However, the so-called Bermuda Triangle is an area of very strong sea currents (we are talking the southwest end of the Gulf Stream here), very changeable weather with a lot of squall-line storms, and during the summer often in the path of hurricanes and lower-strength tropical storms.
It's small wonder why wreckage has not been found in many cases--just the strong currents alone would have dispersed most of them.
While Baird may have demonstrated the first practical TV system, his ideas sadly were a technological dead end because it required mechanical spinning discs.
The Farnsworth system was all electronic, which meant no moving parts and much more easily adapted to mass production. Farnsworth is truly the father of TV as we know it today.
In fact, the biggest growth area for Linux is NOT on desktop installations, but workgroups and departmental server installations. This is because servers are usually configured very few times, not multiple times like you have with desktop machines.
People forget that Linux is not yet a true auto-configuring desktop operating system like Windows is now. That could result in a pretty frustrating experiences, especially when the desktop user starts updating hardware and adds hot-docked external devices.
Is it small wonder why the Linux 2.6.x kernel will include Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support? With ACPI support in Linux, that makes it vastly easier for end users to upgrade hardware and setup hot-docked external devices that use IEEE-1394 and USB connections.
Given the fact that the Hugos honor both science fiction AND fantasy novels, let's consider this interesting what if: J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was published in 2001 instead of 1953-1955.
Given how amazingly well put together LoTR is, I'm sure LoTR (had it been published in 2001) would likely have garnered both Hugo and Nebula nominations--and probably would have won both awards for Best Novel this year.
However, for the more general bookreading audience, the success of American Gods has proven that Gaiman can be far more than a great comic book writer (after all, Gaiman first made a name for himself as the writer for the DC comic book series Sandman ).
I wonder is American Gods out in paperback yet.:-)
What worries me is that when a jet airliner is at altitude the inside of the passenger cabin is pressurized. The problem is that if there is a fuel cell explosion from a laptop--especially if the laptop is on a seat tray next to the windows--it could blow a hole through the windows, and the resulting explosive decompression can cause serious injury and damage to the plane. No thanks.
American's aren't interested in diesel engines. America's perception of diesel engines is that they are loud and noisy.
That may be true in the past, but technological improvements in the last ten years has pretty much eliminated the smoke and the clattering sound from diesel engines. The only reason why we don't see more diesel cars in the USA is that the current Diesel #2 fuel has too much sulfur compounds per million, which can turn into something akin to sulfuric acid and seriously damage the modern fuel delivery/exhaust emission control systems found on European-market diesel vehicles. However, with the EPA soon mandating that diesel fuel must elminate most of the sulfur compounds in the fuel, that will make it possible to have a diesel car meet even the strict ULEV standards for exhaust emissions.
Volkswagen has started sellling the Europe the amazing PD130 and PD150 diesel engines for their VW Golf and Bora (neé Jetta) models; these new engines offer superb fuel mileage and impressive acceleration. Once the US switches to cleaner diesel fuel we'll likely see the PD130 and PD150 engines on future variants of the Golf in the US market.
Yes, I do agree that the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius definitely steps in the right direction when it comes to improving fuel mileage and lowering emissions.
The next step before we go to hydrogen-powered fuel cells is the diesel/electric hybrid car. This is not as ridiculous as it sounds; with the EPA soon mandating strict controls on sulfur compounds in diesel fuel, we can easily apply modern fuel delivery and emission controls on diesel engines without worries about the sulfur compounds in diesel fuel turning into something akin to sulfuric acid and ruining emission control/fuel delivery systems. This means a diesel engine could finally meet the strict ULEV standard for exhaust emissions.
When you combine diesel's 35-40% better fuel mileage with an electric motor like what Toyota and Honda has done, the result could be quite spectacular. Imagine a Toyota Prius getting 60+ miles per US gallon fuel efficiency instead of 44-48 miles per US gallon fuel efficiency--that's how much better a diesel engine could improve the Prius' fuel mileage.
Actually, once the EPA mandates strict controls on sulfur compounds in diesel fuel, this will mean diesel vehicles stand a good chance to meet the strict Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) criteria. This is because with cleaner diesel fuels we can apply common-rail fuel-delivery and direct fuel injection on the intake side and modern particulate traps and catalytic converters on the exhaust side. Because diesel engines uses 35-40% less fuel than their gasoline counterparts, that means also lower CO2 output, too.
Now, combine a modern diesel engine in an electrical hybrid system like what Toyota and Honda achieved and we maybe talking a Toyota Prius getting fuel mileage over 60 miles per US gallon! I would not be surprised that companies like Ford are seriously looking at hybrid automobiles and trucks/SUV's using half-electric/half-diesel power; imagine a Ford Escape SUV with a diesel/electric hybrid powerplant getting fuel mileage around 40 miles per US gallon.
EarthLink just released an excellent blocker
on
Netscape 7.0 is Out
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
EarthLink just released a new pop-up blocker that works with Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 2 to 6.0 for EarthLink and Mindspring users.
I'm using it right now and it's an excellent program. The best part about EarthLink's blocker is that you can set it to preview the blocked pop-up, open the pop-up on the second click (which is useful for pop-ups that are necessary like forms that need to be filled out), and even select certain web pages where pop-ups are needed. Best part of this pop-up: it's free.:-)
Or in short, we may be seeing one terabyte Serial ATA or UltraSCSI 320 hard drives in the 3.5" 1/3 height form factor within two years from Seagate. (eek!)
Good thing cluster slack is a minimal problem with Linux and with Windows 2000/XP formatted in NTFS5 mode.
I believe that NTFS5 uses 4096 byte clusters even if the hard drive vastly larger than the current 137 GB limit for ATA-133 IDE drives from the BIOS.
In short, if you have Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you definitely want the drive formatted in NTFS5 if you want efficient use of space on the drive with minimal slack space, especially with upcoming motherboards that support Serial ATA and Serial ATA hard drives that will soon zoom well past 200 GB in storage capacity.
Must have seen the Automat restaurant
on
Shop Till It Drops
·
· Score: 2
When you mentioned the MAD magazine article, the writer and artist of that article most likely remembered the Automat restaurant near Times Square that served food dispensed from vending machines. Little did they know that modern technology has taken what that article mentioned into near-reality.
Vending machines are extremely common in Japan due to their low crime rates, which allow for such machines to be operated with minimal concerns about theft.
There are very few things you can't get from a vending machine in Japan nowadays.:-)
The Urban Legends page mentioned by other/. posters has a good overview on why VHS prevailed.
One thing the Urban Legends page forgot to mention was the fact that it was the VHS camp that produced the first major improvement in picture quality for home VCR's with the Super VHS format in 1987; in SP mode it had a resolution of over 400 lines, far better than broadcast quality and almost as good as Laserdiscs. Sony's attempt to fight back with the Beta ED format flopped because no one outside Sony produced Beta ED machines and Beta ED tapes were quite expensive--far more so than Super VHS tapes.
Today, new Super VHS machines are still being produced, and you can easily buy S-VHS tapes.
I think another thing that killed the Beta format was the fact that the originator of the VHS format (JVC) is a subsidiary of the giant Matsushita Electric electrical-goods conglomerate, and that meant Matsushita's powerful marketing muscle was able to convince the majority of Japanese electronics manufacturers to support VHS and to get licenses for the format; this is a huge reason why VHS prevailed.
Small wonder why Sony decided to de-emphasize the fight with JVC/Matsushita over home VCR formats and concentrate on the 8 mm and MiniDV videocassette formats for camcorders, where Sony had much more marketing success.
I do agree that VHS' longer recording times was a big factor in VHS' favor; remember on a T-120 tape VHS got there first with four-hour (LP mode) and six-hour (SLP or EP mode) recording. That proved to be a huge boon for folks who wanted to record an entire sporting event (baseball or American football) on one tape or record a whole week of shows on one tape (just in time for the rapid rise of David Letterman; NBC's Late Night with David Letterman was one of the most recorded-shows according to the Nielsen ratings during the 1980's).
I think the folks at Alpina, AMG, Brabus and Lorinser will loudly disagree with your assessments.
The companies I mentioned do more sporting modifications to BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes. They very well know that many drivers will NOT accept a vehicle with a rock-like ride and race-car fast steering; that's why the suspension designers at these companies know such design as much as the engineers at the BMW or Mercedes-Benz--sometimes more so. For example, a Brabus-modified Mercedes-Benz E-series car may have a slightly firmer ride, but the ride does not make you feel every bump on the road and handling is VASTLY improved.
Let's first consider what is being released on DVD's nowadays.
Primarily, the most prominent releases are those of recent theatrical releases. This is being done primarily to not only ensure that moviegoers who liked the movie in the theaters will see it again at home, but also ensure that movies that didn't do so well in theatrical release make their money back in video release. For example, Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire was considered a failure in theatrical release, yet it did make a profit for Disney due to the well-received DVD release.
The second most prominent releases are from the movie back catalogs. A lot of old movies that people loved are now coming out on DVD, which will provide an often substantial surge in revenue to the movie company. Who wouldn't mind two-disc DVD sets of movies like Citizen Kane and The Third Man with high quality video, clear sound, and lots of movie production information out of the wazoo?
A new category that is becoming popular are complete TV seasons on DVD. It's hard to argue with the success of The Sopranos and Star Trek: The Next Generation on full-season DVD sets.
By keeping DVD's reasonably priced (looks like the MPAA learned from the success of Disney's low cost to consumer sell-through model), the movie companies are making a lot of money and keeping piracy to relatively low levels.
The high-quality sound and picture, plus the longivety, of DVD's is the reason why everyone is buying them big time, along with the reasons I cited above.
I can cite the following reasons why DVD sales have really taken off in the last 24 months:
1. The price of players have dropped in price dramatically. You can get quite good players for under US$100 nowadays quite easily.
2. The price of DVD discs are actually very reasonable considering the content on the discs. Many DVD movies that come on two-disc sets in the US$25-US$30 range contain audio commentaries, foreign language sound tracks and/or subtitles, and supplementary material out of the wazoo.
3. DVD picture quality is excellent nowadays, especially if you can get a 480-line progressive-scan connection between the player and the TV set. Of course, DVD's have Dolby Digital and/or DTS surround sound tracks, which tremendously increases the enjoyment on appropriate home theater systems.
4. DVD's have become a huge boon for foreign-language programs. The distribution of officially-licensed Japanese anime programs have moved to DVD very quickly, especially with the fact the DVD pretty much settles the entire sub versus dub arguement since you can have both on the same disc! =)
I believe that despite what many people here on/. think about MPAA's anti-piracy policies, their decision to adopt the low-cost sell-through model of video sales pioneered by the Walt Disney Company has ensured high level of sales and low levels of movie piracy of DVD discs. I mean, why bother with a pirate copy of a movie when in 6-8 months after theatrical release you can see it at home on a high-quality DVD release?
One place where digital storage in such large capacities per disc becomes useful is in the storage format for movies shown in theaters with digital projection systems.
Imagine instead of having to lug around six 35-pound spools of 35 mm film for a two-hour movie, the entire movie is distributed on 2-3 Blu-Ray DVD's. The packaging to hold 2-3 Blu-Ray discs will probably weigh in at most 2-3 pounds, compared to the 210 pounds for a single movie print; the shipping costs for distribution alone would save a huge amount of money.
As the cost of digital projectors come down (as I expect will happen by 2010), you'll see more and more movies shipped to theaters on blue-spectrum laser optical discs as the primary distribution format.
Then, of course, the teams have logos on their jerseys, something which I am amazed American companies/sports teams haven't jumped on.
Perhaps one of the best examples in the world of very effective advertising is the way racing cars are painted. If you're seen a NASCAR race, each race car is painted in a different color livery, a color livery designed on behest of the primary sponsor of the car. I mean, who can forget the black-colored GM Goodwrench #3 Chevy race car of the late Dale Earnhardt? Or the rainbow-colored DuPont #24 Chevy of Jeff Gordon? Or the brown and white colored #88 Ford of Dale Jarrett? The color liveries of each race team not only serves to publicize the sponsor's name, but also provides a distinct identity to the team.
This is why I think by 2010 every professional sport in the USA will have team uniforms that will include a visible display of the team's primary commercial sponsor, just like what has been done on the top-tier European soccer teams. Anyway, here in the USA is already happening to sporting goods manufacturers; in the case of the American football the logo of Riddell, Nike, Reebok, etc. are seen on the complete football uniform of each player.
Actually, both Tom's Hardware and Anandtech sites clearly mention during their testing that certain benchmarks favor the Pentium 4 due to things like SSE2 multimedia extensions support and better support in the test program for the way the Pentium 4 processes CPU instructions.
Hopefully, this will force BAPCo to do a benchmark from the ground up that will test functionality common on both the Pentium 4 and Athlon CPU's (like just MMX and SSE support only for now until the new Barton and Hammer core CPU's from AMD get full SSE2 support).
I think the biggest problem is the fact in terms of bang for the buck, the audio CD is losing big time.
Think about it for these reasons:
1) Today's videogame consoles cost between US$150 and US$200, but many games give you 30 to 60 hours of fun to play all the way through; in the case of sports games (like the excellent Madden NFL 2003), it's even longer than that. It's that time you spend on the game that makes the relative high cost of a game (around US$40 to US$50) still a pretty good bargain.
2) The DVD has also become a major bargain; you can get pretty good console players for under US$100, and the price of DVD discs (US$20 to US$30 for the latest releases, frequently under US$15 for the older releases) are a bargain considering the content of what you get. The MPAA (despite what people here on/. think about their anti-piracy policies) realized that the sell-through model for video distribution pioneered by Disney works extremely well, hence the reason why DVD's are still reasonably priced for what you get. Small wonder why many movies that didn't quite make their money back in theatrical release are making it back in video release.
(12) Federal Trade Commission finding the Recording industry cartel anti-competitve and engaged in illegal price-fixing.
That is EXACTLY the problem we're still facing in the record industry. I believe it's high time the Antitrust Division of the DoJ go after the RIAA and force them to lower album-length audio CD prices to around US$11 per disc; the current US$18 per disc price is at a point where there is just too much economic incentive to pirate music. A good comparison is OPEC; in the late 1970's they raised prices so high that people were either reducing oil consumption and/or looking for alternate sources of oil. By 1986, OPEC was in dire straits due to economic realities catching up with them.
Compare this against the movie industry. The fact that new-release DVD movies are between US$20 to US$30 per release set is extremely reasonable, especially when you consider new releases often contain a plethora of extra features in regards to the movie. And you can often get older movie releases for under US$15. At these prices, there is no real incentive in making a pirate copy DVD, to say the least.
Slashdot Mirror
However, the so-called Bermuda Triangle is an area of very strong sea currents (we are talking the southwest end of the Gulf Stream here), very changeable weather with a lot of squall-line storms, and during the summer often in the path of hurricanes and lower-strength tropical storms.
It's small wonder why wreckage has not been found in many cases--just the strong currents alone would have dispersed most of them.
While Baird may have demonstrated the first practical TV system, his ideas sadly were a technological dead end because it required mechanical spinning discs.
The Farnsworth system was all electronic, which meant no moving parts and much more easily adapted to mass production. Farnsworth is truly the father of TV as we know it today.
In fact, the biggest growth area for Linux is NOT on desktop installations, but workgroups and departmental server installations. This is because servers are usually configured very few times, not multiple times like you have with desktop machines.
People forget that Linux is not yet a true auto-configuring desktop operating system like Windows is now. That could result in a pretty frustrating experiences, especially when the desktop user starts updating hardware and adds hot-docked external devices.
Is it small wonder why the Linux 2.6.x kernel will include Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support? With ACPI support in Linux, that makes it vastly easier for end users to upgrade hardware and setup hot-docked external devices that use IEEE-1394 and USB connections.
Given the fact that the Hugos honor both science fiction AND fantasy novels, let's consider this interesting what if: J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was published in 2001 instead of 1953-1955.
Given how amazingly well put together LoTR is, I'm sure LoTR (had it been published in 2001) would likely have garnered both Hugo and Nebula nominations--and probably would have won both awards for Best Novel this year.
However, for the more general bookreading audience, the success of American Gods has proven that Gaiman can be far more than a great comic book writer (after all, Gaiman first made a name for himself as the writer for the DC comic book series Sandman ).
:-)
I wonder is American Gods out in paperback yet.
What worries me is that when a jet airliner is at altitude the inside of the passenger cabin is pressurized. The problem is that if there is a fuel cell explosion from a laptop--especially if the laptop is on a seat tray next to the windows--it could blow a hole through the windows, and the resulting explosive decompression can cause serious injury and damage to the plane. No thanks.
American's aren't interested in diesel engines. America's perception of diesel engines is that they are loud and noisy.
That may be true in the past, but technological improvements in the last ten years has pretty much eliminated the smoke and the clattering sound from diesel engines. The only reason why we don't see more diesel cars in the USA is that the current Diesel #2 fuel has too much sulfur compounds per million, which can turn into something akin to sulfuric acid and seriously damage the modern fuel delivery/exhaust emission control systems found on European-market diesel vehicles. However, with the EPA soon mandating that diesel fuel must elminate most of the sulfur compounds in the fuel, that will make it possible to have a diesel car meet even the strict ULEV standards for exhaust emissions.
Volkswagen has started sellling the Europe the amazing PD130 and PD150 diesel engines for their VW Golf and Bora (neé Jetta) models; these new engines offer superb fuel mileage and impressive acceleration. Once the US switches to cleaner diesel fuel we'll likely see the PD130 and PD150 engines on future variants of the Golf in the US market.
Yes, I do agree that the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius definitely steps in the right direction when it comes to improving fuel mileage and lowering emissions.
The next step before we go to hydrogen-powered fuel cells is the diesel/electric hybrid car. This is not as ridiculous as it sounds; with the EPA soon mandating strict controls on sulfur compounds in diesel fuel, we can easily apply modern fuel delivery and emission controls on diesel engines without worries about the sulfur compounds in diesel fuel turning into something akin to sulfuric acid and ruining emission control/fuel delivery systems. This means a diesel engine could finally meet the strict ULEV standard for exhaust emissions.
When you combine diesel's 35-40% better fuel mileage with an electric motor like what Toyota and Honda has done, the result could be quite spectacular. Imagine a Toyota Prius getting 60+ miles per US gallon fuel efficiency instead of 44-48 miles per US gallon fuel efficiency--that's how much better a diesel engine could improve the Prius' fuel mileage.
Actually, once the EPA mandates strict controls on sulfur compounds in diesel fuel, this will mean diesel vehicles stand a good chance to meet the strict Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) criteria. This is because with cleaner diesel fuels we can apply common-rail fuel-delivery and direct fuel injection on the intake side and modern particulate traps and catalytic converters on the exhaust side. Because diesel engines uses 35-40% less fuel than their gasoline counterparts, that means also lower CO2 output, too.
Now, combine a modern diesel engine in an electrical hybrid system like what Toyota and Honda achieved and we maybe talking a Toyota Prius getting fuel mileage over 60 miles per US gallon! I would not be surprised that companies like Ford are seriously looking at hybrid automobiles and trucks/SUV's using half-electric/half-diesel power; imagine a Ford Escape SUV with a diesel/electric hybrid powerplant getting fuel mileage around 40 miles per US gallon.
EarthLink just released a new pop-up blocker that works with Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 2 to 6.0 for EarthLink and Mindspring users.
:-)
I'm using it right now and it's an excellent program. The best part about EarthLink's blocker is that you can set it to preview the blocked pop-up, open the pop-up on the second click (which is useful for pop-ups that are necessary like forms that need to be filled out), and even select certain web pages where pop-ups are needed. Best part of this pop-up: it's free.
Or in short, we may be seeing one terabyte Serial ATA or UltraSCSI 320 hard drives in the 3.5" 1/3 height form factor within two years from Seagate. (eek!)
Good thing cluster slack is a minimal problem with Linux and with Windows 2000/XP formatted in NTFS5 mode.
I believe that NTFS5 uses 4096 byte clusters even if the hard drive vastly larger than the current 137 GB limit for ATA-133 IDE drives from the BIOS.
In short, if you have Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you definitely want the drive formatted in NTFS5 if you want efficient use of space on the drive with minimal slack space, especially with upcoming motherboards that support Serial ATA and Serial ATA hard drives that will soon zoom well past 200 GB in storage capacity.
When you mentioned the MAD magazine article, the writer and artist of that article most likely remembered the Automat restaurant near Times Square that served food dispensed from vending machines. Little did they know that modern technology has taken what that article mentioned into near-reality.
Vending machines are extremely common in Japan due to their low crime rates, which allow for such machines to be operated with minimal concerns about theft.
:-)
There are very few things you can't get from a vending machine in Japan nowadays.
The Urban Legends page mentioned by other /. posters has a good overview on why VHS prevailed.
One thing the Urban Legends page forgot to mention was the fact that it was the VHS camp that produced the first major improvement in picture quality for home VCR's with the Super VHS format in 1987; in SP mode it had a resolution of over 400 lines, far better than broadcast quality and almost as good as Laserdiscs. Sony's attempt to fight back with the Beta ED format flopped because no one outside Sony produced Beta ED machines and Beta ED tapes were quite expensive--far more so than Super VHS tapes.
Today, new Super VHS machines are still being produced, and you can easily buy S-VHS tapes.
I think another thing that killed the Beta format was the fact that the originator of the VHS format (JVC) is a subsidiary of the giant Matsushita Electric electrical-goods conglomerate, and that meant Matsushita's powerful marketing muscle was able to convince the majority of Japanese electronics manufacturers to support VHS and to get licenses for the format; this is a huge reason why VHS prevailed.
Small wonder why Sony decided to de-emphasize the fight with JVC/Matsushita over home VCR formats and concentrate on the 8 mm and MiniDV videocassette formats for camcorders, where Sony had much more marketing success.
I do agree that VHS' longer recording times was a big factor in VHS' favor; remember on a T-120 tape VHS got there first with four-hour (LP mode) and six-hour (SLP or EP mode) recording. That proved to be a huge boon for folks who wanted to record an entire sporting event (baseball or American football) on one tape or record a whole week of shows on one tape (just in time for the rapid rise of David Letterman; NBC's Late Night with David Letterman was one of the most recorded-shows according to the Nielsen ratings during the 1980's).
I think the folks at Alpina, AMG, Brabus and Lorinser will loudly disagree with your assessments.
The companies I mentioned do more sporting modifications to BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes. They very well know that many drivers will NOT accept a vehicle with a rock-like ride and race-car fast steering; that's why the suspension designers at these companies know such design as much as the engineers at the BMW or Mercedes-Benz--sometimes more so. For example, a Brabus-modified Mercedes-Benz E-series car may have a slightly firmer ride, but the ride does not make you feel every bump on the road and handling is VASTLY improved.
Let's first consider what is being released on DVD's nowadays.
Primarily, the most prominent releases are those of recent theatrical releases. This is being done primarily to not only ensure that moviegoers who liked the movie in the theaters will see it again at home, but also ensure that movies that didn't do so well in theatrical release make their money back in video release. For example, Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire was considered a failure in theatrical release, yet it did make a profit for Disney due to the well-received DVD release.
The second most prominent releases are from the movie back catalogs. A lot of old movies that people loved are now coming out on DVD, which will provide an often substantial surge in revenue to the movie company. Who wouldn't mind two-disc DVD sets of movies like Citizen Kane and The Third Man with high quality video, clear sound, and lots of movie production information out of the wazoo?
A new category that is becoming popular are complete TV seasons on DVD. It's hard to argue with the success of The Sopranos and Star Trek: The Next Generation on full-season DVD sets.
By keeping DVD's reasonably priced (looks like the MPAA learned from the success of Disney's low cost to consumer sell-through model), the movie companies are making a lot of money and keeping piracy to relatively low levels.
The high-quality sound and picture, plus the longivety, of DVD's is the reason why everyone is buying them big time, along with the reasons I cited above.
I can cite the following reasons why DVD sales have really taken off in the last 24 months:
/. think about MPAA's anti-piracy policies, their decision to adopt the low-cost sell-through model of video sales pioneered by the Walt Disney Company has ensured high level of sales and low levels of movie piracy of DVD discs. I mean, why bother with a pirate copy of a movie when in 6-8 months after theatrical release you can see it at home on a high-quality DVD release?
1. The price of players have dropped in price dramatically. You can get quite good players for under US$100 nowadays quite easily.
2. The price of DVD discs are actually very reasonable considering the content on the discs. Many DVD movies that come on two-disc sets in the US$25-US$30 range contain audio commentaries, foreign language sound tracks and/or subtitles, and supplementary material out of the wazoo.
3. DVD picture quality is excellent nowadays, especially if you can get a 480-line progressive-scan connection between the player and the TV set. Of course, DVD's have Dolby Digital and/or DTS surround sound tracks, which tremendously increases the enjoyment on appropriate home theater systems.
4. DVD's have become a huge boon for foreign-language programs. The distribution of officially-licensed Japanese anime programs have moved to DVD very quickly, especially with the fact the DVD pretty much settles the entire sub versus dub arguement since you can have both on the same disc! =)
I believe that despite what many people here on
One place where digital storage in such large capacities per disc becomes useful is in the storage format for movies shown in theaters with digital projection systems.
Imagine instead of having to lug around six 35-pound spools of 35 mm film for a two-hour movie, the entire movie is distributed on 2-3 Blu-Ray DVD's. The packaging to hold 2-3 Blu-Ray discs will probably weigh in at most 2-3 pounds, compared to the 210 pounds for a single movie print; the shipping costs for distribution alone would save a huge amount of money.
As the cost of digital projectors come down (as I expect will happen by 2010), you'll see more and more movies shipped to theaters on blue-spectrum laser optical discs as the primary distribution format.
Then, of course, the teams have logos on their jerseys, something which I am amazed American companies/sports teams haven't jumped on.
Perhaps one of the best examples in the world of very effective advertising is the way racing cars are painted. If you're seen a NASCAR race, each race car is painted in a different color livery, a color livery designed on behest of the primary sponsor of the car. I mean, who can forget the black-colored GM Goodwrench #3 Chevy race car of the late Dale Earnhardt? Or the rainbow-colored DuPont #24 Chevy of Jeff Gordon? Or the brown and white colored #88 Ford of Dale Jarrett? The color liveries of each race team not only serves to publicize the sponsor's name, but also provides a distinct identity to the team.
This is why I think by 2010 every professional sport in the USA will have team uniforms that will include a visible display of the team's primary commercial sponsor, just like what has been done on the top-tier European soccer teams. Anyway, here in the USA is already happening to sporting goods manufacturers; in the case of the American football the logo of Riddell, Nike, Reebok, etc. are seen on the complete football uniform of each player.
However, don't forget the Federal Trade Commission slapped the RIAA already for this cartel practice and it has done NOTHING to lower prices.
It's high time that the DoJ go after them, because the RIAA is just about the entire music industry in the USA nowadays.
Actually, both Tom's Hardware and Anandtech sites clearly mention during their testing that certain benchmarks favor the Pentium 4 due to things like SSE2 multimedia extensions support and better support in the test program for the way the Pentium 4 processes CPU instructions.
Hopefully, this will force BAPCo to do a benchmark from the ground up that will test functionality common on both the Pentium 4 and Athlon CPU's (like just MMX and SSE support only for now until the new Barton and Hammer core CPU's from AMD get full SSE2 support).
I think the biggest problem is the fact in terms of bang for the buck, the audio CD is losing big time.
/. think about their anti-piracy policies) realized that the sell-through model for video distribution pioneered by Disney works extremely well, hence the reason why DVD's are still reasonably priced for what you get. Small wonder why many movies that didn't quite make their money back in theatrical release are making it back in video release.
Think about it for these reasons:
1) Today's videogame consoles cost between US$150 and US$200, but many games give you 30 to 60 hours of fun to play all the way through; in the case of sports games (like the excellent Madden NFL 2003), it's even longer than that. It's that time you spend on the game that makes the relative high cost of a game (around US$40 to US$50) still a pretty good bargain.
2) The DVD has also become a major bargain; you can get pretty good console players for under US$100, and the price of DVD discs (US$20 to US$30 for the latest releases, frequently under US$15 for the older releases) are a bargain considering the content of what you get. The MPAA (despite what people here on
(12) Federal Trade Commission finding the Recording industry cartel anti-competitve and engaged in illegal price-fixing.
That is EXACTLY the problem we're still facing in the record industry. I believe it's high time the Antitrust Division of the DoJ go after the RIAA and force them to lower album-length audio CD prices to around US$11 per disc; the current US$18 per disc price is at a point where there is just too much economic incentive to pirate music. A good comparison is OPEC; in the late 1970's they raised prices so high that people were either reducing oil consumption and/or looking for alternate sources of oil. By 1986, OPEC was in dire straits due to economic realities catching up with them.
Compare this against the movie industry. The fact that new-release DVD movies are between US$20 to US$30 per release set is extremely reasonable, especially when you consider new releases often contain a plethora of extra features in regards to the movie. And you can often get older movie releases for under US$15. At these prices, there is no real incentive in making a pirate copy DVD, to say the least.