The very crux of this issue is that many of these things are out of our control. Sometimes money is exactly the WRONG answer for things like this.
Yes, people go hungry. I don't run across them every day.
Yes, there are millions of starving people, but this is usually the fault of their poor methods, ignorance, their governments and organized crime. Yes, they could use more efficient agriculture, but keep in mind that if I go in and teach them better agriculture, they will shun it as a "foul western idea". Those willing to try it out become successful, become envied by their peers and become victims of violence. Trust me, this happens too often. I really doubt that farmers would be willing to be told what crops to plant and where.
Also, if we are too willing to help, it also puts the recipients into a dependency mode, where they won't do any public works projects for their own good unless it has international aid. This happens too, especially in Latin America, from what I hear from friends that go there.
It's fine to care, but emotional guilt trips really do little in the long run.
Really, the SETI@home idea was one made such that it uses spare cycles, otherwise they would just be wasted heat.
Every person that I know that has chosen a lease agreement seems to hate making that choice. There isn't really much fiscal advantage to leasing that I have found, but it restricts the owner. Some companies (such as Ford Leasing) are completely unwilling to help. I have a cousin that moved overseas 1/3 of the way into his lease and couldn't get out of the lease for it because he co-signed with his dad because he was just a tad too young to sign a lease I believe (age 25?). So his dad's stuck with a dumb Escort. The only real way to turn in the car to get out of that lease is to pay up the rest of the lease, which is a waste of money, paying for the use of a car that you won't use. That's an expensive learning experience for both.
I think the point of choice being offered is that it gives us the ability to make a decision that fits our lives the most. I haven't figured out if leasing really is advantageous for private individuals.
Minor corrections and addendums, I think my info is correct as I own most of the titles listed ('cept Pokey & Akira)
El Hazard The Magnificent World 1 is on 4 VHS tapes, not 5. Seven eps total, one on the first volume, two on the following. The first one is as long as two of all the others, except the last one is a little longer. There are two TV series and an additional OAV series, IMO they pale to the original, the same way for Tenchi. Done by most of the same people too.
Escaflowne will be on 8 DVDs as far as I can tell. The present tapes are subtitled only. I can only expect the worst, pray for the best on the dub job, it will go to FOX Kids as noted elsewhere.
Ghost in the Shell Akira, Kiki and Totoro are theatrical movies running at about 90 minutes each, they are not episodic.
Grave of the Fireflies is also available on DVD.
Serial Experiments Lain has 13 episodes.
The mention of Evangelion is missing the movies, which there are several edits, and are mostly intended as a clarification of the last two episodes which apparently those two pissed so many fans off. There is a final edit of the EVA movies, known to us as "Revival of Evangelion" I believe.
For newer stuff, Trigun and Cowboy BeBop seem to be popular. Anything Lupin is hillarious and madcap insanity. Some people _really_ like Slayers, it's not my personal style.
For fantasy, presently the best I've seen is Record of Lodoss War. The OAV set is on DVD, the TV series will be in a few months.
I think the Anime subject addition was a good idea. That way some people can choose not to have it show up on their page. Another incentive for AC's to login...
As for copper or gold connectors...i really don't care enough - that's a VERY discreet difference
One corrodes over time (statue of liberty anyone?) the other very rarely does. You need good plating on that connector if you want to use it over time.
As for conductors, sorry, copper does conduct better when properly handled sealed from the elements. Gold is easier to work with for RF, etc, and in some low volume cases, the workability means a cheaper part, and the non-corrosion factor makes it so that the function of the prototypes is more predictable.
OK, someone noted G-Force, and I fairly intentionally left OUT Gundam Wing from that list because the editing is actually limited, and they had an uncut airing. Tenchi's editing was less limited, but I heard it gets an uncut airing too, I haven't confirmed it. I like what little I have seen of Gundam Wing.
Flint the Time Detective is on FOX, somewhat humorous, I don't know if it was edited for content. Card Captor Sakura is HEAVILY edited (skip the first SEVEN episodes?)
DBZ was edited for content, supposedly digital clothing was added. Sailor Moon are very edited and story elements were changed as well as genders of certain gay and lesbian characters to make a "more acceptable" hetro relationship out of it, and in at least one case I hear, lovers were made out to be friendly cousins.
Pokemon reportedly has very few edits, although a couple episodes were pulled, one due to reported seizures in Japan, and another where a gun was pulled on a character (I heard Ash), the pull was decided at the time of the Columbine, CO incident, a decision due to the political climate at the time.
If anyone wants MY recommendations, in case you decide you want to be open to trying something different, depending on the genres you like:
Mindbending: Serial Experiments Lain Action/ light scifi W/ great music: Macross Plus and Cowboy Bebop (a very talented woman composed for both) Action/Mindbending: Neon Genesis Evangelion Intrigue: Patlabor 2 Humor/Western: Trigun Humor:Castle of Cagliostro (or anything Lupin based) Romance: New Kimagure Orange Road (movie) Historical: Grave of the Fireflies For Kids: My Neighbor Totoro (Totoros kick Pikachu's @$$)
There is a lot of good stuff out there, this is a quick list (so please don't get offended if your favorite isn't here or you think I slightly mislisted the genre). Pick a few titles based on what type of shows you like and give it a shot.
I like anime, but it isn't always the greatest thing. In my experience, the people that hate anime only hate it because they make their perception by what shows up on US TV:
Robotech (hacked version of three shows to tell a story that wasn't originally there) Voltron (two shows in anthology) StarBlazers (mildly hacked version of a Yamato TV show) Sailor Moon (hey, this show was made with girls in mind, OK?) DragonBall Z Speed Racers Pokemon Digimon
If one is basing your opinion of all anime based on any one or more of these shows, you need to see what is really, out there, as this is hardly 1% of what is available. I have on numerous occasions changed someones' mind by loaning a few tapes from my collection. Granted, they don't all become fans, but at least it shows them that it isn't all crap, it is simply another form of entertainment.
"The obsession with subtitles is a quintessentially American phenomenon"
No, not really. In the Netherlands Schindler's List was presented theatrically subtitled. Armitage III: Polymatrix (a butcher of the OAVs) is only available with an English dub, presented theatrically in Japan with Japanese subs (even the US DVD has the J-subs, although with English audio. I can provide more examples, but the list wouldn't be exhaustive. It does bug me that Italy, France, etc have some legal restrictions on the availability of subbed theatrical presentations. Do they not want to poison their constituents with a foul foreign language?
I agree with you that a BAD dub is all too common, there is disagreement in the community on which titles are bad or worse than others, but many seem to know they exist. Viz Video seems artfully skilled at removing cultural references in the dub and I'm NOT talking Pokemon here! This happens in Ranma 1/2 and Video Girl Ai that I recall, I haven't watched much other Viz stuff yet.
Viz's motto for their dubs is "Japanese Animation in ENGLISH!". I have to ask, how much of the Japanese nature of the show if you rip out the Japanese voices? I'll let the reader decide what they want though, the US market has room for both dubs and subs.
I watch the subs so I can pick up some of the foreign language, I learn Japanese words from time to time, you really can't do that with a dub nearly as much.
I WILL say that all things being the same, the dubs outsell the subs by over 5:1, ADV has been quoted as saying 10:1 but they have a bigger price differential than other companies on the tapes at least, but the dubs carry the market and make more licences profitable and available for sub lovers, as few titles are dub-only (they do exist, thankfully not too common, now the move is to shift the subs to being available only on DVD).
I can go on much longer, but it's not quite worth my time or your time to deal with it all, there's lots of info out there.
If you don't want to buy a player, that's up to you. Right now, that "next" format doesn't exist, neither do the players, media or anything else, and when it DOES get released, will people still be waiting for the "next" format after that one? I believe it is more than a year away and if the present pattern holds, it will take at least three years to take hold in the market in which the players and media are at available at a good price, and all this time you would be stuck with VHS deck and with DVD players costing under 200$, you'll have the use of it for at least four years, at a cost of about 50$ a year, and your media won't degrade as much with time. I doubt any future standard would abandon the DVD format now that it is in full swing with thousands of titles available. It is backward compatible with the CD format and most players can play the old Video CD format too.
Besides, the works that they put out will be mostly subtitled only, and the market for subtitled video tapes has "gone to hell" because many of the sub fans have effectively jumped ship to DVD-only.
The masters for most anime are video only (for TV series), meaning being limited to ~525 lines of vertical resolution, finding good original film for a TV series is rare (Macross is the first I've ever heard of this, and it is getting major cleaning). You will gain little by going high-density. Even if the format is supersceded, it won't render worthless the DVDs that you've bought.
Using your argument, no one should buy computers because they'll be obsolete in a few months, they should wait for "x" technological achievement.
I really don't think people should be buying TVs as while they can display downconverted HDTV using a converter, they cant get the detail. I am living with what I have, an old borrowed 20" Sony until the HDTV capable displays come down a bit more in price. The difference here is that HDTV is available as a standard already, but that market is slow as the displays are still expensive being large TVs.
Region 0 DVD discs are discs that can be played on any DVD working player, regardless of region or modifications.
They do exist. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. There are lists around, but I forget where. Sometimes there is no region listed on the box or the disc and it ends up being R0 (also no region listed but turns out locked to one of them). Sometimes there _IS_ a region stated, but it turns out to be R0, or at least supports more regions than stated. Sometimes they have a globe with an ALL written in them, that means R0.
The region coding is controlled by bits on the disc somewhere.
I imagine they will say: "How quaint. We'd nearly forgotten that our ancestors had their beginnings in such superstition and silliness."
This happens not only in religion, but also science. The ether theory comes to mind (light travels because of an invisible fluid), now we think we know better. I remember a Flogisten or something like that that severely predates modern chemistry, but it was considered the best science of the time. Heck, take a look at a science book that is over a decade old.
Our range of views of science, religion and history change quicker than you think.
The size of the disc might be handy, you could have a disc you always keep in your pocket as an ID, hold basic records, what you believe, family info. That way if a large portion of society gets catastrophically destroyed, way in the future archaologists would be able to gather a very detailed picture of what our society was like.
It wasn't an attack on MacOS. This is "Heavy Iron" running Power4, not some PowerPC chip. I bet AIX will be the only UNIX capable of using that hardware to its max. Plus, MacOS really doesn't take advantage of multiprocessing (up to OS X it was hardly multitasking, but rather multiprogramming).
The technical capabilities and ease of use of an operating system are still two totally distinct things right now.
I bet that MacOS couldn't run on something like this anyways unless they did a custom hack.
Actually, the 1920x1080 24 fps progressive format is exactly the same format that is being used for Star Wars Episode II. That's right, it's being shot in the exact same resultion that is supposedly going to become the broadcast standard for TV. Why would studios being doing that? If they use the same resolution for movies as is going to be used for TV, why would people go to theaters anymore? It doesn't make sense.
I am under the impression that the filming is done at a higher rez (1900 some lines), but will be downsampled to 1280 lines. The same article (in Home Theater) said that while each individual frame is capable of yielding higher resolution than that, there is a "shutter gate error" or something like that that reduces the effective location and resolution accuracy of film.
"The animal is inside-out." *boom!* "And it exploded!" - Galaxy Quest -
A true analog recording still produces a better sound than a sampling digital recording
1) there is no "true analog", you can go down to quantum effects and find aliasing there, but...
There's more information in a digital recording and therefore the quality of recording is higher. Whatever problems you have with a digital recording are due to your preconceptions.
Your preconceptions are wrong too.
One still gets aliasing as you go to the higher frequencies on a digital recording. You don't get that aliasing on analog recordings. The only problem is finding stable analog media, magnetics degrade over time, as well as degrade with every playback, which is the same case with "vinyl" media.
So what about aliasing? The sampling rate is the number of times a second you record a value. For CDs and most computer audio, that is about 44.1kHz. According to Nyquist, you need a sampling rate that is a minimum of double the frequency you want to represent:
_-_-_-
But that means a square wave output. If you record a 11 kHz tone, you will have four samples per cycle:
_ _ _ _- -_- -_- -
Or if not aligned, it could be recorded as something that looks like a square wave!
A good analog recording can still beat consumer digital equipment, but eventually the technology will be beat out with digital equipment that can record up to 192 kHz sampling rates and 24 bits per sample.
If course, any lossy compression makes this a moot point as you loose the "more information" even if it was there in the first place.
(In practice, the ratio would probably be closer to 12-15 Intel boxes per Sun 6500, I would guess, as a PIII doing it kind of integer work would likely outperform a SPARC II)
There is more to a computer than the CPU. I have never needed to test or specify a system for a specific use, I thought that Suns had better memory system bandwidth, something that would seem to me to be a bottleneck here than computation speed.
For the price, x86 is probably better, though I sure hope they selected solid quality components, I would hate to be on a crew trying to maintain 4000 computers. Other things to consider are power use and the need for climate control or at minimum A/C. So, in your support, there are many factors that need to be taken into account when considering these things, maybe x86 won out on a serious shootout.
I don't think the nazis made enough flags to go around for all these stories...
That's just one story. I am sure Deutschland made millions of the Nazi flags. I am also sure they were able to afford a flag for every mechanized piece of equipment. Maybe every citizen had one. I don't know. But I did see quite a bit of footage from that era showing HUGE marches and everyone had a flag.
I have one or two items from their propaganda machine, one is some medal for the U-boat crews, and the other is some type of holiday pin, I forget as I haven't looked at it in a while.
While I totally disagree with the Nazis, I would never, ever ask someone to give up their right to collect any normal piece of history. A flag. A uniform, swords, weapons, etc . I would be pretty disturbed if someone had death-camp memorabilia, I'd rather those be in museums, but there are a few legitimate reasons to have them, so why d*ck with them?
Anything that is legislated to be learned about only in history books will be revived. People need to see up close that this stuff was REAL. We have enough revisionists as it is, please don't advocate getting rid of the evidence so that these people can say what they please without having some sort of proof that they are wrong.
Yes, there are a few nitwits that believe that having Nazi-related material means you are one and there are those that have Nazi-related material because the agree with those ideas, but I have met neither. Most of the people that have this sort of thing are historians, collectors, families that have them as mementos, etc.
Who is "mcelrath", and why is he such a f*cking idiot? Who is Anonymous Coward and why are half of his posts worthless? If you have a point, make it. Someone trying to slime another post doesn't lower my opinion of the post unless there are some good facts stated about it.
Use better paper. I disagree. A good printer should be able to accept all paper that the manual says it can, and then some (within reason), without mangling paper. I would rather pay more for a printer that takes any normal kind of paper you feed it than pay less for a crap printer so I can pay more for certified HP brand paper and supplies. I shouldn't have to get paper that fits some kind of very exacting tolerances if it can take a variety of thicknesses, take label paper, iron-ons, transparencies, etc, basically what HP tries to sell the average joe. Some printers (actually, most of the ones I've seen) can't handle the slightest amount of curl properly. Also, the Deskjet that I have mangles the last sheet in the tray and won't quit printing unless I pull the power to pull out the ink-soaked munched up piece of paper. Unfortunately HP seems to make the best printers in their price ranges. I wish someone had the resources to show them how to make a better one.
I tried linux on a Digital Alpha and this _cured_ me of most of my desire to try alternative platforms
Well, if this person tried it on a Multia, please try again because Multias SUCK!. Actually, I liked mine, but it was a pain to set up and it wasn't a performance beast. As for the setup difficulty, I had far more trouble setting up Win95 than I did on any Linux installation I have ever done.
Get a 21164 machine or better if you are going to try it.
True, application support isn't perfect (because many idiotic x86 programmers like to use INTs to store POINTERS, BAAAAAAD!), and Alpha binary packages are hard to come by outside of a distribution CD, but with Linux that's kind of expected.
The difference is that I don't like the association of the low-brow high-seas violence (piracy) with something of a much more white collar crime of making unauthorized copies (also piracy)
If a company does not adhere to acceptable standards in product design, testing and construction methods, you open yourselves to lawsuit liability. Being held accountable to process. There are flaws in every complex product you buy, many times you don't notice as it isn't critical or involves using some feature that you ignore or won't show up unless disaster strikes (not nearly enough nails to hold the roof down? It's happened)
So if your design of "enterprise" level software was done by the Beverly Hillbillies and your testing department looks like could have been replaced with devolved apes with no noticible difference, and built using tools and equipment known to be improper for their use, you are totally hosed.
Maybe my sources were wrong, it looks as if MPEG-1 might be all this unit can handle (MPEG 1 at a high but fixed bit rate can still be very nice, the tape medium probably limits the ability to use variable bit rates anyways), and that 21 hours is the max record time and you need the correct DVHS tapes for this unit (a Panasonic one was tested to take SVHS tapes and record digitally, I guess this won't be standard).
From other things I read I was under the impression that it would support Dolby Digital too.
DVHS is a bit new. It was designed to record the full HDTV bitstream bandwidth, and as such might not become popular until HDTV units starts becomming popular. I thought it did MPEG-2, maybe it depends on the unit, but this unit was not designed for home use. Recordable DVD standard CANNOT handle the maximum HDTV bandwidth, which is about 20mbps vs DVDs 10mbps.
I mentioned DHVS in posts a few months ago on slashdot and no one heard of it yet, it was mostly available as demo units to magazines and buried in a few catalogs.
The recorders available were still 1k$ SRP when I checked, that is about a third of the list price of Pioneer's Japanese-only DVD recorder.
The only significant advantages of the DVD recorders are: DVD is that it is non-contact, non-magnetic, smaller media and have random access, but the blank discs can "only" hold 6 hours maximim and still cost 30$
The reviews I've seen said that they can use standard S-VHS tapes. The info I read sometime back said that about 44 hours of standard NTSC broadcast could fit on one tape, because if the compression used.
In terms of production costs, DVD will still be cheaper for high volumes, but the MPAA would have to relent on DVHS if the "HD" DVD technology standard doesn't pan out when people demand HD movies at home. Only time will tell, there are a lot of variables that neither you nor I can pre-concieve, many we can overlook or totally mispredict which way technology goes.
The Garmin units I saw had the serial protocol written in the manual, so you can pull data from it using whatever programmable serial device you choose, you just have to write the software to communicate and to understand what the data means.
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The very crux of this issue is that many of these things are out of our control. Sometimes money is exactly the WRONG answer for things like this.
Yes, people go hungry. I don't run across them every day.
Yes, there are millions of starving people, but this is usually the fault of their poor methods, ignorance, their governments and organized crime. Yes, they could use more efficient agriculture, but keep in mind that if I go in and teach them better agriculture, they will shun it as a "foul western idea". Those willing to try it out become successful, become envied by their peers and become victims of violence. Trust me, this happens too often. I really doubt that farmers would be willing to be told what crops to plant and where.
Also, if we are too willing to help, it also puts the recipients into a dependency mode, where they won't do any public works projects for their own good unless it has international aid. This happens too, especially in Latin America, from what I hear from friends that go there.
It's fine to care, but emotional guilt trips really do little in the long run.
Really, the SETI@home idea was one made such that it uses spare cycles, otherwise they would just be wasted heat.
Every person that I know that has chosen a lease agreement seems to hate making that choice. There isn't really much fiscal advantage to leasing that I have found, but it restricts the owner. Some companies (such as Ford Leasing) are completely unwilling to help. I have a cousin that moved overseas 1/3 of the way into his lease and couldn't get out of the lease for it because he co-signed with his dad because he was just a tad too young to sign a lease I believe (age 25?). So his dad's stuck with a dumb Escort. The only real way to turn in the car to get out of that lease is to pay up the rest of the lease, which is a waste of money, paying for the use of a car that you won't use. That's an expensive learning experience for both.
I think the point of choice being offered is that it gives us the ability to make a decision that fits our lives the most. I haven't figured out if leasing really is advantageous for private individuals.
The last post was an accident... sorry!
Minor corrections and addendums, I think my info is correct as I own most of the titles listed ('cept Pokey & Akira)
El Hazard The Magnificent World 1 is on 4 VHS tapes, not 5. Seven eps total, one on the first volume, two on the following. The first one is as long as two of all the others, except the last one is a little longer. There are two TV series and an additional OAV series, IMO they pale to the original, the same way for Tenchi. Done by most of the same people too.
Escaflowne will be on 8 DVDs as far as I can tell. The present tapes are subtitled only. I can only expect the worst, pray for the best on the dub job, it will go to FOX Kids as noted elsewhere.
Ghost in the Shell Akira, Kiki and Totoro are theatrical movies running at about 90 minutes each, they are not episodic.
Grave of the Fireflies is also available on DVD.
Serial Experiments Lain has 13 episodes.
The mention of Evangelion is missing the movies, which there are several edits, and are mostly intended as a clarification of the last two episodes which apparently those two pissed so many fans off. There is a final edit of the EVA movies, known to us as "Revival of Evangelion" I believe.
For newer stuff, Trigun and Cowboy BeBop seem to be popular. Anything Lupin is hillarious and madcap insanity. Some people _really_ like Slayers, it's not my personal style.
For fantasy, presently the best I've seen is Record of Lodoss War. The OAV set is on DVD, the TV series will be in a few months.
I think the Anime subject addition was a good idea. That way some people can choose not to have it show up on their page. Another incentive for AC's to login...
As for copper or gold connectors...i really don't care enough - that's a VERY discreet difference
One corrodes over time (statue of liberty anyone?) the other very rarely does. You need good plating on that connector if you want to use it over time.
As for conductors, sorry, copper does conduct better when properly handled sealed from the elements. Gold is easier to work with for RF, etc, and in some low volume cases, the workability means a cheaper part, and the non-corrosion factor makes it so that the function of the prototypes is more predictable.
OK, someone noted G-Force, and I fairly intentionally left OUT Gundam Wing from that list because the editing is actually limited, and they had an uncut airing. Tenchi's editing was less limited, but I heard it gets an uncut airing too, I haven't confirmed it. I like what little I have seen of Gundam Wing.
Flint the Time Detective is on FOX, somewhat humorous, I don't know if it was edited for content.
Card Captor Sakura is HEAVILY edited (skip the first SEVEN episodes?)
DBZ was edited for content, supposedly digital clothing was added.
Sailor Moon are very edited and story elements were changed as well as genders of certain gay and lesbian characters to make a "more acceptable" hetro relationship out of it, and in at least one case I hear, lovers were made out to be friendly cousins.
Pokemon reportedly has very few edits, although a couple episodes were pulled, one due to reported seizures in Japan, and another where a gun was pulled on a character (I heard Ash), the pull was decided at the time of the Columbine, CO incident, a decision due to the political climate at the time.
If anyone wants MY recommendations, in case you decide you want to be open to trying something different, depending on the genres you like:
Mindbending: Serial Experiments Lain
Action/ light scifi W/ great music: Macross Plus and Cowboy Bebop (a very talented woman composed for both)
Action/Mindbending: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Intrigue: Patlabor 2
Humor/Western: Trigun
Humor:Castle of Cagliostro (or anything Lupin based)
Romance: New Kimagure Orange Road (movie)
Historical: Grave of the Fireflies
For Kids: My Neighbor Totoro (Totoros kick Pikachu's @$$)
There is a lot of good stuff out there, this is a quick list (so please don't get offended if your favorite isn't here or you think I slightly mislisted the genre). Pick a few titles based on what type of shows you like and give it a shot.
I like anime, but it isn't always the greatest thing. In my experience, the people that hate anime only hate it because they make their perception by what shows up on US TV:
Robotech (hacked version of three shows to tell a story that wasn't originally there)
Voltron (two shows in anthology)
StarBlazers (mildly hacked version of a Yamato TV show)
Sailor Moon (hey, this show was made with girls in mind, OK?)
DragonBall Z
Speed Racers
Pokemon
Digimon
If one is basing your opinion of all anime based on any one or more of these shows, you need to see what is really, out there, as this is hardly 1% of what is available. I have on numerous occasions changed someones' mind by loaning a few tapes from my collection. Granted, they don't all become fans, but at least it shows them that it isn't all crap, it is simply another form of entertainment.
And deud, lpease porof reda yoru writings.
"The obsession with subtitles is a quintessentially American phenomenon"
No, not really. In the Netherlands Schindler's List was presented theatrically subtitled. Armitage III: Polymatrix (a butcher of the OAVs) is only available with an English dub, presented theatrically in Japan with Japanese subs (even the US DVD has the J-subs, although with English audio. I can provide more examples, but the list wouldn't be exhaustive. It does bug me that Italy, France, etc have some legal restrictions on the availability of subbed theatrical presentations. Do they not want to poison their constituents with a foul foreign language?
I agree with you that a BAD dub is all too common, there is disagreement in the community on which titles are bad or worse than others, but many seem to know they exist. Viz Video seems artfully skilled at removing cultural references in the dub and I'm NOT talking Pokemon here! This happens in Ranma 1/2 and Video Girl Ai that I recall, I haven't watched much other Viz stuff yet.
Viz's motto for their dubs is "Japanese Animation in ENGLISH!". I have to ask, how much of the Japanese nature of the show if you rip out the Japanese voices? I'll let the reader decide what they want though, the US market has room for both dubs and subs.
I watch the subs so I can pick up some of the foreign language, I learn Japanese words from time to time, you really can't do that with a dub nearly as much.
I WILL say that all things being the same, the dubs outsell the subs by over 5:1, ADV has been quoted as saying 10:1 but they have a bigger price differential than other companies on the tapes at least, but the dubs carry the market and make more licences profitable and available for sub lovers, as few titles are dub-only (they do exist, thankfully not too common, now the move is to shift the subs to being available only on DVD).
I can go on much longer, but it's not quite worth my time or your time to deal with it all, there's lots of info out there.
If you don't want to buy a player, that's up to you. Right now, that "next" format doesn't exist, neither do the players, media or anything else, and when it DOES get released, will people still be waiting for the "next" format after that one? I believe it is more than a year away and if the present pattern holds, it will take at least three years to take hold in the market in which the players and media are at available at a good price, and all this time you would be stuck with VHS deck and with DVD players costing under 200$, you'll have the use of it for at least four years, at a cost of about 50$ a year, and your media won't degrade as much with time. I doubt any future standard would abandon the DVD format now that it is in full swing with thousands of titles available. It is backward compatible with the CD format and most players can play the old Video CD format too.
"Bottom line, done properly, DVD is so much better than VHS that it isn't funny." (http://www.animeondvd.com/press/ animeigo/ae001.htm)
Besides, the works that they put out will be mostly subtitled only, and the market for subtitled video tapes has "gone to hell" because many of the sub fans have effectively jumped ship to DVD-only.
The masters for most anime are video only (for TV series), meaning being limited to ~525 lines of vertical resolution, finding good original film for a TV series is rare (Macross is the first I've ever heard of this, and it is getting major cleaning). You will gain little by going high-density. Even if the format is supersceded, it won't render worthless the DVDs that you've bought.
Using your argument, no one should buy computers because they'll be obsolete in a few months, they should wait for "x" technological achievement.
I really don't think people should be buying TVs as while they can display downconverted HDTV using a converter, they cant get the detail. I am living with what I have, an old borrowed 20" Sony until the HDTV capable displays come down a bit more in price. The difference here is that HDTV is available as a standard already, but that market is slow as the displays are still expensive being large TVs.
Region 0 DVD discs are discs that can be played on any DVD working player, regardless of region or modifications.
They do exist. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. There are lists around, but I forget where. Sometimes there is no region listed on the box or the disc and it ends up being R0 (also no region listed but turns out locked to one of them). Sometimes there _IS_ a region stated, but it turns out to be R0, or at least supports more regions than stated. Sometimes they have a globe with an ALL written in them, that means R0.
The region coding is controlled by bits on the disc somewhere.
I imagine they will say: "How quaint. We'd nearly forgotten that our ancestors had their beginnings in such superstition and silliness."
This happens not only in religion, but also science. The ether theory comes to mind (light travels because of an invisible fluid), now we think we know better. I remember a Flogisten or something like that that severely predates modern chemistry, but it was considered the best science of the time. Heck, take a look at a science book that is over a decade old.
Our range of views of science, religion and history change quicker than you think.
The size of the disc might be handy, you could have a disc you always keep in your pocket as an ID, hold basic records, what you believe, family info. That way if a large portion of society gets catastrophically destroyed, way in the future archaologists would be able to gather a very detailed picture of what our society was like.
It wasn't an attack on MacOS. This is "Heavy Iron" running Power4, not some PowerPC chip. I bet AIX will be the only UNIX capable of using that hardware to its max. Plus, MacOS really doesn't take advantage of multiprocessing (up to OS X it was hardly multitasking, but rather multiprogramming).
The technical capabilities and ease of use of an operating system are still two totally distinct things right now.
I bet that MacOS couldn't run on something like this anyways unless they did a custom hack.
Actually, the 1920x1080 24 fps progressive format is exactly the same format that is being used for Star Wars Episode II. That's right, it's being shot in the exact same resultion that is supposedly going to become the broadcast standard for TV. Why would studios being doing that? If they use the same resolution for movies as is going to be used for TV, why would people go to theaters anymore? It doesn't make sense.
I am under the impression that the filming is done at a higher rez (1900 some lines), but will be downsampled to 1280 lines. The same article (in Home Theater) said that while each individual frame is capable of yielding higher resolution than that, there is a "shutter gate error" or something like that that reduces the effective location and resolution accuracy of film.
"The animal is inside-out."
*boom!*
"And it exploded!"
- Galaxy Quest -
A true analog recording still produces a better sound than a sampling digital recording
1) there is no "true analog", you can go down to quantum effects and find aliasing there, but...
There's more information in a digital recording and therefore the quality of recording is higher. Whatever problems you have with a digital recording are due to your preconceptions.
Your preconceptions are wrong too.
One still gets aliasing as you go to the higher frequencies on a digital recording. You don't get that aliasing on analog recordings. The only problem is finding stable analog media, magnetics degrade over time, as well as degrade with every playback, which is the same case with "vinyl" media.
So what about aliasing? The sampling rate is the number of times a second you record a value. For CDs and most computer audio, that is about 44.1kHz. According to Nyquist, you need a sampling rate that is a minimum of double the frequency you want to represent:
_-_-_-
But that means a square wave output. If you record a 11 kHz tone, you will have four samples per cycle:
_ _ _
_- -_- -_- -
Or if not aligned, it could be recorded as something that looks like a square wave!
A good analog recording can still beat consumer digital equipment, but eventually the technology will be beat out with digital equipment that can record up to 192 kHz sampling rates and 24 bits per sample.
If course, any lossy compression makes this a moot point as you loose the "more information" even if it was there in the first place.
(In practice, the ratio would probably be closer to 12-15 Intel boxes per Sun 6500, I would guess, as a PIII doing it kind of integer work would likely outperform a SPARC II)
There is more to a computer than the CPU. I have never needed to test or specify a system for a specific use, I thought that Suns had better memory system bandwidth, something that would seem to me to be a bottleneck here than computation speed.
For the price, x86 is probably better, though I sure hope they selected solid quality components, I would hate to be on a crew trying to maintain 4000 computers. Other things to consider are power use and the need for climate control or at minimum A/C. So, in your support, there are many factors that need to be taken into account when considering these things, maybe x86 won out on a serious shootout.
That's just one story. I am sure Deutschland made millions of the Nazi flags. I am also sure they were able to afford a flag for every mechanized piece of equipment. Maybe every citizen had one. I don't know. But I did see quite a bit of footage from that era showing HUGE marches and everyone had a flag.
I have one or two items from their propaganda machine, one is some medal for the U-boat crews, and the other is some type of holiday pin, I forget as I haven't looked at it in a while.
While I totally disagree with the Nazis, I would never, ever ask someone to give up their right to collect any normal piece of history. A flag. A uniform, swords, weapons, etc . I would be pretty disturbed if someone had death-camp memorabilia, I'd rather those be in museums, but there are a few legitimate reasons to have them, so why d*ck with them?
Anything that is legislated to be learned about only in history books will be revived. People need to see up close that this stuff was REAL. We have enough revisionists as it is, please don't advocate getting rid of the evidence so that these people can say what they please without having some sort of proof that they are wrong.
Yes, there are a few nitwits that believe that having Nazi-related material means you are one and there are those that have Nazi-related material because the agree with those ideas, but I have met neither. Most of the people that have this sort of thing are historians, collectors, families that have them as mementos, etc.
Who is "mcelrath", and why is he such a f*cking idiot? Who is Anonymous Coward and why are half of his posts worthless? If you have a point, make it. Someone trying to slime another post doesn't lower my opinion of the post unless there are some good facts stated about it.
Use better paper. I disagree. A good printer should be able to accept all paper that the manual says it can, and then some (within reason), without mangling paper. I would rather pay more for a printer that takes any normal kind of paper you feed it than pay less for a crap printer so I can pay more for certified HP brand paper and supplies. I shouldn't have to get paper that fits some kind of very exacting tolerances if it can take a variety of thicknesses, take label paper, iron-ons, transparencies, etc, basically what HP tries to sell the average joe. Some printers (actually, most of the ones I've seen) can't handle the slightest amount of curl properly. Also, the Deskjet that I have mangles the last sheet in the tray and won't quit printing unless I pull the power to pull out the ink-soaked munched up piece of paper. Unfortunately HP seems to make the best printers in their price ranges. I wish someone had the resources to show them how to make a better one.
I tried linux on a Digital Alpha and this _cured_ me of most of my desire to try alternative platforms
Well, if this person tried it on a Multia, please try again because Multias SUCK!. Actually, I liked mine, but it was a pain to set up and it wasn't a performance beast. As for the setup difficulty, I had far more trouble setting up Win95 than I did on any Linux installation I have ever done.
Get a 21164 machine or better if you are going to try it.
True, application support isn't perfect (because many idiotic x86 programmers like to use INTs to store POINTERS, BAAAAAAD!), and Alpha binary packages are hard to come by outside of a distribution CD, but with Linux that's kind of expected.
The difference is that I don't like the association of the low-brow high-seas violence (piracy) with something of a much more white collar crime of making unauthorized copies (also piracy)
p iracy
In case FreeUser doesn't understand:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=
Wow, three definitions and two of them go against his argument.
This isn't anything new to slashdot either:
h tml
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/11/26/1010222.s
I remember seeing that press release in December, and the date confirms its age.
Don't you mean Hedonist?
Oh... wait... Sorry.
If a company does not adhere to acceptable standards in product design, testing and construction methods, you open yourselves to lawsuit liability. Being held accountable to process. There are flaws in every complex product you buy, many times you don't notice as it isn't critical or involves using some feature that you ignore or won't show up unless disaster strikes (not nearly enough nails to hold the roof down? It's happened)
So if your design of "enterprise" level software was done by the Beverly Hillbillies and your testing department looks like could have been replaced with devolved apes with no noticible difference, and built using tools and equipment known to be improper for their use, you are totally hosed.
Maybe my sources were wrong, it looks as if MPEG-1 might be all this unit can handle (MPEG 1 at a high but fixed bit rate can still be very nice, the tape medium probably limits the ability to use variable bit rates anyways), and that 21 hours is the max record time and you need the correct DVHS tapes for this unit (a Panasonic one was tested to take SVHS tapes and record digitally, I guess this won't be standard).
From other things I read I was under the impression that it would support Dolby Digital too.
DVHS is a bit new. It was designed to record the full HDTV bitstream bandwidth, and as such might not become popular until HDTV units starts becomming popular. I thought it did MPEG-2, maybe it depends on the unit, but this unit was not designed for home use. Recordable DVD standard CANNOT handle the maximum HDTV bandwidth, which is about 20mbps vs DVDs 10mbps.
I mentioned DHVS in posts a few months ago on slashdot and no one heard of it yet, it was mostly available as demo units to magazines and buried in a few catalogs.
The recorders available were still 1k$ SRP when I checked, that is about a third of the list price of Pioneer's Japanese-only DVD recorder.
The only significant advantages of the DVD recorders are: DVD is that it is non-contact, non-magnetic, smaller media and have random access, but the blank discs can "only" hold 6 hours maximim and still cost 30$
The reviews I've seen said that they can use standard S-VHS tapes. The info I read sometime back said that about 44 hours of standard NTSC broadcast could fit on one tape, because if the compression used.
In terms of production costs, DVD will still be cheaper for high volumes, but the MPAA would have to relent on DVHS if the "HD" DVD technology standard doesn't pan out when people demand HD movies at home. Only time will tell, there are a lot of variables that neither you nor I can pre-concieve, many we can overlook or totally mispredict which way technology goes.
The Garmin units I saw had the serial protocol written in the manual, so you can pull data from it using whatever programmable serial device you choose, you just have to write the software to communicate and to understand what the data means.