Perhaps I'm being unrealistically naive, but the original concept of the patent system was "full disclosure for protection". During the patent term, manufacturers would have to obtain a license to duplicate the patented object, but after those 17 years were up, no assistance (engineering or otherwise_ from the original inventor would have been necessary-- because the invention had been fully disclosed.
If skype had patented its system, it would have had to disclose elements of its protocols which would make it quite easy for any espionage shop to infiltrate, route around or otherwise frustrate.
Consider, for instance, a lock manufacturer. Their cylinders are described in exquisite detail in their patents. A person skilled in the art of lock-picking might find their patents to be of particular interest. But if the lock incorporates security mechanisms which defeat all potential attacks, it doesn't matter if they are disclosed.
However, if the companies key manufacturing division and distribution network are infiltrated, then a duplicate key can probably be manufactured with a modicum of difficulty. That's why such practices are not disclosed in the patent, and are usually subject to "trade secret" regulations.
P.S. I'm not so sure that the NSA and CIA let IP laws get in the way of espionage.
the posters of that article should goto jail for fraud.
Hmm. Robert Mugabe, is that you?
dylan mcgrath is a one eyed sock puppet, and the whole site looks like astro turf now.
That, sir certainly looks like a fraudulent statement. Perhaps even libelous. Would you like to go to jail?
ask why would the do this? to get teh standard adopted faster? why they dont own any media companies. would sone do this? no. they would rather let the format die than to give someoen a good deal.
Toshiba owns many patents on HD-DVD. If the win the format war, they'll make back their initial, ahem, investment, through royalties.
slashdot should really stop posting this kind of shit about how good a new hd player is because it ONLY costs 499 instead of the usual 1000. this is a joke right? dvd players have been ~20 bucks for a long time, who the fuck is gonna buy the extra special super duper model at 25x the price. is it 25x resolution.
Would you care to comment on the quality of your $20 player? Is it bug free? Does it need to be jiggled? Does it produce images that even approach film's clarity?
the cat is out of the bag, everyone knows that if a dvd player can be sold profitably for 20 bucks, so can hd dvd and blu ray. and as for the kindnees of a company to help with these costs this is a new form of the most perversive advertising that can be. these are paper losses only--at best. if toshiba really wants to be kind and have their format win, they better start giving these things away like chocolate santas at chritmass, the way cell phone companies do.
Mmm, cliched imagery...
more than ever people are asking whats in it for me? a vauge paper trail that basically comes out like this "well we've never done this before, but the boss has just agreed to knock 200 dollars of the price of that dvd player" just doesnt cut it. if anything it is non existent sales, and the growing layer of dust in the warehouse that has prompted toshiba to take action. note to marketing idiots; there are fewer suckers with money these days, you have already bled most of them dry. you better lower the price to ~20 bucks and fast, before your format starts to look like a loser format, cuz when that happens you wont be able to even give them away.
MEMO To: Marketing From: Da Boss
DIVX may have a future. Certain postings on slashdot have persuaded me that there exists a class of marks ^H^H^H^H^H who believe that the cellular model-- i.e. provide a free phone in return for 24 monthly payments of $39.95-- may be applicable to the DVD market. Given a subsidized player, there may be a market for one time playable discs.
Evolution says that we all share a common ancestor; this really has no practical or scientific value (think about it). Creation says we were designed/created; this has no scientific value either (though it might have practical value; if true, there might be a greater purpose to life). Both creation and evolution state that organisms change over time, developing mutations and being selected (sometimes artificially) by environments; now this has scientific and practical value.
Creationists believe that natural selection is not responsible for biological variation-- God is. Compromise is easy when you don't have to understand the basics of either position.
What I don't like is companies selling content on HD media without disclosing that the content was not originally created in HD
WARNING WARNING WARNING
Lawrence of Arabia predates HD. Even though it was originally filmed using 65mm film, a process that theoretically is capable of many thousands of lines of resolution, it's not HD, and predates digital cinema by many decades. If you're concerned about this, please return this Bluray disc for a refund, and check out the DVD instead, Sure, it's lower resolution. But then, who's to say that the original movie, which was intended to be projected onto a 50 foot screen contained any more details? You? You jest.
No, seriously. Maybe you should check out Episode II. Attack of the Clones. It even has Ewan McGregor pretending to be a young Alec Guinness. No Peter O'Toole, but it does have Ahmed Best.
Might as well post this Oppo 970HD Advanced Setup Guide then. It contains all sorts of setup techniques that Oppo 971h owners have had to glean from places like avsforum-- the original 971h manual was pretty light on details.
The 970HD was tested with 480i and 720p output over HDMI to a Panasonic AE900 720p LCD projector and over component at 480p to a Mitsubishi RPTV. Both displays have been professionally calibrated.
A full range of video adjustments are available, including saturation, hue and even three gamma settings. For testing purposes, all controls were in their "0" or "Off" positions.
The 970HD was subjected to the usual barrage of test disk patterns, including those from DVE, Faroudja, HQV and Avia Pro. Fortunately, the Mediatek chip provides motion adaptive deinterlacing, so it did well with the Faroudja pendulum and flag-waving tests. It was not so fortunate with the HQV "Jaggies" tests for directional interpolation and filtering, but in fairness, there are few players that can fully pass those tests (the 971H being one of them), especially those priced similarly to the 970HD. The 970HD flew through the Avia Pro layer change test, as was expected since fast layer changes are an advantage of the Mediatek chip. The 970HD also passes below black over both HDMI and component.
As mentioned earlier, there was no evidence of any Y/C delay problems and no ringing or other sharpness issues at the default player settings. PAL to NTSC conversion appears to be on a par with the 971H, which is quite good. However, it does not do 2:2 cadence, so if you have a lot of PAL disks, you should look to a different player.
All in all, the test disk performance of the 970HD was only a step below that of the 971H and with most DVDs and displays, the difference would be negligible.
On the other hand, with some specific displays, the Oppo 971 macroblocks. I haven't had this problem. Some say the chipset is buggy. Others claim that proper display calibration will get rid of the problem. And the 970 decodes SACD, in addition to DVD-Audio.
Some people really enjoy the idea of watching films in a theater (big screen, loud sounds-- up to 115 dB for the LFE, and superb picture and sound quality) but they can't stand the reality (overpriced popcorn, sticky floors, cell phones, hiring a babysitter). So they build their own theaters. What's wrong with that?
Besides, LOTR doesn't play locally, at least anymore.
Similarly if a film's supposed to be dark, don't crank the brightness up to 5000%.
Film has an incredible high contrast ratio. Blacks are dark as pitch, and whites are thousands of times brighter. Film isn't interlaced either.
(No, don't go home in turn the contrast controls way up. But a properly calibrated display, even one calibrated using THX's optimode, does add a lot to the movie.)
Analog technology is expensive. With CDs, there's really no point to mounting the player on the same sort of isolation platform that's normally used for electron microscopes. But with vinyl, it improves the signal to noise ratio. Of course, the increased signal might still be masked by other factors.
The real news is that the first bluray player has been released. Upscaling DVD players have been available for a long, long time. But if you must always look upon the old with fresh eyes, here's an overview of one upscaler, Faroudja's DCDI
The oppo, (which is regarded as one of the best upsampling DVD players) doesn't play bluray disks. Although an upscaled image can look very good indeed, a true HD image looks even better. Moreover, even the best DVDs suffer from compression artifacts.
The Oppo, btw, lists for $199, not $150. I suppose you can get a refurbed item cheaper, but then it's a matter of "who do you trust more, the manufacturer or the refurbisher?"
Some atsc tuners have IEEE1394 ports. So, assuming you can get such a tuner, and assuming that you can receive ATSC over the air, you can record to your hearts content.
However, I'm willing to accept the argument that you don't find it worth it at the current cost, especially since your not a film hobbyist, but saying that the average human eye cannot tell the difference between SD and HD is as ridiculous than saying the average ear cannot tell the difference between an 2.1 and 5.1 audio.
2.1 audio? I think that speaks to you lack of familiarity with high end audio, CDs are stereo (2.0 in your parlance). They don't have an additional boom track.
A pair of good stereo speakers, if positioned properly, can create a convincingly three dimensional sound stage. A poor quality "5.1" setup cannot.
How far are your eyes from your laptop? Your eyes have a limited resolution (roughly 1 arc second). Simple trigonometry can be used to calculate what screen size is required, given a specified viewing distance.
With HDTV, CSI becomes so much more compelling. The blood, the gore, the mysterious bodily fluids just look so much more amazing at six times the resolution. And never will you quibble about the color of blood. HDTV colors are stable and precise.
Slashdot Mirror
I have allergies, and often my sense of smell is less than acute. And I do like to make guacamole.
This expert advocates using all five senses to assess ripeness.
Throw out more fruit as people only choose the least ripe.
Why would they choose the least ripe? I like to buy ripe fruit, and find it annoying when my fondling skills fail.
"All men are guilty. They're born innocent, but it doesn't last." -- from "le circle rouge" (1970)
Perhaps I'm being unrealistically naive, but the original concept of the patent system was "full disclosure for protection". During the patent term, manufacturers would have to obtain a license to duplicate the patented object, but after those 17 years were up, no assistance (engineering or otherwise_ from the original inventor would have been necessary-- because the invention had been fully disclosed.
If skype had patented its system, it would have had to disclose elements of its protocols which would make it quite easy for any espionage shop to infiltrate, route around or otherwise frustrate.
Consider, for instance, a lock manufacturer. Their cylinders are described in exquisite detail in their patents. A person skilled in the art of lock-picking might find their patents to be of particular interest. But if the lock incorporates security mechanisms which defeat all potential attacks, it doesn't matter if they are disclosed.
However, if the companies key manufacturing division and distribution network are infiltrated, then a duplicate key can probably be manufactured with a modicum of difficulty. That's why such practices are not disclosed in the patent, and are usually subject to "trade secret" regulations.
P.S. I'm not so sure that the NSA and CIA let IP laws get in the way of espionage.
If I buy a painting from a painter and spray paint a smiley face on it no one can stop me. Wtf is with this ruling?
Postings on slashdot should not be construed as legal advice
the posters of that article should goto jail for fraud.
Hmm. Robert Mugabe, is that you?
dylan mcgrath is a one eyed sock puppet, and the whole site looks like astro turf now.
That, sir certainly looks like a fraudulent statement. Perhaps even libelous. Would you like to go to jail?
ask why would the do this? to get teh standard adopted faster? why they dont own any media companies. would sone do this? no. they would rather let the format die than to give someoen a good deal.
Toshiba owns many patents on HD-DVD. If the win the format war, they'll make back their initial, ahem, investment, through royalties.
slashdot should really stop posting this kind of shit about how good a new hd player is because it ONLY costs 499 instead of the usual 1000. this is a joke right? dvd players have been ~20 bucks for a long time, who the fuck is gonna buy the extra special super duper model at 25x the price. is it 25x resolution.
Would you care to comment on the quality of your $20 player? Is it bug free? Does it need to be jiggled? Does it produce images that even approach film's clarity?
the cat is out of the bag, everyone knows that if a dvd player can be sold profitably for 20 bucks, so can hd dvd and blu ray. and as for the kindnees of a company to help with these costs this is a new form of the most perversive advertising that can be. these are paper losses only--at best. if toshiba really wants to be kind and have their format win, they better start giving these things away like chocolate santas at chritmass, the way cell phone companies do.
Mmm, cliched imagery...
more than ever people are asking whats in it for me? a vauge paper trail that basically comes out like this "well we've never done this before, but the boss has just agreed to knock 200 dollars of the price of that dvd player" just doesnt cut it. if anything it is non existent sales, and the growing layer of dust in the warehouse that has prompted toshiba to take action. note to marketing idiots; there are fewer suckers with money these days, you have already bled most of them dry. you better lower the price to ~20 bucks and fast, before your format starts to look like a loser format, cuz when that happens you wont be able to even give them away.
MEMO
To: Marketing
From: Da Boss
DIVX may have a future. Certain postings on slashdot have persuaded me that there exists a class of marks ^H^H^H^H^H who believe that the cellular model-- i.e. provide a free phone in return for 24 monthly payments of $39.95-- may be applicable to the DVD market. Given a subsidized player, there may be a market for one time playable discs.
and that the Samsung player states clearly in it's manual that it cannot play dual layer discs
Won't you please quote the relevant section?
Evolution says that we all share a common ancestor; this really has no practical or scientific value (think about it). Creation says we were designed/created; this has no scientific value either (though it might have practical value; if true, there might be a greater purpose to life). Both creation and evolution state that organisms change over time, developing mutations and being selected (sometimes artificially) by environments; now this has scientific and practical value.
Creationists believe that natural selection is not responsible for biological variation-- God is. Compromise is easy when you don't have to understand the basics of either position.
What I don't like is companies selling content on HD media without disclosing that the content was not originally created in HD
WARNING WARNING WARNING
Lawrence of Arabia predates HD. Even though it was originally filmed using 65mm film, a process that theoretically is capable of many thousands of lines of resolution, it's not HD, and predates digital cinema by many decades. If you're concerned about this, please return this Bluray disc for a refund, and check out the DVD instead, Sure, it's lower resolution. But then, who's to say that the original movie, which was intended to be projected onto a 50 foot screen contained any more details? You? You jest.
No, seriously. Maybe you should check out Episode II. Attack of the Clones. It even has Ewan McGregor pretending to be a young Alec Guinness. No Peter O'Toole, but it does have Ahmed Best.
WARNING WARNING WARNING
The only possible course of action to take against users searching for this stuff is timing out their requests for a while.
Or they could simply allow the search.
CSI ripped off that technique from Bladerunner
I gather that you have a low opinion of 35 mm film?
Might as well post this Oppo 970HD Advanced Setup Guide then. It contains all sorts of setup techniques that Oppo 971h owners have had to glean from places like avsforum-- the original 971h manual was pretty light on details.
From a review
On the other hand, with some specific displays, the Oppo 971 macroblocks. I haven't had this problem. Some say the chipset is buggy. Others claim that proper display calibration will get rid of the problem. And the 970 decodes SACD, in addition to DVD-Audio.
Some people really enjoy the idea of watching films in a theater (big screen, loud sounds-- up to 115 dB for the LFE, and superb picture and sound quality) but they can't stand the reality (overpriced popcorn, sticky floors, cell phones, hiring a babysitter). So they build their own theaters. What's wrong with that?
Besides, LOTR doesn't play locally, at least anymore.
Similarly if a film's supposed to be dark, don't crank the brightness up to 5000%.
Film has an incredible high contrast ratio. Blacks are dark as pitch, and whites are thousands of times brighter. Film isn't interlaced either.
(No, don't go home in turn the contrast controls way up. But a properly calibrated display, even one calibrated using THX's optimode, does add a lot to the movie.)
Analog technology is expensive. With CDs, there's really no point to mounting the player on the same sort of isolation platform that's normally used for electron microscopes. But with vinyl, it improves the signal to noise ratio. Of course, the increased signal might still be masked by other factors.
The real news is that the first bluray player has been released. Upscaling DVD players have been available for a long, long time. But if you must always look upon the old with fresh eyes, here's an overview of one upscaler, Faroudja's DCDI
The oppo, (which is regarded as one of the best upsampling DVD players) doesn't play bluray disks. Although an upscaled image can look very good indeed, a true HD image looks even better. Moreover, even the best DVDs suffer from compression artifacts.
The Oppo, btw, lists for $199, not $150. I suppose you can get a refurbed item cheaper, but then it's a matter of "who do you trust more, the manufacturer or the refurbisher?"
And you want them to be deterred? Why?
Some atsc tuners have IEEE1394 ports. So, assuming you can get such a tuner, and assuming that you can receive ATSC over the air, you can record to your hearts content.
However, I'm willing to accept the argument that you don't find it worth it at the current cost, especially since your not a film hobbyist, but saying that the average human eye cannot tell the difference between SD and HD is as ridiculous than saying the average ear cannot tell the difference between an 2.1 and 5.1 audio.
2.1 audio? I think that speaks to you lack of familiarity with high end audio, CDs are stereo (2.0 in your parlance). They don't have an additional boom track.
A pair of good stereo speakers, if positioned properly, can create a convincingly three dimensional sound stage. A poor quality "5.1" setup cannot.
How far are your eyes from your laptop? Your eyes have a limited resolution (roughly 1 arc second). Simple trigonometry can be used to calculate what screen size is required, given a specified viewing distance.
Maybe sony makes a nice atsc tuner.
With HDTV, CSI becomes so much more compelling. The blood, the gore, the mysterious bodily fluids just look so much more amazing at six times the resolution. And never will you quibble about the color of blood. HDTV colors are stable and precise.