I have to agree with you here. I am more then willing to pay for music, provided it is a good value. When I go buy a CD for $9.99, get 15 great songs, some great artwork and a CD that I can use completely unrestricted..thats a good value. Problem is CDs rarely cost $9.99, they rarely have 15 great songs. But I can use a CD anyway I want. $.99 is too much for too little in my opinion. Being one of the audiophile snobs that/. loves to rip on, I do care and notice audio quality. Unless Apple is selling files that are the same or better quality then CD, I don't see this as a good thing for me and many others like me.
Sure the iTunes site is convenient to buy, but is that convenience really worth all the limitations that come with it? DRM up the ass, noticeable compression, no physical media, limited selection.
If the record company had any brains they would start pushing newer technology like SACD and DVD audio. Superior sound quality, bonus features like videos and slide shows that are accessible on these formats, sell it for a fair price and you will have a revolution like the DVD was.
How many people had extensive VHS and LaserDisc libraries but rushed out and replaced ALL of them with DVD because it was a superior product? Seems to me that movie studios and especially the record industry could make far more money by creating a Great MUST HAVE product, compelling people to want to replace their existing library of music. Would probably make them much more money then they think they may save by going after college students, p2p programs and whatnot. Plus if the audio quality on the SACD or DVD is so good and the file sizes so large, it would not make sense at this time to be trading uncompressed digital copies on kazaa. THink about it, how many 4-8gig uncompressed.vob DVD rips do you see on kazaa? Probably NONE. I dont see DVD sales suffering under P2P, maybe the record insustry should take a hint.
Provide a better product, give your customers a good value and they will be itching to hand over their money.
Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short
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First HDTV Camcorder
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>Great Leap forward but still falsl short
I was talking about the camera, not my spelling.
Great Leap forward but still falsl short
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First HDTV Camcorder
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· Score: 4, Informative
Theres some great comments at this link
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/jvc_introdu ce s_professional_high_definition_jy_hd10u_02_07_03.h tm
I am all in favor of companies pushing forward with better devices, I appluad JVC. I do not see why anyone would want this at this time though. It's a bit preamture. How would you distribute the material? DVD is not HD yet, nor is DVCAM, MiniDV VHS, or digbeta or whatever. So exactly how am i supposed to view this material or share it with people? hook the camera up to the TV everytime? Maybe I'm supposed to buy JVC's DVHS deck for recording HD material, maybe I can get my friends and family to buy them too. No thats ok.
Another thing is it records in MPEG2. I enjoy the MPEG compression on my DVDs and OTA HD broadcasts, but that material sure didnt start off as compressed MPEG. I imagine after capturing, editing, compositing and then final output the PQ would be greatly reduced.
I work with HD material everyday, Scanning film to HD, working with HDcam and D5, rendering HD res out of 3dsmax, HD compositing with a Quantel iQ. Let me tell you, it is not easy. Being professionals even we struggle with the quirks of this new technology, EDL conversions, pulldown, audio sync, It's a beast. I don't really think the consumer level person is going to want to struggle with a non standard device that creates good looking pictures that hes going to have to downres just to view them on most displays.
I wish JVC all the luck, I wish I could buy one to play with, but In my opinion the technology isnt quite ready for John Doe and his girlfriend to make HD pr0n.
>Then, I got The Best of 1990-2000 from U2. It was two CDs and a DVD. It didn't cost too much, either
I love U2. Thats one of the few mainstream releases I've bought this past year. I already own all the songs and B-sides on CD, but I bought that because it was a particularly good value. I download a lot of music, much of it out of print, much of it hard to find because its not popular or not good. I do not download music that I can just as easily buy.
When I can find a good CD for a fair price, I will buy it everytime. But that hasn't been happening lately. I do not wish to support the damn RIAA companies, My interests has been leaning towards DVDs and the music today isnt my style. So I have purchased much less music this year then in years past. Is that because im pirating it? No. Dwindeling record sales are caused by many things, it can not be blamed solely on pesky college kids downloading music and those evil P2P technologies.
When these college kids graduate, go onto careers of their own they will be in the position to BUY music rather then spend time searching and downloading it off the current hot p2p app. But will they be interested anymore?
Why would the record industry want to constantly go after their own best customers and future customers? Im no longer in college myself, don't buy much music anymore cause I prefer 80s music. I do buy a ton of DVDs though. The reaso nbeing there is great value in DVDs. I get superior picture quality and sound, a nice keep case, art work, special features, comentaries, interactive content, all for $14-$21.
If the record industry could offer such great content at a reasonable price, sales would skyrocket.
Instead they charge far too much for far too little, and on top of it, they constantly attack their own customers with threats and lawsuits and bullshit like CDs that wont play on their computer. Then they lobby for laws that punish not just music pirates but all people who wish to use the internet without restrictions. It's really quite amazing how a group of billionaires can be so ass backwards.
Im hoping their is a major backlash from the millions of students in this country.
After reading the review, this thing sounds like a nightmare.
I don't get it, it costs more then a basic laptop, its much more difficult to setup, it has a very slow processor compare to a lappy, and it doesnt do nearly as much as a laptop.
This reminds me of those portable personal DVD players. They cost about $1000 for a 7" screen and all it does is play DVDs, for the same price you could buy a notebook computer with a 14" screen that plays DVDs and does a whole lot more.
This isnt some easy to use Internet Appliance like the i-opener, it is not priced like one, so just who is this targeted towards?
I would love a tablet PC, I hope they get better and better and cheaper. This appears to be pretty worthless though.
I can appreciate your quote of Jay and Silent Bob strikes back, a guilty pleasure that movie was. Pure crap, but funny as hell.
On the other hand, your sig contained one of my favorite lines from Donnie Darko. What a spectacular movie Donnie Darko was.
Funny how these same hollywood dumb asses that spend their time trolling elite message boards, pumped millions in production and advertising to push a piece of crap like Jay and Silent Bob, but did very very little to promote a gem like Donnie Darko.
Subsequently, Jay and Silent Bob made a fortune at the box office, donnie darko did not do well at all.
I read this guys book "Bringing Down The House" I enjoyed every page of it. I read this article he has written about hollywood fuckwits, and it all seems farely believable.
Having to work around writers and executive producers and other people in the industry is a drain. You will never find a group of folks more full of shit. I completely agree with the article in that all the movers and shakers in the industry run on fear, constantly looking around to see what everyone else is doing.
My TV has BNC-5 connector as well as 2 sets of Wideband component inputs, one RGB HD connector and many S-video inputs. It is a pioneer elite pro 520hd model and is arguably the finest picture of any rptv ever made, puts plasma to shame. The new pioneer elite models even have DVI connectors as well. Make sure not to confuse Pioneer ELite RPTVs with standard Pioneer RPTVs. Thats like comparing a rolls royce to a honda.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/Ho me Products/HomeProductDetails/0,1422,20884,00.html
If anyone read the book "21 Dog Years, Doing Time @ Amazon.com" Mike Daisey discusses how he was a customer service call center lacky but also reviewed childrens toys for the site. He did this from home on his own time, The funny thing was he would fall far behind his reviews and have closets full of unreviewed Fisher Price and Playskool toys laying about the house.
Good thing a fat guy with no children who's never been a parent was reviewing childrens toys.
You would prefer to see someone bring the entire service down, screwing over many thousands of your fellow gamers, throwing up a road block to progress in the online gaming community just to prove your point? People payed for the service the way it is, they want to use it, and you want to take it away from them for a time to get your agenda heard.
Lets say someone did this and took the service off line for a period of time. Do you think that person would be flooded with letters of thanks from the XBL subscribers, or do you think they would want your head on a stick?
I am a subscriber and was beta tester so im clearly biased because I enjoy the service.
This reminds me of the small minority of people who think that abortion is deadly wrong, they arent content to let other people make up their own minds. No, they would rather bomb a clinic to prove their point and make the world see how truly wrong abortion is.
Im all for modding xboxes, I follow the progress of linux on xbox, I dont care what you do with your xbox, but if you try to take it online and fuck up my gaming experience with cheating, then I will support any means necessary to have your ass banned. Mod your xbox all day long, just keep it off the gaming service.
I bought UT2k3 for PC the second it came out, great game. I was an Xbox Live Beta Tester for months and bought Unreal Championship the second it came out. It does take some getting used to not using the mouse/keyboard combo, I'm still learning. I do find it more comfortable fatigue wise to use the control pad. I also find it more comfortable sitting 15ft away from a 60" HDTV rather then 12" away from a 22" monitor. I have noticed some Lag on Xbox live when people are hosting a non dedicated server with only 128k upstream. Unreal Championship will give you a warning if you attempt to allow more players then your bandwidth can accommodate, but it is just a warning and some people will ignore it. The lag is rare though, and less so then playing on PC. I find the graphics to be more pleasing on the Xbox, looks smoother with less noticeable artifacting. One thing I hope they upgrade is the Server settings. In the PC version you have many options if you host a game or dedicated server. Many of these options are not in the Xbox version. This may be good and keep things simple, but for hardcore gamers it is sad to see it not there. I hope they make an easy to download patch for Unreal Championship to fix this (thank god the xbox has included free hard drive so they can easily allow content downloads and patches). All things considered, I don't think I will be playing UT2k3 much any more now that Xbox Live and Unreal are here.
DVD may only be 720x486, but Xbox is not limited to those resolutions. Games Like Tony Hawk 4 and Hoops are both in 720p, games are coming out in 1080i as well such as Dragons Lair. Playing these on a nice big HDTV is quite enjoyable. Im sure I cant be the only one who finds it more comfortable to play games while kicking back on a couch, rather then sitting 12" from a computer monitor.
There's no full Open Source console, may never be.
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So take away all that and there is absolutely nothing stopping someone from creating a completely open source console. So why hasn't it happened successfully yet? It probably never will happen, sorry guys, and if it did...not many people would buy it. Give credit where credit is due to these big stupid companies. They create and market and sell something that is easy to use, reliable and most importantly, is in demand by consumers.
If there was a big enough demand for a truly open console game machine and there was a way to make money by doing so, Don't you think someone would be doing it by now? I'm sorry, were you under the impression that nobody had ever had that idea before, only you? Trust me, it has been considered, researched and passed over by many people who are much more knowledgeable then you or I.
So how do these consoles make money and protect their investment? By doing all the things you complain about.
And Sony is just an angel aren't they. Isn't Sony one of the companies trying to force copy protected cds and SACDs? Isn't Sony famous for not going with industry standards and trying to force their proprietary crap? Is Sony not well known for using its power and influence in Japan to threaten game developers? Just do a search for Sony on google in context to strong tactics used by Sony to threaten developers who even consider talking to other console makers.
Sony and I'm sure Nintendo have their own skeletons, they aren't much different then Microsoft or any major corporation. If you are going to judge Xbox by some poor ethics of its parent company, then you should do the same to Sony.
One interesting thing, I don't see many unethical or mean spirited decisions by MS in relation to Xbox. They seem to be the most developer and gamer friendly of all the consoles.
At work we use 3dsmax as our primary modeling and animation package. We do not use 3dsmax's default scanline renderer though, we use a 3rd party render system called BRAZIL. It is made by splutterfish, which is associated with Blur studios in Santa Monica. www.splutterfish.com
IF you are an individual artist it is a great system, well integrated into max, very artist friendly, no shader writing required if you dont want to. But the images speak for themselves, go check out some of the galleries around the web. Right now it is for 3dsmax only but they are working on the maya compatibility. Great software, great people.
God bless your soul young man. I used to think Vinyl was crap, but after listening to a mint record on an Linn LP12 I was amazed. The warm analog sound was very lifelike. Its funny, You get more 3 dimensional lifelike sound out of olt tube amps and vinyl records then out of DVD-Audio. Not knocking DVD audio, but its nice to see someone else who appreciates the characteristics of vinyl.
I must agree here. I havent watched network TV in years, exception being monday night football and sunday games. All the networks are crap, Reality TV is an insult to human intelligence, MTV is single handedly making kids stupid. Im sure many/.s will agree that the only channels worth watching are TLC, Discovery, FOOD, A&E, Science Channel, and a few others. These are the educational networks, full of great documentary material and informative programs. I also watch HBO for the soprano's.
I went many years without watching any tv at all, just used netflix premium to rent 10 dvds a week or so. Of course this wil lall change when ATT brings HDTV to the home, then I will watch much more stupid network TV just cause it looks soooo goood.
I cant imagine anyone here would be switching now considering how popular OSX is around here. BUT, in the past, have any of you ever switched from Mac to Windows? I personally have not. I can see situations where it would be much much better to use Windows. One case would be 3d animation. Most of the good software traditionally has run on windows and Irix. Please do not bring up Maya OSX, that is the exception, not the rule. Windows can run on many different hardware configs that are far more afordable. Has this been enough for anyone here to switch in the past?
You can leave feedback for players on Xbox live, negative feedback for people who swear or play cheap or quit in the middle of a game. I have not had any problems at all with people being rude or using bad language. If there is, I can mute them.
I am loving every second of the beta actually. Im glad That only broadband is allowed, Im glad that devlopers and MS arent building their system to support other platforms. Im happy that every person will have the same exact hardware, config and same experience. This will all lead to the best possible gamign experience. If I want interoperability, If I want to change the game files, if I want to play against modem users, Ill use my freakin PC. I dont want to though, I hate PC gaming, I hate the small screen, I dont want a PC in my home theater, I dont like playing on a PC with 4 other people standing over my shoulder. PC gaming and consoles are 2 different arenas, XBoxLive is just what console gaming needs.
Of all the Xbox live naysayers, how many of you hate MS with a passion? you are dismissed, How many of you Hate Xbox because you dont have one, you have PS2? You are also dismissed. of all you naysayers, how many of you are slamming it because everyone else does on slashdot? You are dismissed. Is anyone left over? Hmmm not really. Those people left who are still slamming Xbox Live, have you actually used the service yet?
Keep an open mind, There is a world outside of slashdot and we are all very excited about online console gaming like Xbox live.
Blockbuster sucks. Anyone who discourages widescreen DVDs can bite me. I also live in the city and have no car so getting there isnt easy.
I looked at 3 different online game rental services and chose red octane. My first impression was dissapointing, none of the games on my queue seemed to be available. Here is my queue, you can see how many are out. These are all for Xbox, Those that say "not yet available" have not yet been released.
NFL 2K3 Short Wait
Jet Set Radio Future Available Now
Star Wars: Obi Wan Available Now
Dead to Rights Long Wait
Unreal Championship Not Yet Available
Blade 2 Not Yet Available
Wreckless Available Now
Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer Short Wait
Outlaw Golf Short Wait
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 Not Yet Available
NHL 2003 Not Yet Available
Sega GT 2002 Short Wait
The Thing Short Wait
Timesplitters 2 Not Yet Available
Blinx: The Time Sweeper Not Yet Available
Max Payne Available Now
X-Men: Next Dimension Not Yet Available
Medal of Honor Frontline Not Yet Available
Many games are short to long wait, that sucks. Below you see the email that gets sent out..
Your game rental has shipped! We have shipped the following title:
TITLE: Terminator: Dawn of Fate (XBox) SHIP DATE: 9/27/2002
ESTIMATED SHIPPING TIME
In The US Expected Delivery
First Class Mail 3-5 Business Days First Class Mail (HI,AK) 4-6 Business Days
This game shipped on friday the 27th, Post Office is close on sunday and the game arrived on Tuesday the first. I live in San Francisco, not far from them. I have yet to send a game back so I cant comment on their turn-around. I do like that they include the full original manual with the game. Many rental stores do not include the manual.
I really hope RedOctane works out, I do wish netflix would rent games and porn though.
Monster Cables are like Bose products or Sony Home theater, a joke. All 3 are a text book lesson in genius marketing and polishing shit.
Make no mistake, cables make a difference to those who care and Monsters products are worlds better then what comes out of the box or from wallmart. But they do not represent a good value-performance ratio. For the same amount you can buy a lesser marketed but more respected cable that is far superior. Many people will tell you that when you buy Monster or Bose you are paying for all their bright shiny ads in the magazines. This is very true, your dollars go to more marketing and not so much R&D or quaility materials/manufacturing.
Im not one of the crazy bastards who spends $15,000 on one speaker cable. I think if you add up all my cables it would total less then $3000. Many people who watch a movie at my house are blown away. There are also a lot of people who are convinced that it doesn't look any better then there 20'' Magnavox tv thats 10yrs old and conencted to an old VCR. Its quite simple, they are WRONG WRONG WRONG. At the same time, they do not know enough or care enough about the picture or sound to invest a dime in their equipment. I may not agree with them, I may think they are farking idiots, but I must respect their opinion.
P.S. Despite the many mentions of Monster Cable, I think this was a great article for educating people on the different connections, and the bennefits of investing in good cables.
I was cruising through this months Widescreen Review Magazine few weeks ago and read a detailed review of this system. My first impression was that it was gimmicky bull$hit, further reading changed my mind and I am now looking to demo one of these units in person. I will not be buying it though, just want a test drive.
You can read part of the article by going to http://www.widescreenreview.com/attractions/eqre v5.html
Pick up this months Widescreen Review for the full article and a whole lot more.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree with you here. I am more then willing to pay for music, provided it is a good value. When I go buy a CD for $9.99, get 15 great songs, some great artwork and a CD that I can use completely unrestricted..thats a good value. Problem is CDs rarely cost $9.99, they rarely have 15 great songs. But I can use a CD anyway I want. $.99 is too much for too little in my opinion. Being one of the audiophile snobs that /. loves to rip on, I do care and notice audio quality. Unless Apple is selling files that are the same or better quality then CD, I don't see this as a good thing for me and many others like me.
.vob DVD rips do you see on kazaa? Probably NONE. I dont see DVD sales suffering under P2P, maybe the record insustry should take a hint.
Sure the iTunes site is convenient to buy, but is that convenience really worth all the limitations that come with it? DRM up the ass, noticeable compression, no physical media, limited selection.
If the record company had any brains they would start pushing newer technology like SACD and DVD audio. Superior sound quality, bonus features like videos and slide shows that are accessible on these formats, sell it for a fair price and you will have a revolution like the DVD was.
How many people had extensive VHS and LaserDisc libraries but rushed out and replaced ALL of them with DVD because it was a superior product? Seems to me that movie studios and especially the record industry could make far more money by creating a Great MUST HAVE product, compelling people to want to replace their existing library of music. Would probably make them much more money then they think they may save by going after college students, p2p programs and whatnot. Plus if the audio quality on the SACD or DVD is so good and the file sizes so large, it would not make sense at this time to be trading uncompressed digital copies on kazaa. THink about it, how many 4-8gig uncompressed
Provide a better product, give your customers a good value and they will be itching to hand over their money.
>Great Leap forward but still falsl short
I was talking about the camera, not my spelling.
Theres some great comments at this link
u ce s_professional_high_definition_jy_hd10u_02_07_03.h tm
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/jvc_introd
I am all in favor of companies pushing forward with better devices, I appluad JVC. I do not see why anyone would want this at this time though. It's a bit preamture. How would you distribute the material? DVD is not HD yet, nor is DVCAM, MiniDV VHS, or digbeta or whatever. So exactly how am i supposed to view this material or share it with people? hook the camera up to the TV everytime? Maybe I'm supposed to buy JVC's DVHS deck for recording HD material, maybe I can get my friends and family to buy them too. No thats ok.
Another thing is it records in MPEG2. I enjoy the MPEG compression on my DVDs and OTA HD broadcasts, but that material sure didnt start off as compressed MPEG. I imagine after capturing, editing, compositing and then final output the PQ would be greatly reduced.
I work with HD material everyday, Scanning film to HD, working with HDcam and D5, rendering HD res out of 3dsmax, HD compositing with a Quantel iQ. Let me tell you, it is not easy. Being professionals even we struggle with the quirks of this new technology, EDL conversions, pulldown, audio sync, It's a beast. I don't really think the consumer level person is going to want to struggle with a non standard device that creates good looking pictures that hes going to have to downres just to view them on most displays.
I wish JVC all the luck, I wish I could buy one to play with, but In my opinion the technology isnt quite ready for John Doe and his girlfriend to make HD pr0n.
>Then, I got The Best of 1990-2000 from U2. It was two CDs and a DVD. It didn't cost too much, either
I love U2. Thats one of the few mainstream releases I've bought this past year. I already own all the songs and B-sides on CD, but I bought that because it was a particularly good value. I download a lot of music, much of it out of print, much of it hard to find because its not popular or not good. I do not download music that I can just as easily buy.
When I can find a good CD for a fair price, I will buy it everytime. But that hasn't been happening lately. I do not wish to support the damn RIAA companies, My interests has been leaning towards DVDs and the music today isnt my style. So I have purchased much less music this year then in years past. Is that because im pirating it? No. Dwindeling record sales are caused by many things, it can not be blamed solely on pesky college kids downloading music and those evil P2P technologies.
When these college kids graduate, go onto careers of their own they will be in the position to BUY music rather then spend time searching and downloading it off the current hot p2p app. But will they be interested anymore?
Why would the record industry want to constantly go after their own best customers and future customers? Im no longer in college myself, don't buy much music anymore cause I prefer 80s music. I do buy a ton of DVDs though. The reaso nbeing there is great value in DVDs. I get superior picture quality and sound, a nice keep case, art work, special features, comentaries, interactive content, all for $14-$21.
If the record industry could offer such great content at a reasonable price, sales would skyrocket.
Instead they charge far too much for far too little, and on top of it, they constantly attack their own customers with threats and lawsuits and bullshit like CDs that wont play on their computer. Then they lobby for laws that punish not just music pirates but all people who wish to use the internet without restrictions. It's really quite amazing how a group of billionaires can be so ass backwards.
Im hoping their is a major backlash from the millions of students in this country.
They used to pass them out at my grade school actually. Maybe thats where I got my techy-DIY mentallity.
Im off to re-read all my old favorites now.
After reading the review, this thing sounds like a nightmare.
I don't get it, it costs more then a basic laptop, its much more difficult to setup, it has a very slow processor compare to a lappy, and it doesnt do nearly as much as a laptop.
This reminds me of those portable personal DVD players. They cost about $1000 for a 7" screen and all it does is play DVDs, for the same price you could buy a notebook computer with a 14" screen that plays DVDs and does a whole lot more.
This isnt some easy to use Internet Appliance like the i-opener, it is not priced like one, so just who is this targeted towards?
I would love a tablet PC, I hope they get better and better and cheaper. This appears to be pretty worthless though.
I can appreciate your quote of Jay and Silent Bob strikes back, a guilty pleasure that movie was. Pure crap, but funny as hell.
On the other hand, your sig contained one of my favorite lines from Donnie Darko. What a spectacular movie Donnie Darko was.
Funny how these same hollywood dumb asses that spend their time trolling elite message boards, pumped millions in production and advertising to push a piece of crap like Jay and Silent Bob, but did very very little to promote a gem like Donnie Darko.
Subsequently, Jay and Silent Bob made a fortune at the box office, donnie darko did not do well at all.
I read this guys book "Bringing Down The House" I enjoyed every page of it. I read this article he has written about hollywood fuckwits, and it all seems farely believable.
Having to work around writers and executive producers and other people in the industry is a drain. You will never find a group of folks more full of shit. I completely agree with the article in that all the movers and shakers in the industry run on fear, constantly looking around to see what everyone else is doing.
"CHK- I have a question Nick. I'm trying to do this cordially, I just, I can't get the stupid e-mail attachment to open at all."
I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure the line was "I'm trying to do this quarterly" Which is some business accounting report BS or something.
My TV has BNC-5 connector as well as 2 sets of Wideband component inputs, one RGB HD connector and many S-video inputs. It is a pioneer elite pro 520hd model and is arguably the finest picture of any rptv ever made, puts plasma to shame. The new pioneer elite models even have DVI connectors as well. Make sure not to confuse Pioneer ELite RPTVs with standard Pioneer RPTVs. Thats like comparing a rolls royce to a honda.
o me Products/HomeProductDetails/0,1422,20884,00.html
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/H
If anyone read the book "21 Dog Years, Doing Time @ Amazon.com"
Mike Daisey discusses how he was a customer service call center lacky but also reviewed childrens toys for the site. He did this from home on his own time, The funny thing was he would fall far behind his reviews and have closets full of unreviewed Fisher Price and Playskool toys laying about the house.
Good thing a fat guy with no children who's never been a parent was reviewing childrens toys.
A clever idea but compltely retarded if serious.
You would prefer to see someone bring the entire service down, screwing over many thousands of your fellow gamers, throwing up a road block to progress in the online gaming community just to prove your point? People payed for the service the way it is, they want to use it, and you want to take it away from them for a time to get your agenda heard.
Lets say someone did this and took the service off line for a period of time. Do you think that person would be flooded with letters of thanks from the XBL subscribers, or do you think they would want your head on a stick?
I am a subscriber and was beta tester so im clearly biased because I enjoy the service.
This reminds me of the small minority of people who think that abortion is deadly wrong, they arent content to let other people make up their own minds. No, they would rather bomb a clinic to prove their point and make the world see how truly wrong abortion is.
Im all for modding xboxes, I follow the progress of linux on xbox, I dont care what you do with your xbox, but if you try to take it online and fuck up my gaming experience with cheating, then I will support any means necessary to have your ass banned. Mod your xbox all day long, just keep it off the gaming service.
I bought UT2k3 for PC the second it came out, great game. I was an Xbox Live Beta Tester for months and bought Unreal Championship the second it came out. It does take some getting used to not using the mouse/keyboard combo, I'm still learning. I do find it more comfortable fatigue wise to use the control pad. I also find it more comfortable sitting 15ft away from a 60" HDTV rather then 12" away from a 22" monitor. I have noticed some Lag on Xbox live when people are hosting a non dedicated server with only 128k upstream. Unreal Championship will give you a warning if you attempt to allow more players then your bandwidth can accommodate, but it is just a warning and some people will ignore it. The lag is rare though, and less so then playing on PC. I find the graphics to be more pleasing on the Xbox, looks smoother with less noticeable artifacting. One thing I hope they upgrade is the Server settings. In the PC version you have many options if you host a game or dedicated server. Many of these options are not in the Xbox version. This may be good and keep things simple, but for hardcore gamers it is sad to see it not there. I hope they make an easy to download patch for Unreal Championship to fix this (thank god the xbox has included free hard drive so they can easily allow content downloads and patches). All things considered, I don't think I will be playing UT2k3 much any more now that Xbox Live and Unreal are here.
DVD may only be 720x486, but Xbox is not limited to those resolutions. Games Like Tony Hawk 4 and Hoops are both in 720p, games are coming out in 1080i as well such as Dragons Lair. Playing these on a nice big HDTV is quite enjoyable. Im sure I cant be the only one who finds it more comfortable to play games while kicking back on a couch, rather then sitting 12" from a computer monitor.
So take away all that and there is absolutely nothing stopping someone from creating a completely open source console. So why hasn't it happened successfully yet? It probably never will happen, sorry guys, and if it did...not many people would buy it. Give credit where credit is due to these big stupid companies. They create and market and sell something that is easy to use, reliable and most importantly, is in demand by consumers.
If there was a big enough demand for a truly open console game machine and there was a way to make money by doing so, Don't you think someone would be doing it by now? I'm sorry, were you under the impression that nobody had ever had that idea before, only you? Trust me, it has been considered, researched and passed over by many people who are much more knowledgeable then you or I.
So how do these consoles make money and protect their investment? By doing all the things you complain about.
And Sony is just an angel aren't they. Isn't Sony one of the companies trying to force copy protected cds and SACDs? Isn't Sony famous for not going with industry standards and trying to force their proprietary crap? Is Sony not well known for using its power and influence in Japan to threaten game developers? Just do a search for Sony on google in context to strong tactics used by Sony to threaten developers who even consider talking to other console makers.
Sony and I'm sure Nintendo have their own skeletons, they aren't much different then Microsoft or any major corporation. If you are going to judge Xbox by some poor ethics of its parent company, then you should do the same to Sony.
One interesting thing, I don't see many unethical or mean spirited decisions by MS in relation to Xbox. They seem to be the most developer and gamer friendly of all the consoles.
At work we use 3dsmax as our primary modeling and animation package. We do not use 3dsmax's default scanline renderer though, we use a 3rd party render system called BRAZIL. It is made by splutterfish, which is associated with Blur studios in Santa Monica. www.splutterfish.com
IF you are an individual artist it is a great system, well integrated into max, very artist friendly, no shader writing required if you dont want to. But the images speak for themselves, go check out some of the galleries around the web. Right now it is for 3dsmax only but they are working on the maya compatibility. Great software, great people.
I have released music on vinyl
God bless your soul young man. I used to think Vinyl was crap, but after listening to a mint record on an Linn LP12 I was amazed. The warm analog sound was very lifelike. Its funny, You get more 3 dimensional lifelike sound out of olt tube amps and vinyl records then out of DVD-Audio. Not knocking DVD audio, but its nice to see someone else who appreciates the characteristics of vinyl.
IMHO TV programming by and large is worthless
/.s will agree that the only channels worth watching are TLC, Discovery, FOOD, A&E, Science Channel, and a few others. These are the educational networks, full of great documentary material and informative programs. I also watch HBO for the soprano's.
I must agree here. I havent watched network TV in years, exception being monday night football and sunday games. All the networks are crap, Reality TV is an insult to human intelligence, MTV is single handedly making kids stupid. Im sure many
I went many years without watching any tv at all, just used netflix premium to rent 10 dvds a week or so. Of course this wil lall change when ATT brings HDTV to the home, then I will watch much more stupid network TV just cause it looks soooo goood.
I cant imagine anyone here would be switching now considering how popular OSX is around here. BUT, in the past, have any of you ever switched from Mac to Windows? I personally have not. I can see situations where it would be much much better to use Windows. One case would be 3d animation. Most of the good software traditionally has run on windows and Irix. Please do not bring up Maya OSX, that is the exception, not the rule. Windows can run on many different hardware configs that are far more afordable. Has this been enough for anyone here to switch in the past?
You can leave feedback for players on Xbox live, negative feedback for people who swear or play cheap or quit in the middle of a game. I have not had any problems at all with people being rude or using bad language. If there is, I can mute them.
I am loving every second of the beta actually. Im glad That only broadband is allowed, Im glad that devlopers and MS arent building their system to support other platforms. Im happy that every person will have the same exact hardware, config and same experience. This will all lead to the best possible gamign experience. If I want interoperability, If I want to change the game files, if I want to play against modem users, Ill use my freakin PC. I dont want to though, I hate PC gaming, I hate the small screen, I dont want a PC in my home theater, I dont like playing on a PC with 4 other people standing over my shoulder. PC gaming and consoles are 2 different arenas, XBoxLive is just what console gaming needs.
Of all the Xbox live naysayers, how many of you hate MS with a passion? you are dismissed, How many of you Hate Xbox because you dont have one, you have PS2? You are also dismissed. of all you naysayers, how many of you are slamming it because everyone else does on slashdot? You are dismissed. Is anyone left over? Hmmm not really. Those people left who are still slamming Xbox Live, have you actually used the service yet?
Keep an open mind, There is a world outside of slashdot and we are all very excited about online console gaming like Xbox live.
Blockbuster sucks. Anyone who discourages widescreen DVDs can bite me. I also live in the city and have no car so getting there isnt easy.
I looked at 3 different online game rental services and chose red octane. My first impression was dissapointing, none of the games on my queue seemed to be available. Here is my queue, you can see how many are out. These are all for Xbox, Those that say "not yet available" have not yet been released.
NFL 2K3 Short Wait
Jet Set Radio Future Available Now
Star Wars: Obi Wan Available Now
Dead to Rights Long Wait
Unreal Championship Not Yet Available
Blade 2 Not Yet Available
Wreckless Available Now
Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer Short Wait
Outlaw Golf Short Wait
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 Not Yet Available
NHL 2003 Not Yet Available
Sega GT 2002 Short Wait
The Thing Short Wait
Timesplitters 2 Not Yet Available
Blinx: The Time Sweeper Not Yet Available
Max Payne Available Now
X-Men: Next Dimension Not Yet Available
Medal of Honor Frontline Not Yet Available
Many games are short to long wait, that sucks. Below you see the email that gets sent out..
Your game rental has shipped! We have shipped the following title:
TITLE: Terminator: Dawn of Fate (XBox)
SHIP DATE: 9/27/2002
ESTIMATED SHIPPING TIME
In The US Expected Delivery
First Class Mail 3-5 Business Days
First Class Mail (HI,AK) 4-6 Business Days
This game shipped on friday the 27th, Post Office is close on sunday and the game arrived on Tuesday the first. I live in San Francisco, not far from them. I have yet to send a game back so I cant comment on their turn-around. I do like that they include the full original manual with the game. Many rental stores do not include the manual.
I really hope RedOctane works out, I do wish netflix would rent games and porn though.
Monster Cables are like Bose products or Sony Home theater, a joke. All 3 are a text book lesson in genius marketing and polishing shit.
Make no mistake, cables make a difference to those who care and Monsters products are worlds better then what comes out of the box or from wallmart. But they do not represent a good value-performance ratio. For the same amount you can buy a lesser marketed but more respected cable that is far superior. Many people will tell you that when you buy Monster or Bose you are paying for all their bright shiny ads in the magazines. This is very true, your dollars go to more marketing and not so much R&D or quaility materials/manufacturing.
Im not one of the crazy bastards who spends $15,000 on one speaker cable. I think if you add up all my cables it would total less then $3000. Many people who watch a movie at my house are blown away. There are also a lot of people who are convinced that it doesn't look any better then there 20'' Magnavox tv thats 10yrs old and conencted to an old VCR. Its quite simple, they are WRONG WRONG WRONG. At the same time, they do not know enough or care enough about the picture or sound to invest a dime in their equipment. I may not agree with them, I may think they are farking idiots, but I must respect their opinion.
P.S. Despite the many mentions of Monster Cable, I think this was a great article for educating people on the different connections, and the bennefits of investing in good cables.
bettercables.com
vampirewire.com
vandenhull.com
I was cruising through this months Widescreen Review Magazine few weeks ago and read a detailed review of this system. My first impression was that it was gimmicky bull$hit, further reading changed my mind and I am now looking to demo one of these units in person. I will not be buying it though, just want a test drive.
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You can read part of the article by going to
http://www.widescreenreview.com/attractions/eqr
Pick up this months Widescreen Review for the full article and a whole lot more.