From the POV of someone who has used digital cable all over the SF Bay Area, the allegedy heart of the techo savoir-faire, I will say it is a massive disappointment, and whose advertising is flagrantly misleading. Okay, maybe in some circles subcribing to digital cable over a satelite dish will get you a promotion at work, laid or a not-guilty verdict in the US court of law, but at the expense of getting a product that is obsolete at the time of its deployment. As may have already pointed out, the digital channels are ridden with MPEG-like pixelation that really looks atrocious when the image is dark with subtle color gradients, as they are reproduced to look like a 24 bit targa would look if you viewed it in 256 colors. What people have not brought up is the poverty of the controller. It is based on a 286 so even changing channels is abysmally slow, not to mention how long it takes the digital channels' image to redraw. AT&T's answer to this was to make even more advertisement banners and other rubbish appear in the menu system so surfing channels is even more unbearable. I've been told by those "in the know" that the slow controller is that way because the bandwidth allotted to send the digital information is so weak that a faster controller would not help much, so why make it more expensive. Does anyone know if this is true? I will say that while sattelite service poses other issues, namely the up front costs, the menu system and general image quality is far superior to digital cable's. Presently, I still am on analogue cable, and I'm lucky enough to be in a neighborhood where the broadcasted channels don't noticably ghost over their respective cable channels, and I have Cartoon Network, so I've got what I need. AT&T is doing it's best to get people off of analogue cable- on their order site they don't even offer it as an available product!
"Everything I've learned I got from eating the brains of other people" - Terry Jones
Actually, a friend of mine works at ColorKinetics and the patent they have is on the specifc process they use to control the color of the LED, not the full color LED itself. To me, this seems to be a reasonable patent, as the process was a new concept a few years ago, and are now focusing their business on developing the applications of this technology, partiuclarly in te entertainment and retail industry. If I'm not mistaken, this is the sort of thing that patents are supposed to allow new companies to do.
If you've ever actually seen on of their rigs in action, I think that you would agree that they have come up with a clever device. What this will do to the process of color application is pretty amazing.
Slashdot Mirror
From the POV of someone who has used digital cable all over the SF Bay Area, the allegedy heart of the techo savoir-faire, I will say it is a massive disappointment, and whose advertising is flagrantly misleading. Okay, maybe in some circles subcribing to digital cable over a satelite dish will get you a promotion at work, laid or a not-guilty verdict in the US court of law, but at the expense of getting a product that is obsolete at the time of its deployment. As may have already pointed out, the digital channels are ridden with MPEG-like pixelation that really looks atrocious when the image is dark with subtle color gradients, as they are reproduced to look like a 24 bit targa would look if you viewed it in 256 colors. What people have not brought up is the poverty of the controller. It is based on a 286 so even changing channels is abysmally slow, not to mention how long it takes the digital channels' image to redraw. AT&T's answer to this was to make even more advertisement banners and other rubbish appear in the menu system so surfing channels is even more unbearable. I've been told by those "in the know" that the slow controller is that way because the bandwidth allotted to send the digital information is so weak that a faster controller would not help much, so why make it more expensive. Does anyone know if this is true? I will say that while sattelite service poses other issues, namely the up front costs, the menu system and general image quality is far superior to digital cable's. Presently, I still am on analogue cable, and I'm lucky enough to be in a neighborhood where the broadcasted channels don't noticably ghost over their respective cable channels, and I have Cartoon Network, so I've got what I need. AT&T is doing it's best to get people off of analogue cable- on their order site they don't even offer it as an available product! "Everything I've learned I got from eating the brains of other people" - Terry Jones
Actually, a friend of mine works at ColorKinetics and the patent they have is on the specifc process they use to control the color of the LED, not the full color LED itself. To me, this seems to be a reasonable patent, as the process was a new concept a few years ago, and are now focusing their business on developing the applications of this technology, partiuclarly in te entertainment and retail industry. If I'm not mistaken, this is the sort of thing that patents are supposed to allow new companies to do. If you've ever actually seen on of their rigs in action, I think that you would agree that they have come up with a clever device. What this will do to the process of color application is pretty amazing.