate issue as well. When you have repeated menu bars, you do burn a LOT of real estate. plus, putting it on the window slows you down, as compared to putting it on the top of the screen.
Same thing with "floating" menus- they are much slower for the user to use than a top of screen menu. (Though Mac OS does have them if you use the second mouse button-- another thing that actually slows people down, which is why Apple still ships a one button mouse.)
The focuse following the mouse point is the most annoying feel that I've ever had to deal with. I'm happy with the way MacOS works and cannot imagine why you'd want it another way-- but those are just my feelings. The science behind it is, it slows you down-- you end up getting the wrong focus, often, instead of the focus you want.
These complaints are regular are repeated and all of them have been answered at least a decade ago. Scientificly, objectively, all of these issues are ones where apple chose usability. There's a reason they are that way and the alternative is to slow all your customers down and make your product harder to work with.
I won't answer further in this thread because this has been laid to rest years ago-- its a scientific fact.
Your ignorance does not mean my planning is "half baked". Apparently you have no clue about the issues around this area, other than what you've read on some website.
A PVR system pretty much requires the cable box to be on all the time. TiVo and Replay don't bother toggling the power to these.
If you'd bothered to pay you'd notice I'm talking about dealing with devices other than the cable box in the loop.
Plus it seems pretty silly to simply not record a show because someone turned the cable box off.
Supporting this issue is not being "half baked" on my part.
LIRC supports a ton of good IR hardware including many devices that send and recieve CIR signals just fine.
Maybe they do. However, I was unable to find any commercial that fit my requirements (ie: USB), weren't do it yourself projects (I can build my own if I want to) or weren't absurdly expensive. Most all of them *don't* recieve.
Its one thing to post erronously a comment to slashdot. Its completely worse to flame someone who's right, calling them half-baked when it is YOU who is ignorant of the state of things.
Why on earth would you hook up a VCR between your cable box and PVR system and then expect to be able to do anything useful with it?
Because most people in the world are hooked up this way-- they have a VCR and aren't ready to get rid of it. Support for that is a nice thing to do-- not an example of being "half baked"... unless you live in the world where everyone should do things the way you want-- otherwise they are stupid and you flame them. Well, youre reality distortion field doesn't extend very far.
You don't necessarily have to distribute the code library for every cable box on the planet.
No, but it would be a good idea to ship a decent code library that works with whatever piece of hardware you end up supporting... and hopefully that hardware works with a variety of CIR devices (again, most of the hardware is not well baked.)
I don't see how attempting to support a wide range of devices is "half baked".
Its unfortunate that nobody is taking you seriously.
I was interested in this kind of setup back around 1990 when I wanted to do a documentary about the drug trade...but I never did do anything with it.
Anyway, what I was planning at that time was to use one of those really thin fiber-optic lenses with an exchangeable lense video camera. The thinking is the camera goes in a pocket, and the lense goes in the cuff of your shirt or coat sleave under your wrist. You life your wrist and aim, the fiber optics conveys the image to the camera...
They didn' thave exhcangeable lense video cameras then, but they do now. While the XL1 is too bulky to conceal, there is a sony camera with an exchangeable lense-- I think its the PD100. Its pretty small, rugged and designed for documentary work.
Doctors use these things a lot so prices must have come down. You could probably get set up for around $4,000.
That's one idea. I hadn't thought about the webcam type stuff. You might go looking around on the wearhard wearables list for clues. Those guys know small computers.
I'm working on this problem. ITs a difficult one- here are some of the issues:
1) IR codes vary greatly from device to device. But more importantly, they are not explicit. In other words the "ON" code is "On" when the machines off, but if the machines on, then it will turn the machine off. so there's no way for one to say "on" and *know* that you're going to get the machine turned on, rather than off. (in many cases)
2) There seems to be no good hardware. What makes sense is to both send and recieve IR signals. so you can control your pc based PVR from a remote... but there is little hardware that will do this and what is there won't do both really elegantly. Making custom hardware is possible, but that involves a lot of issues as well.
3) The setup of the home entertainment system affects how this works. Is there a VCR between the cable box and the PVR? which output of the VCR is the PVR hooked up to? Whatever system will have to either force people to set up their system in a way the PVR IR controller can control, or have a way to teach the PVR about the setup.
But my biggest concern is finding all the codes, and translating them into a format I can use... manufacturers make variations on the even the same model of VCR...
You said: I don't hate the iMac, I think it's just a piece of hardware. But sometimes I just cannot resist throwing baits at the mac lovers, who don't seem to think it is just that - hardware.
What you said, essentially means: I don't hate the dark skin, I think it's just a skin color. But sometimes I just cannot resist throwing baits at the Nigger lovers, who don't seem to think it is just that - skin color.
Do you now see what people rise to that "bait"? Why people take it seriously?
It is a prejudice and it a prejudice that has real effects--- products don't get ported, you get passed over for jobs, you deal with derision and what is essentially hatred, in a variety of contexts-- airports when you pull our your power book, online when you deal with bigots like you, etc. etc.
We are no more "zeolots" than MLK was. We deserve recognition for having the content of our character to use a better,though "unpopular" tool instead of conforming to your political correctness.
The only product that has been "steved" was the Newton. Its not clear why, but that was his doing.
Other than that, this idea that something will be "steved" because it was leaked is just more irrational bigotry towards all things apple.
Steve is an extrordinarily rational mane. Passionate, yes, but he is leading the market, and paying very close attention to the market. That's why apple's been so successful lately.
There were rumors abou the iMac itself for about a year before it came out, yet the product was not "steved" wit was amazing.
Apple may or may not ship larger displays soon... I expect they won't and I think its wise that they don't-- the prices of the larger displays don't yet make sense for a consumer machine.
Also, its worth noting that as a consumer product, the iMac sells millions of units a year. A larger display is going to have a much lower yeild which means that there may well not be production capacity to support the high volume, lower margin business.
And then when Apple doesn't announce them in July, you'll be back here telling us that you were right, they were "steved".
Well, if by "steved" you mean choosing to ship products for which they can fulfill the demand, then you're right. But "irrationally canned" is just bigotry on your part.
There's nothing wrong with the LCD. I can turn it so that my girlfriend sitting over on the couch can see it and I can still see it just fine as well.
I'm certain the reason it doesn't pivot has to do with getting signals in and out.
Why do people assume the LCD sucks (on a product they've never used) as a reason for it not doing some feature? Would you have really bought it if it did pivot but don't buy it because it doesn't? I really doubt that.
At any rate, the LCD would work find in a pivoted role--- I can read the text on it when its turned 80 degrees away from me.
Its amazing how the marketplace reacts to apples products- the iMac looks dorky in pictures, but when you see on in person, you see how finely crafted it is. I ordered one sight unseen (the specs fit my needs more than anything else) and was extremely surprised at how well built it is.
The other amazing thing is just how innovative putting the display on that arm really is. I know people are going "what's the big deal??": and others have commented that larger displays would tip it over.
Well, the base is really good sized and heavy- the arm, as is, could handle a display significantly larger and heavier (I've tested this by pulling on the arm to try and tip the mac- it takes al ot of weight to do so.)
But what's really amazing about this machine is that you move the display. Regularly. When its on the arm like this, you can adjust it to precisely how you're sitting at that point in time.
If you're in front of a computer a lot, you move around in your chair-- unconciously, I'm sure-- to remain comfortable, keep your legs from falling asleep, etc. With the iMAc, you can trivially move the display to fit where you're sitting at that moment in time, or move it over to show your girlfriend something going on on the screen ( find myself doing this alot)...
Just a half inch adjustment makes an improvement on the ergonomics. And people always move around.
Now, after using an iMac for a couple months, I can't stand to be in front of a display that doesn't move (like my other computers)-- and canstantly have to stop myself from adjusting them. I was at WWDC and used one of the huge HD Cinema displays there, and kept moving it! All 30 pounds of it, or whatever- it really huge and moving it was liek dragging a metal table across a linoleum floor- its not meant to be moved... but I'm spoilt.
As to larger displays- the weird thing is that this 15 inch display seems too big for me. I keep finding myself surprised at its size. I can't imagine a bigger display on this machin-- not because the arm couldn't handle it but because it would be too much display.
It wasn't this way with CRTs where I demanded employers provide me a 21 inch trinitron, as an ergonomic requirement. but this 15 inch LCD is better in terms of image quality and usability than a 21 in trinitron running Mac OS (which is equal to a 30 inch trinitron runnign Windwos or Linux-- windowing systems that waste/misuse a lot of real estate.)
Constantly slashdot articles that talk aobut Apple products, such as this one, dismiss them out of ignorance. you cannot see the utility and innovation of the iMac from looking at it in a picture. You have to use it ot realize that you really do want to move the display regularly.
People get used to using Windows / Linux (different operating systems, essentially the same look and feel) and then dismiss the MAc because they don't fit what they're used to. This is exactly like a white person being insensitive around blacks or a straight person being homophobic- its fear and hatred of whats different. Except instead of people we're talking about technology so its less dangerous, but just as illogical. But then- these prejudices do get translated, into real world effects as people are denied jobs or mistreated by the ignorant.
As a class of people who have been mistreated by Windows non-thinkers, its time to stop doing the exact same thing to Apple products-- which, are treated even worse, because they have the jealousy effect by being both not-microsoft and truely innovative.
There's a massive manufacturing difference between a micro mechanical device and doping a substrate to make a semiconductor. About equal to the difference between painting a robot and building one.
I'm not saying crinkly is right, I'm just saying Moores law applying is not a foregone conclusion. (In fact, it will probably be some multiple of Moores law-- 1/2 or 2X or something.)
This is, however, the first bits of nanotech, and I'm impressed that TI has made as much process as they have. I remember reading about DLP back 5-6 years ago.
Thanks. it looks like mjpegtools provides some of what I need, but more specifically I've found a codec component to do it. Now I just need to get the code written.
The reports I've seen is that USB offers, at best, 6Mb per second, sustained.
And, of course, USB is not isochronous. As I've pointed out twice now.
Furthermore, I did do the math, and provided it in my post.
I really don't think there's much point in continuing this debate. You are using marketing numbers to make a claim, rather than taking into account real world numbers and the real world experience of the companies providing USB solutions.
And, while you continue to claim that it "can" do this, nobody is able to *show* it doing it, and I've repeately pointed out reasons why it probably *can't*.
Brzt. Thanks for playing! Oh, well, partial credit -- I don't know what the USB does I admit. But the PCI version recorded at full NTSC D1 (which tends to be 704x480 in actual use) in multiple bitrates.
You guys are misusing the term "D1". D1 is an uncompressed video stream in digital format. What you mean to say is "SD" and the particular form of standard definition television. SD talks about resolution. D1 means no compression.
For instance, on a hundred gigabyte drive, you can get 58 minutes of D1 signal. (At NTSC SD resolution and framerate)
Your card is encoding into MPEG2 at some resolution and framerate-- might not even be 30fps. So, what you're talking about is an MPEG2 stream, not a "D1" stream.
Not flaming- just trying to correct mischaracterizations- there's enough confusion out there already.
This solution does produce a high quality image-- "broadcast quality" in fact.
However, DV, while compressed, is a very high bandwidth signal. With DV you can get -- wait for it-- 4 minutes of video stored. A tivo gets something like 1 hour per gigabyte.
But this is really an unfair comparison- the TiVO "hours per unit" calculations are based on their lowest quality video, not highest, and that DV example is EXTREMELY high quality.
The Formac site implies slightly better-- 4 hours in 48GB or 12GB/hour.
Still, even at best quality - a fairer comparison- TiVo is a much better storage deal.
So, encoding to some compression format is a good idea-- but as far as getting the signal into your computer in digital form- the DV format is a great one. And the one you quote at $399 has a tuner built in. If you don't need a tuner, you can get them for $299. (Dazzle and one from a company I can't remember the name of. Maybe Dazzle is $399, but the other one is $299 w/o tuner.)
Is a tuner really necessary? Don't most people have composite video out, or cable systems that won't let you directly decode the signal (ie: you need a proprietary box.)???
80.4%? Really? Did you know that %100 of statistics such as this are made up on the spot?
Seriously, though. USB has trouble streaming just audio thru hubs- that's why Griffin Technology made an "audio hub" so that their USB microphones would work.
From what I know the standard doesn't even support time sychnronous communication... it was NOT designed for streaming. It was designed for keyboards and maybe modems.
Please, if you're going to disagree with me, point to some evidence. Feel free to read Griffin's description of the audio hub issues on their website.
You love USB? Great. From what I understand, USB 2.0 will fix most of the issues I have, though its bandwidth will only be 480Mbits/second. Certainly enough to run DV over it if its compressed (not D1 video).
But the point remains-- there are NO decent quality USB video solutions. The evidence points to this being because USB wasn't designed for this, and you can argue about whether it can get "DVD" quality video or not-- the simple fact is that there are no devices that do this.
Given that USB is far more prevalent on PCs than FireWire (which *does* do it, and far better than DVD quality, in fact) if USB could do this, market forces would make it a desirable thing to do.
This isn't marketing, this is technology-- the protocol wasn't designed for streaming media. The new version apparently takes it into account, and maybe that will solve the problem. But there exists no good quality USB video encoders at this point.
That's not an assumption. The specs for the USB video devices tell the tale. They cut the resolution in half, and then do very quick realtime encoding. This is necessary to keep the price down. TIVO does a better job because they can afford better encoders, and they don't cut the resolution down.
Most of these USB devices are for people dealing with VCR tapes or for web streaming, so 320x240 is fine for them.
Back of the envelope, USB can- just barely- fit a DVD video stream in it, but I wouldn't try to ship a product that was trying to do it for an hour without dropping frames-- highly unlikely that would work reliably. USB is only 12 megabits (not Bytes) per second. I think its also not isochronous.
Not that I'm knocking USB- its perfect for Modems, keyboards, joysticks and floppy drives-- what it was designed for.
MPEG2 does not mean "DVD quality". MPEG2 can encode to high quality (not "quite high") but you certainly can't then get that stream thru a USB buss!
At any rate, the USB video products that I've seen, including the one this thread is about, aren't even trying to do high quality video. That is my point.
The thing about these products that concern me is that they are USB based-- I suspect that the MPEG2 image quality will not be that nice.
I'm wondering if there's a market for a good quality computer based PVR. One that encodes in real time to an advanced format (say MPEG4) from a high quality image stream.
This would result in a much better recording ratio-- more hours to a gigabyte and better video quality. (And it can be done in real time in software on good hardware)
The problem with people making PVRs in the past has been lack of acces to hardware drivers for All In Wonder cards, etc. This seems to be the insurmountable problem so far. (Though I think I have a great solution.)
So, what do you think? Know of any open source projects trying to do this?
If my solution works, it will result in better video quality than you get from Tivo or the USB product in this article, both because its compressed in MPEG4 rather than MPEG2, and because the source signal is much better . (At least in the USB case, the advantages over TIVO would be codec choice and flexibility of being an open platform-- you can easily move video in and out, etc.)
Would such a product be valuable to you? Woudl you buy it? You'd probably be spending about as much as to buy a TIVO for the hardware & software solution I'm thinking of-- but your capacity, ability to move the files around, ability to share the video to other TVs, etc, would be greatly improved.
Or put another way, my hypothesis is that the TIVO solution is pretty good- decent quality, all in one box, fits like a VCR and controlled by remote. The PC solutions have not been so good- bad Windows software, or lack of access to drivers or poor shovelware to bundle with the cards. So, I think a solution that provides the advantages of using your PC to do the recording, with better format, and high quality imaging (As well as the other features of Tivo- speculative recording, IR control, etc.) is a market opportunity... Am I right?
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, QT6 is free. You can download it now from www.apple.com/quicktime.
Oh, and before you start calling other people slaves, you might look at the ideology you are advocating, and that of the people you support. RMS's communism made more slaves than capitalism ever had.
People say those who work for companies are "slaves" to them, but they ignore the fact that those employees could leave any time they wanted- but in the socialist paradises they advocate, leaving your job means death.
Lets stop with the doublespeak. If you want QT then help make such technology for Linux.
Or buy it. IF you don't then stop complaining.
Or do you think you have the right to something for nothing? Thats you're business model? Historically, it never works.
Some facts about Quicktime people don't seem to know:
1) Quicktime doesn't have a "Pro" version-- the PLAYER has one, but quicktime itself comes in only one version for multiple platforms.
If you didn't want to pay for the pro player, all you had to do was write your own player-- which, since quicktime provides really high level APIs-- is like a dozen lines of code. I've done it in 6 lines of code.
2) Apple makes money on Quiktime by driving media professionals to the Mac OS Platform. That is why its not in their best interest to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to license sorenson or MPEG4 video or other codecs in order to ship a free linux player.
If Linux users were willing to pay the money necessary, someone could easily port Quicktime to Linux and would have apple blessing. They just aren't going to spend the hundreds of millions to pay the license fees and give a free player out-- and the person who did this port would have to pay licensing fees themselves and therefore charge for the Quicktime Linux
It really is simple-- if you want a technology and don't have it, create it or join a project to help create it. If it is availible but you have to pay for it and don't want to, then create your own or join a project to create your own.
IF the effort of helping to create it is too much for you, but you sitll don't want to pay for it, then you DON'T really want it.
Otherwise what you are asking for is something for nothing. Unless you're a communist (and therefore intend to get your something for nothing using a gun-- ie a looter) then you're a hypocrite when you complain that someone hasn't paid your way to have something you aren't even motivated enough to help create yourself.
QuickTime doesn't really have any major advantages over other technologies as far as I can tell
Because you're ignoring them. The technology for instant on streaming isn't setting the buffer to zero. It involves a lot of things, an it was quite amazing when I saw it. Like bending light- it seemed to violate the laws of physics. but it does work and it wasn't a hack.
But according to you, they just didn't buffer. Funny, that's why the stream kept playing when steve pulled the cable connecting the boxes? (And before someone jumps in and says "SEE! LAN LAN! They cheated!" a 100kbit stream is still a 100kbit stream even when its going over a 100mbit cable.
Sheesh.
A Sorensen or MPEG-4 stream encoded at between one and two megabits per second is not, and cannot be considered, "DVD quality."
This statement is the logical equivilent of saying "A Yugo or Mercedies that goes 60 MPH is not , and cannot be considered "Buick Quality".
No. MPEG4 is not "DVD Quality" Its FAR SUPERIOR to DVD. MPEG2 is pretty ugly to my eye, and an MPEG4 stream a 1megabits compared to a 5-8megabit MPEG2 stream is no comparison-- the MPEG4 looks MUCH BETTER THAN DVD QUALITY.
Excuse me for all capsing, but sheesh, this is a new technology. Recognize that.
Whether Apple will allow a native linux player is kinda like asking whether Apple will allow a player that uses Sorenson.
This is just plain bigotry on your part.
First off, Apple doesn't own the patents on the MPEG4 video stream. Apple does own the Quicktime file format, and that they have opened.
so as far as technology Apple does own, they have opened it widely on free licensing terms. So your position is proven false.
As to the video codecs, which Apple, AGAIN, does not own, Apple has been throwing its weight around to get better licensing-- the current scheme calls for a 2 cents per hour streaming content fee if you serve an MP4 video stream. Apple has threatened not to ship QT6 with MP4 if this cost is in the final license... and has had QT6 complete for 3 months waiting for this to be resolved.
So, in fact, Apple is doing the opposite of what you claim. Why the bigotry?
Look - this is just doublespeak, and end-runs around the truth. The truth is that Microsoft and REAL are not committed to MPEG-4,
Is this why Real has licensed MPEG4 and is a member of the IMSA? (A major MPEG4 streaming group.)
They haven't decided yet how to make money off it (probably a per-use streaming fee on streaming video), but they will. And, because they have patents behind them, they can decide to change their business plan whenever they like.
Of course this isn't true. Once the licensing terms are set, they can't change them. That's part of the standardization process.
The fact that Apple's QuickTime 6 tools can produce MPEG-4 files doesn't mean that Apple is going to put its proprietary Sorenson codecs to bed
Right. Its hte fact that the MP4 video codec is really superior thats going to put the Sorenson codec to bed.
Remember, the Sorenson codec isn't Apples "proprietaryness"! ITs a shame that all this hatred goes Apples way for licensing someone elses codec and giving it away for free! That's silly!
Quicktime has always, from the beginning, supported multiple codecs. As a content producer, you could create content in any codec you wanted and ship it, and if Quicktime didn't come natively with that codec, you could have licensed it to Apple and they would have shipped it. IT ships with a grab bag of codecs and always has-- leaving it up to the content producer which codec they would use, and attempting to support all the codecs they could for consumers.
The reason Sorenson was so popular was that the content producers CHOSE IT, not because Apple "made" anyone use it!
MPEG4, however, has better licensing terms (its just as proprietary as Sorenson! Exactly as "proprietary to Apple").
Yet, notice that Apple has threatened to withhold its support for MPEG4 unless these licensing issues are resolved-- and as the largest supplier of consumer playback software in the world, Apple's throwing a lot of weight around (100M Quicktime shipped last year compared ot 90M for Real)
So, once again, Apple fights the good fight, and you guys bash them.
I disagree. USB is a great low-bandwidth protocol. I think they should just stop trying to compete with firewire and use firewire! Its not like its expensive or anything.
That way we'd have USB and FireWire everywhere and both would be better supported.
Instead we have USB bringing a knife to a gunfight. Its never going to beat firewire, without trying to become firewire (which its unsuited to) and the "comparison" only detracts from the standardization we need.
FireWire is ready to go at 3.2Gbps over very long runs...
Excuse me? I have a 21" monitor at work on a PC that runs at 1600x1200 at approx 150 DPI. There is no way a 15" 1024x768 can come close to that.
.38mm pixels and they'd claim that their display was super superior cause it would do 1280x960 compared to the 72dpi 800x600 Mac display I was using... course they also complained of headaches alot.
Of course not. The iMac is legible.
150 DPI is unreadable.
This reminds me of the arguments I used to have with BBS weenies back in the day every PC came with a el-cheapo 13 inch (though it claimed to be 15 inch) monitor with
Again, you're using silly specs to compare with a product you haven't seen. Running 150 dpi makes your display useless.
The fact that all applications in Mac OS share a menu bar at the top of the screen might save some real estate, but I have a hard time believing that it's such a huge difference (especially for someone like me, whose screen is mostly covered with Eterms). And the inability to set "focus follows mouse" is a crying shame.
These are usability issues. Ok, the menu-bar thing is a screen real-estate issue as well. When you have repeated menu bars, you do burn a LOT of real estate. plus, putting it on the window slows you down, as compared to putting it on the top of the screen.
Same thing with "floating" menus- they are much slower for the user to use than a top of screen menu. (Though Mac OS does have them if you use the second mouse button-- another thing that actually slows people down, which is why Apple still ships a one button mouse.)
The focuse following the mouse point is the most annoying feel that I've ever had to deal with. I'm happy with the way MacOS works and cannot imagine why you'd want it another way-- but those are just my feelings. The science behind it is, it slows you down-- you end up getting the wrong focus, often, instead of the focus you want.
These complaints are regular are repeated and all of them have been answered at least a decade ago. Scientificly, objectively, all of these issues are ones where apple chose usability. There's a reason they are that way and the alternative is to slow all your customers down and make your product harder to work with.
I won't answer further in this thread because this has been laid to rest years ago-- its a scientific fact.
Your ignorance does not mean my planning is "half baked". Apparently you have no clue about the issues around this area, other than what you've read on some website.
A PVR system pretty much requires the cable box to be on all the time. TiVo and Replay don't bother toggling the power to these.
If you'd bothered to pay you'd notice I'm talking about dealing with devices other than the cable box in the loop.
Plus it seems pretty silly to simply not record a show because someone turned the cable box off.
Supporting this issue is not being "half baked" on my part.
LIRC supports a ton of good IR hardware including many devices that send and recieve CIR signals just fine.
Maybe they do. However, I was unable to find any commercial that fit my requirements (ie: USB), weren't do it yourself projects (I can build my own if I want to) or weren't absurdly expensive. Most all of them *don't* recieve.
Its one thing to post erronously a comment to slashdot. Its completely worse to flame someone who's right, calling them half-baked when it is YOU who is ignorant of the state of things.
Why on earth would you hook up a VCR between your cable box and PVR system and then expect to be able to do anything useful with it?
Because most people in the world are hooked up this way-- they have a VCR and aren't ready to get rid of it. Support for that is a nice thing to do-- not an example of being "half baked"... unless you live in the world where everyone should do things the way you want-- otherwise they are stupid and you flame them. Well, youre reality distortion field doesn't extend very far.
You don't necessarily have to distribute the code library for every cable box on the planet.
No, but it would be a good idea to ship a decent code library that works with whatever piece of hardware you end up supporting... and hopefully that hardware works with a variety of CIR devices (again, most of the hardware is not well baked.)
I don't see how attempting to support a wide range of devices is "half baked".
Piss off, idiot.
Its unfortunate that nobody is taking you seriously.
I was interested in this kind of setup back around 1990 when I wanted to do a documentary about the drug trade...but I never did do anything with it.
Anyway, what I was planning at that time was to use one of those really thin fiber-optic lenses with an exchangeable lense video camera. The thinking is the camera goes in a pocket, and the lense goes in the cuff of your shirt or coat sleave under your wrist. You life your wrist and aim, the fiber optics conveys the image to the camera...
They didn' thave exhcangeable lense video cameras then, but they do now. While the XL1 is too bulky to conceal, there is a sony camera with an exchangeable lense-- I think its the PD100. Its pretty small, rugged and designed for documentary work.
Doctors use these things a lot so prices must have come down. You could probably get set up for around $4,000.
That's one idea. I hadn't thought about the webcam type stuff. You might go looking around on the wearhard wearables list for clues. Those guys know small computers.
I'm working on this problem. ITs a difficult one- here are some of the issues:
1) IR codes vary greatly from device to device. But more importantly, they are not explicit. In other words the "ON" code is "On" when the machines off, but if the machines on, then it will turn the machine off. so there's no way for one to say "on" and *know* that you're going to get the machine turned on, rather than off. (in many cases)
2) There seems to be no good hardware. What makes sense is to both send and recieve IR signals. so you can control your pc based PVR from a remote... but there is little hardware that will do this and what is there won't do both really elegantly. Making custom hardware is possible, but that involves a lot of issues as well.
3) The setup of the home entertainment system affects how this works. Is there a VCR between the cable box and the PVR? which output of the VCR is the PVR hooked up to? Whatever system will have to either force people to set up their system in a way the PVR IR controller can control, or have a way to teach the PVR about the setup.
But my biggest concern is finding all the codes, and translating them into a format I can use... manufacturers make variations on the even the same model of VCR...
You said:
I don't hate the iMac, I think it's just a piece of hardware. But sometimes I just cannot resist throwing baits at the mac lovers, who don't seem to think it is just that - hardware.
What you said, essentially means:
I don't hate the dark skin, I think it's just a skin color. But sometimes I just cannot resist throwing baits at the Nigger lovers, who don't seem to think it is just that - skin color.
Do you now see what people rise to that "bait"? Why people take it seriously?
It is a prejudice and it a prejudice that has real effects--- products don't get ported, you get passed over for jobs, you deal with derision and what is essentially hatred, in a variety of contexts-- airports when you pull our your power book, online when you deal with bigots like you, etc. etc.
We are no more "zeolots" than MLK was. We deserve recognition for having the content of our character to use a better
Think about it.
The only product that has been "steved" was the Newton. Its not clear why, but that was his doing.
Other than that, this idea that something will be "steved" because it was leaked is just more irrational bigotry towards all things apple.
Steve is an extrordinarily rational mane. Passionate, yes, but he is leading the market, and paying very close attention to the market. That's why apple's been so successful lately.
There were rumors abou the iMac itself for about a year before it came out, yet the product was not "steved" wit was amazing.
Apple may or may not ship larger displays soon... I expect they won't and I think its wise that they don't-- the prices of the larger displays don't yet make sense for a consumer machine.
Also, its worth noting that as a consumer product, the iMac sells millions of units a year. A larger display is going to have a much lower yeild which means that there may well not be production capacity to support the high volume, lower margin business.
And then when Apple doesn't announce them in July, you'll be back here telling us that you were right, they were "steved".
Well, if by "steved" you mean choosing to ship products for which they can fulfill the demand, then you're right. But "irrationally canned" is just bigotry on your part.
There's nothing wrong with the LCD. I can turn it so that my girlfriend sitting over on the couch can see it and I can still see it just fine as well.
I'm certain the reason it doesn't pivot has to do with getting signals in and out.
Why do people assume the LCD sucks (on a product they've never used) as a reason for it not doing some feature? Would you have really bought it if it did pivot but don't buy it because it doesn't? I really doubt that.
At any rate, the LCD would work find in a pivoted role--- I can read the text on it when its turned 80 degrees away from me.
Its amazing how the marketplace reacts to apples products- the iMac looks dorky in pictures, but when you see on in person, you see how finely crafted it is. I ordered one sight unseen (the specs fit my needs more than anything else) and was extremely surprised at how well built it is.
The other amazing thing is just how innovative putting the display on that arm really is. I know people are going "what's the big deal??": and others have commented that larger displays would tip it over.
Well, the base is really good sized and heavy- the arm, as is, could handle a display significantly larger and heavier (I've tested this by pulling on the arm to try and tip the mac- it takes al ot of weight to do so.)
But what's really amazing about this machine is that you move the display. Regularly. When its on the arm like this, you can adjust it to precisely how you're sitting at that point in time.
If you're in front of a computer a lot, you move around in your chair-- unconciously, I'm sure-- to remain comfortable, keep your legs from falling asleep, etc. With the iMAc, you can trivially move the display to fit where you're sitting at that moment in time, or move it over to show your girlfriend something going on on the screen ( find myself doing this alot)...
Just a half inch adjustment makes an improvement on the ergonomics. And people always move around.
Now, after using an iMac for a couple months, I can't stand to be in front of a display that doesn't move (like my other computers)-- and canstantly have to stop myself from adjusting them. I was at WWDC and used one of the huge HD Cinema displays there, and kept moving it! All 30 pounds of it, or whatever- it really huge and moving it was liek dragging a metal table across a linoleum floor- its not meant to be moved... but I'm spoilt.
As to larger displays- the weird thing is that this 15 inch display seems too big for me. I keep finding myself surprised at its size. I can't imagine a bigger display on this machin-- not because the arm couldn't handle it but because it would be too much display.
It wasn't this way with CRTs where I demanded employers provide me a 21 inch trinitron, as an ergonomic requirement. but this 15 inch LCD is better in terms of image quality and usability than a 21 in trinitron running Mac OS (which is equal to a 30 inch trinitron runnign Windwos or Linux-- windowing systems that waste/misuse a lot of real estate.)
Constantly slashdot articles that talk aobut Apple products, such as this one, dismiss them out of ignorance. you cannot see the utility and innovation of the iMac from looking at it in a picture. You have to use it ot realize that you really do want to move the display regularly.
People get used to using Windows / Linux (different operating systems, essentially the same look and feel) and then dismiss the MAc because they don't fit what they're used to. This is exactly like a white person being insensitive around blacks or a straight person being homophobic- its fear and hatred of whats different. Except instead of people we're talking about technology so its less dangerous, but just as illogical. But then- these prejudices do get translated, into real world effects as people are denied jobs or mistreated by the ignorant.
As a class of people who have been mistreated by Windows non-thinkers, its time to stop doing the exact same thing to Apple products-- which, are treated even worse, because they have the jealousy effect by being both not-microsoft and truely innovative.
These aren't made "EXACTLY like computer chips".
There's a massive manufacturing difference between a micro mechanical device and doping a substrate to make a semiconductor. About equal to the difference between painting a robot and building one.
I'm not saying crinkly is right, I'm just saying Moores law applying is not a foregone conclusion. (In fact, it will probably be some multiple of Moores law-- 1/2 or 2X or something.)
This is, however, the first bits of nanotech, and I'm impressed that TI has made as much process as they have. I remember reading about DLP back 5-6 years ago.
Thanks. it looks like mjpegtools provides some of what I need, but more specifically I've found a codec component to do it. Now I just need to get the code written.
USB does not do *sustained* 12Mb per second.
The reports I've seen is that USB offers, at best, 6Mb per second, sustained.
And, of course, USB is not isochronous. As I've pointed out twice now.
Furthermore, I did do the math, and provided it in my post.
I really don't think there's much point in continuing this debate. You are using marketing numbers to make a claim, rather than taking into account real world numbers and the real world experience of the companies providing USB solutions.
And, while you continue to claim that it "can" do this, nobody is able to *show* it doing it, and I've repeately pointed out reasons why it probably *can't*.
You really haven't addressed my point, actually.
Brzt. Thanks for playing! Oh, well, partial credit -- I don't know what the USB does I admit. But the PCI version recorded at full NTSC D1 (which tends to be 704x480 in actual use) in multiple bitrates.
You guys are misusing the term "D1". D1 is an uncompressed video stream in digital format. What you mean to say is "SD" and the particular form of standard definition television. SD talks about resolution. D1 means no compression.
For instance, on a hundred gigabyte drive, you can get 58 minutes of D1 signal. (At NTSC SD resolution and framerate)
Your card is encoding into MPEG2 at some resolution and framerate-- might not even be 30fps. So, what you're talking about is an MPEG2 stream, not a "D1" stream.
Not flaming- just trying to correct mischaracterizations- there's enough confusion out there already.
This solution does produce a high quality image-- "broadcast quality" in fact.
However, DV, while compressed, is a very high bandwidth signal. With DV you can get -- wait for it-- 4 minutes of video stored. A tivo gets something like 1 hour per gigabyte.
But this is really an unfair comparison- the TiVO "hours per unit" calculations are based on their lowest quality video, not highest, and that DV example is EXTREMELY high quality.
The Formac site implies slightly better-- 4 hours in 48GB or 12GB/hour.
Still, even at best quality - a fairer comparison- TiVo is a much better storage deal.
So, encoding to some compression format is a good idea-- but as far as getting the signal into your computer in digital form- the DV format is a great one. And the one you quote at $399 has a tuner built in. If you don't need a tuner, you can get them for $299. (Dazzle and one from a company I can't remember the name of. Maybe Dazzle is $399, but the other one is $299 w/o tuner.)
Is a tuner really necessary? Don't most people have composite video out, or cable systems that won't let you directly decode the signal (ie: you need a proprietary box.)???
80.4%? Really? Did you know that %100 of statistics such as this are made up on the spot?
Seriously, though. USB has trouble streaming just audio thru hubs- that's why Griffin Technology made an "audio hub" so that their USB microphones would work.
From what I know the standard doesn't even support time sychnronous communication... it was NOT designed for streaming. It was designed for keyboards and maybe modems.
Please, if you're going to disagree with me, point to some evidence. Feel free to read Griffin's description of the audio hub issues on their website.
You love USB? Great. From what I understand, USB 2.0 will fix most of the issues I have, though its bandwidth will only be 480Mbits/second. Certainly enough to run DV over it if its compressed (not D1 video).
But the point remains-- there are NO decent quality USB video solutions. The evidence points to this being because USB wasn't designed for this, and you can argue about whether it can get "DVD" quality video or not-- the simple fact is that there are no devices that do this.
Given that USB is far more prevalent on PCs than FireWire (which *does* do it, and far better than DVD quality, in fact) if USB could do this, market forces would make it a desirable thing to do.
This isn't marketing, this is technology-- the protocol wasn't designed for streaming media. The new version apparently takes it into account, and maybe that will solve the problem. But there exists no good quality USB video encoders at this point.
Which is unfortunate.
That's not an assumption. The specs for the USB video devices tell the tale. They cut the resolution in half, and then do very quick realtime encoding. This is necessary to keep the price down. TIVO does a better job because they can afford better encoders, and they don't cut the resolution down.
Most of these USB devices are for people dealing with VCR tapes or for web streaming, so 320x240 is fine for them.
Back of the envelope, USB can- just barely- fit a DVD video stream in it, but I wouldn't try to ship a product that was trying to do it for an hour without dropping frames-- highly unlikely that would work reliably. USB is only 12 megabits (not Bytes) per second. I think its also not isochronous.
Not that I'm knocking USB- its perfect for Modems, keyboards, joysticks and floppy drives-- what it was designed for.
MPEG2 does not mean "DVD quality". MPEG2 can encode to high quality (not "quite high") but you certainly can't then get that stream thru a USB buss!
At any rate, the USB video products that I've seen, including the one this thread is about, aren't even trying to do high quality video. That is my point.
The thing about these products that concern me is that they are USB based-- I suspect that the MPEG2 image quality will not be that nice.
I'm wondering if there's a market for a good quality computer based PVR. One that encodes in real time to an advanced format (say MPEG4) from a high quality image stream.
This would result in a much better recording ratio-- more hours to a gigabyte and better video quality. (And it can be done in real time in software on good hardware)
The problem with people making PVRs in the past has been lack of acces to hardware drivers for All In Wonder cards, etc. This seems to be the insurmountable problem so far. (Though I think I have a great solution.)
So, what do you think? Know of any open source projects trying to do this?
If my solution works, it will result in better video quality than you get from Tivo or the USB product in this article, both because its compressed in MPEG4 rather than MPEG2, and because the source signal is much better . (At least in the USB case, the advantages over TIVO would be codec choice and flexibility of being an open platform-- you can easily move video in and out, etc.)
Would such a product be valuable to you? Woudl you buy it? You'd probably be spending about as much as to buy a TIVO for the hardware & software solution I'm thinking of-- but your capacity, ability to move the files around, ability to share the video to other TVs, etc, would be greatly improved.
Or put another way, my hypothesis is that the TIVO solution is pretty good- decent quality, all in one box, fits like a VCR and controlled by remote. The PC solutions have not been so good- bad Windows software, or lack of access to drivers or poor shovelware to bundle with the cards. So, I think a solution that provides the advantages of using your PC to do the recording, with better format, and high quality imaging (As well as the other features of Tivo- speculative recording, IR control, etc.) is a market opportunity... Am I right?