The "holography" in this media is kind of like the focus on a dual-layer DVD, only this new media uses more than two "layers".. In fact they're not layers because you're burning into one cohesive chunk of plastic, rather than gluing two separate substrates together for DVD.
Essentially the laser is split into two weaker beams, one of them shoots down at the disc, the other strikes it at an angle. Where those two beams intersect, the combined power is enough to alter the state of the media and that's how you accomplish this special kind of depth focusing.
Holography isn't just those 3D engravings you see at the science fair. It's actually closer to Star Trek..
The beauty of linux is that you can make it into whatever you want. If the old-school Linux geeks don't want the funky OpenGL smorgasbord WM they can just stick to XFCE or BlackBox. It's all about choice.
And I choose to put funky graphics on my 2500$ space heater.
I would like to bring attention to this man. Michael Robertson was the founder of MP3.com, and consequently is the man who single-handledly drove it into the ground and sold out to Universal. This guy is a joke, plain and simple. A stubborn fool who is desperate to sell another big success like MP3.com was in its prime.
Leave him and his Linspire alone. He doesn't "get it", he's just good at telling outrageous stories in an attempt to gain mindshare.
This is just us canadians doing what we do best: hating americans.
It's likely just a political publicity stunt to snap back at all the crap the US government has been imposing on us these past few years, such at the beef embargo, canadian dollar boycotting and other asinine movements. It's like our MP's are saying "You can keep your hand up my ass, as long as you pay me!"
I don't keep up with every single distro (I just do servers), but what's the point in showing screenshots ? Every distro looks more or less the same because it's always a rehash of the same software.. different package managers, different default background images, different color schemes during INIT.. that's pretty much it.
What do screenshots mean in such a scenario ? I know I'm being overly critical but any default X configuration tends to look like 1994 nostalgia. Why can't we style KDE to look like Panther or something ? Always that "blah" blocky gray bar nagging at my subconscious. No shadows/depth, no perception of interactivity. Yes I know I'm being overly artsy but if I'm looking at a GUI that's slowing me down vs the command line, that GUI had better make up for its inefficacies by being intoxicatingly sexy and curvy.
Everywhere you look, there's a GPL violation, or it's causing someone problems. What's the basic idea we want to convey in a license ? We hear about GPL "infection" and how some projects completely avoid using GPL'ed libraries because they don't want to GPL their whole work. Can't we just say "Use it as you like, but XYZ still owns it so you can't sell it." in legalese and get rid of all these nasty side effects ? Here we have a font being the source of an IP dispute. That is akin to saying whatever you dictate to your typist becomes the typist's property, not just the printed sheet but the information itself. That is some of the most ridiculous logic I've seen in quite a while.
If Sony had released a half-decent API for PS2 back when it was launched, it would have kicked ass.
Xbox uses a DirectX-flavored API, and I can tell you from experience that it's so much easier to work on something familiar like DirectX, even though it is a mess in itself, at least it's a mess I already figured out long ago. Sure beats learning tricky bare-metal graphics programming on a one-off architecture like PS2's Emotion Engine.
If they release the PS3 with an OpenGL-style interface it would be a pleasure to code for.
Why would anyone want to buy other people's kids ? They can have all the high tech in the world, I still think it's mindless. It's so much more fun to make your own kids;)
As a happy canadian bandwidth whore, I'll give you some insight as to why we're "enjoying" high speed more than USians.
1. Bell Canada, Videotron, Rogers Telecom... just three huge service providers for cable and DSL, with a bunch of small-time resellers. Compare that with the US, where each state is like its own distinct country and you have several competing ISPs, many of them losing or selling out to the big guys. Our telcos are much stabler.
2. cheap! for 40$ canadian (roughly 30$ US) we get 5 mbit down, 900kbit up.. capped at 20gb/mo I believe. for less than double that I get 7mbit down with no caps at all. We even have "econo" DSL/Cable, which is only 256kbit or so, but frees up your phone line and costs roughly the same as dial-up. It's a no-brainer!
3. The RIAA/MPAA can't nail us here (yet). P2P heaven!:D
Trent Reznor released something to the public. Now quit looking for counter arguments and think about it for once: NiN is rather large and influential, a household name. They have the clout to make their own decisions with little regard to what the Big Five would want to shove down our throats. Just like Apple makes a fashion statement of going against the grain, so does NiN with this move. Yes it's a bit of a publicity stunt, but how many basement DJ's haven't dreamed of getting their hands on unmixed multitracks ? This enables much greater flexibility and creativity for samplers and remixers, without sucking off some nasty record exec for the "privilege".
This is a GOOD thing, so quit complaining. Think of it as open-source music!
Just rip it to whatever the format-of-the-moment is, and keep your originals somewhere safe. There is no sense in keeping terabytes of lossless-compressed music if it only serves as an intermediate format.
I rip my music to MP3, `Lame --preset extreme` and it's fantastic ~230 kbps. Sounds great on my home system, sounds great in the car, and yes I have some pretty respectable sound in both places. If we ever invent a new format that compresses even better while retaining the same/better quality, AND is playable in a car deck, then I'll reencode.. I figure it'll be 2016 before that sort of thing comes about, so until then my discs are safe in a big brown box in the closet.
Sell off that encoding cluster and go buy some more albums:)
How about don't outsource our jobs to India in the first place ? Many of us slashdotters are jobless because of this upsetting trend to turn the software industry into a Nike sweatshop. You get what you pay for! Or if they're really that good, pay them the same money you'd pay an american or european programmer and maybe they won't be tempted to steal from you anymore. Common sense!
Sure, some people will put up with it because the average moron doesn't need to reinstall every 15 days like I do. On the other hand, the average moron will be quite pleased to obtain a copy of the corporate version (sans-activation) from a "friend of a friend" to avoid the tedium should his PC ever get munged up beyond repair.
Why don't they just give us Windows and make their money off Office and Visual Studio ? That would make everyone's lives much simpler, including Microsoft's
What is the point of these annoying commentators anyway ? Do I really need someone to tell me what I'm seeing ? Do I really care that some poor russian hockey player can't drive his Ferrari because his dumb highness got arrested for DUI, but he can drive a puck like nobody's business!
Just imagine this redundancy in the gaming scene: we already have all the info we need onscreen. Do I really want some greasy kid repeating "XSlayer fragged BillcoPC, respawning in 10 seconds" over and over again ? Does he really look forward to having his face shuffled after reminding me for the 30th time how much I suck when pitted against aimbotting basement dwellers ? No thanks. Go to school. Get a job.
What I fail to understand, mind you it's very EARLY for me, is why didn't M$ just buy Google and adapt it to their tastes ? Google certainly has the hooks to control search results, as evidenced way back by the "more evil than satan" joke query. Microsoft could certainly use that kind of functionality to their advantage in subtle ways, as they've always loved doing.
11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
Bubba, if you think 500gb is easy to reach then I'd like to know what the hell you use it for. I am a LEECH, I consume everything that's anything as far as DVD, consoles or music are concerned and I would have to spend half my day queueing files in order to come anywhere close to 500gb a month.
Maybe you're one of those "special" types who download the entire newsgroup, then delete whatever you don't like. I never did fully appreciate the "Autograb" function in my newsreader.
Well, strictly speaking, accurate sound should sound good, if the recording engineer did his job well.
I have a rather nicely tuned monitoring system for my audio work, which is measurably "flat" down to +/- 1db from 18hz to 19500hz, at least while the door is shut. It is certainly enjoyable for recreational listening as well. On the other hand, my car stereo is a kilowatt of what I call "Club Sound". It *would* be near-flat if it weren't for my hyper-aggressive amplification and EQ'ing, but when I'm cruising around I want the highs to shred my ears, and the lows to tickle my nether region. Ohh it sounds very vewy good yes, few people leave my car without a green tint in their eyes, but I could never use that kind of soundstage for mastering.
Tubes vs trannies. Some people blow fortunes on exotic tubes for their "audiophile" sound system. There is a difference between proper sound reproduction and "good sound". Tubes introduce even-order harmonic distortion. That means the sound that comes out, is quite different from the sound that went in. This type of distortion is kind of hypnotic to the brain in the way it interacts with the original tone. This is what I would call "good sound", because it feels good for some psychoacoustic reason.
I don't have a tube amp, nor would I ever want one in a listening system. I like tight, precise, intact sound amplification. The drier it sounds, the better it is, and if I want "good sound" I can use a dedicated sound processor to make it happen. I must admit I do swear by a certain audio plugin that simulates various forms of tube distortion, but I use it for mastering purposes... running guitar, vocals and beats through the plugin to make them sound big and "crunchy". To me it is a mastering effect, much like one would use reverb on a vocal to give it more depth, I use tube to give tracks a subtle extra "oomph", WHEN it is called for.
This is the essence of what every audio app has done in its own way. A sound processor is like a black box: you put sound in, and pull it back out the other end. Then perhaps you can add automation in/outs for the tweaks and knobs, but really that's all there is. All the plugin "API" has to do is describe how many channels there are, and what they do; let the host app put it all together. All this involves is a simple init function in each plugin to tell the host what it wants. If you really want to call it an API then throw in some common audio-related functions, perhaps a nice I/O abstraction layer with elaborate buffering schemes for low latency, perhaps a simplified GUI toolkit, and in the end you'll have build a C++ based clone of Native-Instruments' Reaktor.
This is so ridiculously simple it should be a non-issue. People just need to agree on one standard that works for everyone, and stick to it.
I hate to rain on everyone's parade here, but every time a "great" linux app comes out, it turns out to be a pale mockery of some "great" Windows app. Here's my opinion on this project:
It is (at least to me) obviously mimicking Cubase. Cubase is a serious application, used by serious musicians and audio engineers. I use Cubase, almost daily, and I find it kind of backwards sometimes because it is designed from a musician's point of view, making it look like conventional rack equipment, while I am a code guru and I'd rather have extreme control over everything.
Now we have Wired, which is a virtual studio app built for a coder/hacker's operating system; why are we imitating the rich fool's interface when we could instead be designing one that is better suited to the target demographic ? I'm not saying this app does not belong on Linux, but instead of blindly copying an existing app's look and feel, why not start with a clean slate and build it RIGHT ?
And VST support ? that's a pipe dream if you ask me. Running Win32 video codecs in MPlayer is one thing, running Win32 VST plugs is a whole different ball game. One thing I learned over the years is that most people who are good at music, suck at code, and vice-versa. I am one sexy exception =) What I mean is that the typical VST plugin is kind of rough around the edges.. they look pretty and sound kinky, but under the hood it's grossly inefficient and poorly debugged code. VST plugs tend to crash often, and most likely depend on a few Win32 support DLL's for a handful of stupid non-audio tasks. Lots of nasty stuff to "emulate" if you want it to work good (and fast).
What I think Linux needs is for people to accept a common audio interchange format and protocol. VST is just a standard for software plugins, but it is Steinberg's intellectual property. What if Linux had a license-free standard for audio chains, let's call it LinVST for fun. Write one linux app that takes LinVST Input, does a few nasties then spits out LinVST Output. Then that conformant app can be plugged into any LinVST-aware host.
Maybe I'm just naive, but who the hell goes around viewing every single binary file to find warez breadcrumbs ? What I find somewhat stupid is that this "professional" application goes and stamps its ugly signature in every wave file, even though that information CHUNK has nothing to do with the sound itself and only adds pointless clutter to an already bastardized file format. Perhaps I'd rather know who made the file, when, where, and who I should contact for licensing. That's USEFUL information.. I don't care whether the creator used Forge, Wavelab, Cooledit or "dd if=/dev/sound", as long as the thing sounds pretty on my 20/20's I don't care about the rest.
We've had Sony Stores in Canada for a long time. I remember purchasing my first good discman there over 7 years ago as a teenager. They tend to be pricier than Walmart/FutureShop/BestBuy because Sony charges the strict MSRP so as to not compete with their web store. They also sell extended warranties but I have had a very good experience with them. They farm out the repair jobs to a local shop but they don't give you a hard time at all.
The one thing that sucks just like every other store, is that the clerks tend to not know what they're doing. You'd think in a Sony store the guy would know everything about Sony's products but really he's no better than the kid working at BestBuy for 7.50/hr. Last time I went there, the guy couldn't tell me the difference between the 100$ cd player and the 500$ cd player. Sorry fella, but I want to know about read errors, skew/jitter, seek time, digital outputs.. I mean the guy does nothing else all day might as well learn about the stuff he sells. But it's no worse than what you'll see in any megastore or even radio shack.
Slashdot Mirror
The "holography" in this media is kind of like the focus on a dual-layer DVD, only this new media uses more than two "layers".. In fact they're not layers because you're burning into one cohesive chunk of plastic, rather than gluing two separate substrates together for DVD.
Essentially the laser is split into two weaker beams, one of them shoots down at the disc, the other strikes it at an angle. Where those two beams intersect, the combined power is enough to alter the state of the media and that's how you accomplish this special kind of depth focusing.
Holography isn't just those 3D engravings you see at the science fair. It's actually closer to Star Trek..
The beauty of linux is that you can make it into whatever you want. If the old-school Linux geeks don't want the funky OpenGL smorgasbord WM they can just stick to XFCE or BlackBox. It's all about choice.
And I choose to put funky graphics on my 2500$ space heater.
I would like to bring attention to this man. Michael Robertson was the founder of MP3.com, and consequently is the man who single-handledly drove it into the ground and sold out to Universal. This guy is a joke, plain and simple. A stubborn fool who is desperate to sell another big success like MP3.com was in its prime.
Leave him and his Linspire alone. He doesn't "get it", he's just good at telling outrageous stories in an attempt to gain mindshare.
This is just us canadians doing what we do best: hating americans.
It's likely just a political publicity stunt to snap back at all the crap the US government has been imposing on us these past few years, such at the beef embargo, canadian dollar boycotting and other asinine movements. It's like our MP's are saying "You can keep your hand up my ass, as long as you pay me!"
I don't keep up with every single distro (I just do servers), but what's the point in showing screenshots ? Every distro looks more or less the same because it's always a rehash of the same software.. different package managers, different default background images, different color schemes during INIT.. that's pretty much it.
What do screenshots mean in such a scenario ? I know I'm being overly critical but any default X configuration tends to look like 1994 nostalgia. Why can't we style KDE to look like Panther or something ? Always that "blah" blocky gray bar nagging at my subconscious. No shadows/depth, no perception of interactivity. Yes I know I'm being overly artsy but if I'm looking at a GUI that's slowing me down vs the command line, that GUI had better make up for its inefficacies by being intoxicatingly sexy and curvy.
Everywhere you look, there's a GPL violation, or it's causing someone problems. What's the basic idea we want to convey in a license ? We hear about GPL "infection" and how some projects completely avoid using GPL'ed libraries because they don't want to GPL their whole work. Can't we just say "Use it as you like, but XYZ still owns it so you can't sell it." in legalese and get rid of all these nasty side effects ? Here we have a font being the source of an IP dispute. That is akin to saying whatever you dictate to your typist becomes the typist's property, not just the printed sheet but the information itself. That is some of the most ridiculous logic I've seen in quite a while.
If Sony had released a half-decent API for PS2 back when it was launched, it would have kicked ass.
Xbox uses a DirectX-flavored API, and I can tell you from experience that it's so much easier to work on something familiar like DirectX, even though it is a mess in itself, at least it's a mess I already figured out long ago. Sure beats learning tricky bare-metal graphics programming on a one-off architecture like PS2's Emotion Engine.
If they release the PS3 with an OpenGL-style interface it would be a pleasure to code for.
Why would anyone want to buy other people's kids ? They can have all the high tech in the world, I still think it's mindless. It's so much more fun to make your own kids ;)
As a happy canadian bandwidth whore, I'll give you some insight as to why we're "enjoying" high speed more than USians.
:D
1. Bell Canada, Videotron, Rogers Telecom... just three huge service providers for cable and DSL, with a bunch of small-time resellers. Compare that with the US, where each state is like its own distinct country and you have several competing ISPs, many of them losing or selling out to the big guys. Our telcos are much stabler.
2. cheap! for 40$ canadian (roughly 30$ US) we get 5 mbit down, 900kbit up.. capped at 20gb/mo I believe. for less than double that I get 7mbit down with no caps at all. We even have "econo" DSL/Cable, which is only 256kbit or so, but frees up your phone line and costs roughly the same as dial-up. It's a no-brainer!
3. The RIAA/MPAA can't nail us here (yet). P2P heaven!
If you want your webcomic to gain popularity, try to make it suck less.
I'm sorry but that's about as funny as Jimmy Swaggart on methadone.
Translatatron 5000 ?!?! How old are you again ?
Trent Reznor released something to the public. Now quit looking for counter arguments and think about it for once: NiN is rather large and influential, a household name. They have the clout to make their own decisions with little regard to what the Big Five would want to shove down our throats. Just like Apple makes a fashion statement of going against the grain, so does NiN with this move. Yes it's a bit of a publicity stunt, but how many basement DJ's haven't dreamed of getting their hands on unmixed multitracks ? This enables much greater flexibility and creativity for samplers and remixers, without sucking off some nasty record exec for the "privilege".
This is a GOOD thing, so quit complaining. Think of it as open-source music!
Just rip it to whatever the format-of-the-moment is, and keep your originals somewhere safe. There is no sense in keeping terabytes of lossless-compressed music if it only serves as an intermediate format.
:)
I rip my music to MP3, `Lame --preset extreme` and it's fantastic ~230 kbps. Sounds great on my home system, sounds great in the car, and yes I have some pretty respectable sound in both places. If we ever invent a new format that compresses even better while retaining the same/better quality, AND is playable in a car deck, then I'll reencode.. I figure it'll be 2016 before that sort of thing comes about, so until then my discs are safe in a big brown box in the closet.
Sell off that encoding cluster and go buy some more albums
How about don't outsource our jobs to India in the first place ? Many of us slashdotters are jobless because of this upsetting trend to turn the software industry into a Nike sweatshop. You get what you pay for! Or if they're really that good, pay them the same money you'd pay an american or european programmer and maybe they won't be tempted to steal from you anymore. Common sense!
Sure, some people will put up with it because the average moron doesn't need to reinstall every 15 days like I do. On the other hand, the average moron will be quite pleased to obtain a copy of the corporate version (sans-activation) from a "friend of a friend" to avoid the tedium should his PC ever get munged up beyond repair.
Why don't they just give us Windows and make their money off Office and Visual Studio ? That would make everyone's lives much simpler, including Microsoft's
Warning: I am not a sports freak.
What is the point of these annoying commentators anyway ? Do I really need someone to tell me what I'm seeing ? Do I really care that some poor russian hockey player can't drive his Ferrari because his dumb highness got arrested for DUI, but he can drive a puck like nobody's business!
Just imagine this redundancy in the gaming scene: we already have all the info we need onscreen. Do I really want some greasy kid repeating "XSlayer fragged BillcoPC, respawning in 10 seconds" over and over again ? Does he really look forward to having his face shuffled after reminding me for the 30th time how much I suck when pitted against aimbotting basement dwellers ? No thanks. Go to school. Get a job.
What I fail to understand, mind you it's very EARLY for me, is why didn't M$ just buy Google and adapt it to their tastes ? Google certainly has the hooks to control search results, as evidenced way back by the "more evil than satan" joke query. Microsoft could certainly use that kind of functionality to their advantage in subtle ways, as they've always loved doing.
I could see (ugly) people running around naked wearing these around their neck. Anonymous exhibitionism....
yyyyyyuck!
11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
Now where's my Ming Mecca chip goddamnit ?
Bubba, if you think 500gb is easy to reach then I'd like to know what the hell you use it for. I am a LEECH, I consume everything that's anything as far as DVD, consoles or music are concerned and I would have to spend half my day queueing files in order to come anywhere close to 500gb a month.
Maybe you're one of those "special" types who download the entire newsgroup, then delete whatever you don't like. I never did fully appreciate the "Autograb" function in my newsreader.
Well, strictly speaking, accurate sound should sound good, if the recording engineer did his job well.
I have a rather nicely tuned monitoring system for my audio work, which is measurably "flat" down to +/- 1db from 18hz to 19500hz, at least while the door is shut. It is certainly enjoyable for recreational listening as well. On the other hand, my car stereo is a kilowatt of what I call "Club Sound". It *would* be near-flat if it weren't for my hyper-aggressive amplification and EQ'ing, but when I'm cruising around I want the highs to shred my ears, and the lows to tickle my nether region. Ohh it sounds very vewy good yes, few people leave my car without a green tint in their eyes, but I could never use that kind of soundstage for mastering.
Here comes the holy war, again!
Tubes vs trannies. Some people blow fortunes on exotic tubes for their "audiophile" sound system. There is a difference between proper sound reproduction and "good sound". Tubes introduce even-order harmonic distortion. That means the sound that comes out, is quite different from the sound that went in. This type of distortion is kind of hypnotic to the brain in the way it interacts with the original tone. This is what I would call "good sound", because it feels good for some psychoacoustic reason.
I don't have a tube amp, nor would I ever want one in a listening system. I like tight, precise, intact sound amplification. The drier it sounds, the better it is, and if I want "good sound" I can use a dedicated sound processor to make it happen. I must admit I do swear by a certain audio plugin that simulates various forms of tube distortion, but I use it for mastering purposes... running guitar, vocals and beats through the plugin to make them sound big and "crunchy". To me it is a mastering effect, much like one would use reverb on a vocal to give it more depth, I use tube to give tracks a subtle extra "oomph", WHEN it is called for.
This is the essence of what every audio app has done in its own way. A sound processor is like a black box: you put sound in, and pull it back out the other end. Then perhaps you can add automation in/outs for the tweaks and knobs, but really that's all there is. All the plugin "API" has to do is describe how many channels there are, and what they do; let the host app put it all together. All this involves is a simple init function in each plugin to tell the host what it wants. If you really want to call it an API then throw in some common audio-related functions, perhaps a nice I/O abstraction layer with elaborate buffering schemes for low latency, perhaps a simplified GUI toolkit, and in the end you'll have build a C++ based clone of Native-Instruments' Reaktor.
This is so ridiculously simple it should be a non-issue. People just need to agree on one standard that works for everyone, and stick to it.
I hate to rain on everyone's parade here, but every time a "great" linux app comes out, it turns out to be a pale mockery of some "great" Windows app. Here's my opinion on this project:
It is (at least to me) obviously mimicking Cubase. Cubase is a serious application, used by serious musicians and audio engineers. I use Cubase, almost daily, and I find it kind of backwards sometimes because it is designed from a musician's point of view, making it look like conventional rack equipment, while I am a code guru and I'd rather have extreme control over everything.
Now we have Wired, which is a virtual studio app built for a coder/hacker's operating system; why are we imitating the rich fool's interface when we could instead be designing one that is better suited to the target demographic ? I'm not saying this app does not belong on Linux, but instead of blindly copying an existing app's look and feel, why not start with a clean slate and build it RIGHT ?
And VST support ? that's a pipe dream if you ask me. Running Win32 video codecs in MPlayer is one thing, running Win32 VST plugs is a whole different ball game. One thing I learned over the years is that most people who are good at music, suck at code, and vice-versa. I am one sexy exception =) What I mean is that the typical VST plugin is kind of rough around the edges.. they look pretty and sound kinky, but under the hood it's grossly inefficient and poorly debugged code. VST plugs tend to crash often, and most likely depend on a few Win32 support DLL's for a handful of stupid non-audio tasks. Lots of nasty stuff to "emulate" if you want it to work good (and fast).
What I think Linux needs is for people to accept a common audio interchange format and protocol. VST is just a standard for software plugins, but it is Steinberg's intellectual property. What if Linux had a license-free standard for audio chains, let's call it LinVST for fun. Write one linux app that takes LinVST Input, does a few nasties then spits out LinVST Output. Then that conformant app can be plugged into any LinVST-aware host.
Maybe I'm just naive, but who the hell goes around viewing every single binary file to find warez breadcrumbs ? What I find somewhat stupid is that this "professional" application goes and stamps its ugly signature in every wave file, even though that information CHUNK has nothing to do with the sound itself and only adds pointless clutter to an already bastardized file format. Perhaps I'd rather know who made the file, when, where, and who I should contact for licensing. That's USEFUL information.. I don't care whether the creator used Forge, Wavelab, Cooledit or "dd if=/dev/sound", as long as the thing sounds pretty on my 20/20's I don't care about the rest.
We've had Sony Stores in Canada for a long time. I remember purchasing my first good discman there over 7 years ago as a teenager. They tend to be pricier than Walmart/FutureShop/BestBuy because Sony charges the strict MSRP so as to not compete with their web store. They also sell extended warranties but I have had a very good experience with them. They farm out the repair jobs to a local shop but they don't give you a hard time at all.
The one thing that sucks just like every other store, is that the clerks tend to not know what they're doing. You'd think in a Sony store the guy would know everything about Sony's products but really he's no better than the kid working at BestBuy for 7.50/hr. Last time I went there, the guy couldn't tell me the difference between the 100$ cd player and the 500$ cd player. Sorry fella, but I want to know about read errors, skew/jitter, seek time, digital outputs.. I mean the guy does nothing else all day might as well learn about the stuff he sells. But it's no worse than what you'll see in any megastore or even radio shack.