Yeah, but realize that when the 5C stuff gets added to the stream (presuming it goes over broadcast as well), then all of the devices will immediately be in violation of the DMCA... fun fun fun.
And yes, the HiPix is the most popular. WinTV-D is so crippled as to be nearly useless. I'm not very familiar with the AccessDTV card yet.
Go read my other post on this... Open Cable Labs is the same "company" that has made the HDTV cable box standard. And yes, there is a standard agreed upon. There's no licensing rules yet though, so until that occurs forget any cable company using it.
Much the same is true with the standard cable box. The cable companies are inntentionally dragging their feet here. It's really not in their best interest to have standards, because it opens them up to competition and piracy. They know this.
Plus, if you look at the recent FCC mandates, decisions, and so forth you'll see that the FCC cares very little for the public (who it is supposed to represent) and has been siding more and more with big business (particularly the distribution side such as studios). Which is why long standing rules regarding station ownership have been ignored or changed (Rupert Murdoch owning 2 stations in NYC, ClearChannel owning 49% of god-knows-how-many stations nationwide, etc.). Also why the FCC decided "must carry" doesn't apply to HDTV. And why they've failed to impose any reasonable standards on the industry, instead letting the various manufacturers, broadcasters, etc. fight it out for a decade or so.
That said, it may actually happen. Eventually. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Ah... both TiVo and Replay are computer based solutions.
They just hide the bits that look like a computer.
And there's no reason that a future, home built, system can't do this too. But it requires a very different mindset for the UI - particularly since the user will want to interact via a remote instead of a keyboard (and no, an IR/RF keyboard/mouse isn't good enough - they're too damn big).
Convergence is finally coming, just not in the way that was expected.
Why do nanobots have to be metallic and reliant upon the whims of EM?
You're right. They could be ceramic. But the leading research right now is using metallic atoms right now. Ceramic molecules tend to be on the large side for this scale work.
Virii and bacterium have been doing fine for millions of years without caring about magnetics except where it was an advantage.
Ok, a couple things here... first off, some of the nanotech that's going on make a virus look like a freaking planet. And bacteria are that much bigger yet than virii. So the scale is off.
Second, you are no longer talking about nano-technology here. You're talking about biologics. The two are vastly different (although there is some work being done using bacteria as transistors). Bacteria and virii tend to be self-replicating, which is not a necessary goal for nanotechnology (nor is it inherently a good thing for nanobots - c.f. gray goo). They are constructed entirely differently, and it's doubtful that we'd ever bother to build one "from scratch" instead of taking something that works and modifying it to do what we wanted to.
Yeah, I suppose you could try and build nanotech out of protein chains and whatnot as well, but that's another field of research that's in it's infancy, even as compared to nanotech.
Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo
I would love this. Unfortunately the cable industry is convinced that any form of standardization is inherently evil, so TiVo would have to negotiate with each fiefdom separately.
Of course, the cable companies aren't entirely stupid. They're looking at this as well. Of course, they are sufficiently stupid that instead of talking to TiVo, SonicBlue, or even MS, they're working on it on their own. Each of them (c.f. standardization above).
Our cable provider moved to digital cable awhile back. And I can't get sattelite because of some 60' trees blocking my SW view (no, they're not on my property, so cutting them down isn't an option). So I have the wonderful IR blasters controlling my cable box. And they occasionally don't change the channel, which leads to odd things getting recorded. Yeah, it sucks. Big time.
A TiVo-like device for HDTV is years off, if ever. First, there's a distinct lack of interface standardization between set-top box makers. Sure, there's been standards agreed to, even for the cable industry. They've been summarily ignored, and the FCC is too balless to actually step in and impose a standard that they've been asking for since 1998.
On top of that, Hollywood stepped in a few years ago and started the standard whining on how evil it is for peons, er, I mean, consumers to be able to record shows and then do something as absurd as watch them when they want instead of when the broadcast studio wants. Ridiculous concept. So part of the agreement includes requirements so that shows can be flagged for record, record-once (e.g. - no copies), or no-record. This has been agreed to by everyone involved - the studios, the broadcasters, and the equipment manufacturers.
Think we're done yet? Nope. Because while Hollywood whined until they got the above, they then decided about a year later that this was utterly insufficient. Why? Because they still didn't have the control they wanted. No, they set about to make a standard that not only allowed them to control what you recorded, but also how long you recorded it for and how many times you could watch it! That's right, they wanted equipment manufacturers to build into their systems the ability for an outside source to delete recordings after an arbitrary amount of time, or make it so you could only watch something once (gee, hope everyone in the household was around to watch it).
Both the cable industry and the studios were all for this. The equipment manufacturers collectively told them to stick it up their ass.
But, all told, the hope for a digital VCR or PVR that will do direct digital recording is slim right now. There's no way to stop someone from building a TiVo-like device that re-encodes the stream, but you have the inherent problems of quality degradation and increased silicon requirements.
I think making the specs public is all we ever really asked for.
Which is akin, in some cases, to saying "come on in and take the kitchen sink while you're at it" for hardware manufacturers.
The Linux community (and the OSS community at large) needs to get over this. Open Source is fine and grand, but it's not always viable. With that in mind, a company should either make the interface available, or make reliable, fast, and solid drivers available on a regular basis.
Those that choose neither may very well be reviled. Those that choose one or the other should be praised. And those that choose to reveal the interface AND help in writing the drivers should be revered.
But bitching about a company that chooses to keep trade secrets secret is really f'ing stupid.
The other replies have it well said, except that as a geek I think putting an ethernet interface on this would be a really, really bad move.
USB is way, way easier to deal with than ethernet. You don't have to worry about the connection. There's absolutely zero setup beyond a driver. With ethernet you would have to have a rather extensive setup - give it an IP or have a DHCP server somewhere, have a switch/hub with a spare port, point the damn thing at the computer that has the software installed, etc. etc. etc.
With USB you plug it in, install the driver (which would probably also install the software you need to use it), and go. USB is more than capable of handling the bandwidth for this, the ports are more widely available (even bargain basement PC's have 2 USB root ports; good PC's nowadays have 6-10, with 2-4 on the front), and cheaper.
It has nothing to do with being marketed for geeks or for the general public. It has everything about using the right tool for the right job.
For KDE and GNOME that slowness rather stems from the kparts/bonobo component architectures
So? The point remains that it's significantly slower than other windowing systems that aren't network transparant.
Then, of course, there's the utter lack of standardized widgets for doing just about anything. Which is where kparts, gtk, etc. come in. But it's a sad statement that a GUI that is WELL over 10 years old (X11 predates XFree86) is just starting to get some decent standardized widgets (sorry, no, CDE, OpenWindows, Motif, etc. didn't cut the mustard even when they were new).
And while developing for Windows is a PITA, developing for X has been even worse traditionally. It's changing, again thanks to the libraries mentioned above, but it's taken way way too long.
Realistically the only trick that X11 has over the competition is network transparancy. And that kicks ass, no question. But I don't think it's worth everything that has been missing (and will continue to be missing) for that. I mean come on, if you can run a Windows desktop over the network with decent response then network transparancy doesn't mean a hell of a lot anymore. Windows is about as network-hostile of a desktop as you can get.
Venturing further OT...
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Lunar Power
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I should've gone and looked for specific models... like the Michelin X-1 which is rated for 80,000 miles, the Firestone Affinity Touring also rated for 80K, and the Goodyear Regatta2. Yokohama, Bridgestone, and pretty much all the other big tire companies also have 70-80k rated tires.
Whether or not they're available for your car is another question (doubtful if you have a car that likes Z rated tiers), and they're all "touring" tires, which basically means general usage in moderate climates. They're all designed to work well in the rain as well as dry roads, but probably aren't top-notch in snow/ice (but work fine with snow chains if legal wherever you live).
I'd also question the long-term usability. I suspect that they were originally designed for use by high-mileage vehicles, but they're certainly being marketed toward the general public. On the upside, they've come down in price since I last looked at tires. About 2 years ago they were in the $100-150 range each, now they're in the $50-75 range.
You also receive product updates, at least on the software side. Of course, the amount of development work they can do is significantly limited by the hardware, but they've still added some nice stuff in 1.3, 2.0, and a bit of stuff in 3.0.
Yes, it is rather like the various other "get the hardware for free and lease the software" schemes that have almost universally failed. And I hope that isn't in the cards for TiVo, but who knows.
My claim is simply that you're paying for more than just the listings. And I believe that currently that's a worthwhile service. If you don't think that, well, you bought the hardware. Wipe the drives clean and write your own software from the ground up. A fair number of the hardware interfaces you'll need are open sourced, since TiVo linked them to the kernel, and available at TiVo's site. But don't use their software, download listings into it from a 3rd party source, and then claim that TiVo's service is a ripoff... you're still using the majority of it without paying. The only thing you paid for upfront was the hardware.
I think you should go and look at some newer tires. Maybe here.
There are numerous brands of tires for standard passanger vehicles with rated lifetimes of 70,000 miles. No, they're not sporty tires. They don't have the grip that S and up brands have because they're made of harder rubber. If you start looking at the really sporty tires (V-Z ratings) you'll notice that few, if any, have mileage ratings. The few that do will be 18000 miles or less. Most Z rated tires will only last a few thousand miles. Why? Because the rubber on them is very soft in order to grip the road better. It also means it wears down faster.
There are tradeoffs in tires, just as with anything else, but if you're not going to drive like a race car driver then a 70,000 mile rated tire may very well be cost effective. The one big advantage to buying a more sporty tire (S or T rating) is that you'll have the additional grip in instances you NEED it. I know, for sure, that new tires have saved me from more than one accident.
The service, in question, is the whole PVR bundle.
Nobody's done everything that TiVo can yet, much less doing it with nearly rock-solid stability and an easy user interface. When you can, then you can start whining about how TiVo is too expensive. Not until then.
And since by that time I will have been using my TiVo for well over 2 years, and I paid for the "lifetime" subscription, well, I'll have easily have gotten my money's worth.
Do you really want the TV to start to flicker when the kid is playing Quake 5?
It's called a dedicated system. If the kid is playing Quake5, then he's doing it on the TV, so it's not an issue.
What many forget (or never knew) is that a PVR is recording at least one stream of TV to disk 24/7. That's a pretty big load on a current machine to begin with if you try to do other things with the computer too.
Uh... I have two TiVo's. I'm quite familiar with them. And did you know that the original TiVo does all that encoding, plus decoding a second stream, plus indexing various data with a 80 MHz CPU, right?
It's, again, called dedicated hardware. A MPEG-2 encoder offloads nearly 100% of the burdon from the CPU. MPEG-2 decoding is pretty strenuous, but a modern video card offloads the heaviest parts, so you can easily get away with "as little as" a 500 MHz P3. TiVo's have dedicated MPEG2 decoding as well, but you really don't want that if you want the deinterlacing abilities as well.
I could care less about watching TV at my computer. But if you follow trends in the Home Theater market you'd know that, right now, you can put together a $1500 computer that does virtually everything that a $30000 line multiplier, a $1000 DVD player, a $1000 MP3 jukebox, and large bits of what a $4000 preamp can do.
Plus you can play games, have a CD catalog, full X10 control, and quite a bit else which is either difficult or expensive to do with a traditional home theater setup.
Within a few months to a year you'll be able to do all of the above, plus 100% of a pre-amp, a PVR, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.
Replacing $40k+ of equipment with a $1500 box is what the old idea of convergence is all about. Not to mention that you're replacing 3-5 separate components with one, and that one is more configurable and expandable than the original components were.
So what's missing? Well, there are some really good sound cards out there now (check AVS Forum for info), but I don't think they do all the latest sound formats, particularly the 7.1 or 8.1 ones. There's a big gap in user friendliness, ease of setup (and that's considering how intricate a lot of high-end AV gear is to setup too), and stability. And there's still no replacement for a stand-alone PVR - although it's getting closer and closer.
That said, I will continue to shake my head sadly at people who refuse to buy a TiVo/Replay because they either think it's too expensive ("$10/month? That's absurd!") or are worried about it being around in X amount of time. To the former I say - if you can build it for cheaper, do it. Thusfar nobody has. There's a reason you're paying for the service, it's because nobody else can provide it. To the latter, well, this _is_ the future of television. In this time of hard to get VC, both companies are still getting it. And, worst comes to worst, if they fold then the data needed to make the unit functional (guide data) is available from other sources. (I don't agree with not paying for service as long as TiVo exists, because then you're just looking for a free lunch and not paying for services rendered -- but I also think not getting the lifetime service is rather silly).
And, of course, if he'd used cables worth a damn the video would've been fine. Not that CompUSA sells those kind of cables.
The only nit is that the people really should've checked measurements and whatnot beforehand to make sure that things would work as expected in the location they wanted, but who here has ever bought something and discovered that it doesn't QUITE fit? Personally, I keep expecting Lowe's and Home Depot to tell me "No, sorry sir, you've returned/exchanged enough this year"
Will we ever see easy to change CD-Rom drive front covers to match your beige/black computer?
Most CD drives have this already, and have had it for, well, forever... and I've never seen a floppy drive without a removable front bezel, largely because some cases don't allow a bezel at all on the floppy.
There are many cases with a door over all the bezels so that even if you have mismatching colors, you can just hide it.
Finally, you might be amazed at just how well a black felt tipped pen works on a beige or white bezel.
The best online place I've seen for black cases, accessories, and bezels is Directron. They have decent prices and a pretty good record too. They have a large variety of color cases as well, along with aluminum, transparant, and random other stuff.
Sure. And they're still losing money. Go look at their financials. The 10-K for 2001 shows a net loss of $60 million for last year.
Whether or not they're making a profit on a chip is irrelevant. They bled green last year, especially considering that they had a $1B net profit for 2000... the same year they were selling GHz chips for $1k each. They need higher margins, and they know it.
The former has more commentary and a wider range of benchmarks. The latter has a wider range of cards.
And yes, you could bump up performance by turning off options, but, uh... you can turn it back on by spending another $10-25 too.
The games that give the top end cards problems are generally those with really shitty engines. Everquest, for example, has one of the worst engines I know of. But that doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most popular games out there, and that if you're an EQ player you are concerned PURELY with how the system will perform in EQ, not whether or not the code is well written.
One of the reasons Dell won't use Athlon's is that AMD can't supply them enough chips, particularly when a new chip comes out.
Of course, it's questionable (at best) that Intel supplies Dell with enough chips when a new CPU comes out, but at least with Intel it's not a question whether or not they'll be able to ramp production up in a relatively short period.
Sorry, don't have the reference on exactly how many fabs AMD has access to currently, but it's a relatively low number, and the number of fabs that can produce the newest chips is even smaller (3 as I recall).
Plus AMD is still using 8" (200mm) wafers, and has no plans to upgrade to 12" (300mm) wafers for several years. Intel uses 12" wafers in some (or all?) of its fabs. Personally, I'm amazed that AMD is still using 8" wafers... TI transitioned its lead plants to 12" back when I worked there in '96. There's 225% more area on a 12" wafer compared to an 8" wafer, without an equivalent increase in process time and cost.
Plus, once the Hammers are released, the price of Athlons should take a cut.
Questionable... AMD hasn't been dropping prices recently. Because they're not making money.
The Hammer series is likely to debut at a considerably higher price than the most expensive Athlon now - a lot of pundits are saying the $500-$750 range, and a few believe $750-$1000 is more likely. After all, it was under 2 years ago that the first gigahertz CPU's came out, and they were priced at >$1000 ea.
There will be some price cuts, as there always is, but probably not the freefall that we've seen in the past few years.
One of AMD's critical weaknesses is a lack of fab space. They have very few fabs available to them, and they need to very carefully select which fab will produce which silicon. (This is actually a common issue with silicon fabs, since a new fab runs $3B or so nowadays, but AMD has a really bad space shortage problem for the size they are)
If you look at the AMD roadmap the future is the Hammer series - which incorporates the x86-64 instruction set - and Barton, which is allegedly a hyped up Athlon on a smaller core (0.13 micron) with no x86-64. Barton is being poised as the low end processor, while the Hammers are high-end.
With that in mind, where would a Duron fit? Realize that AMD is currently losing money. Ridding themselves of Duron not only frees up fab space, but also allows them to move the entire processor cost structure up a notch or two.
The current bottom end of the market is probably going to disappear, since the Celeron doesn't have much life in it either. But since they're already unpopular in the retail market, it's not a huge loss. If you want to build a cheap system, you're better off buying components that aren't brand new anyway. Swaps, ebay, and so forth are dirt cheap on those kinds of things.
I suspect the brother did, since the brother was wanting to buy the GF3 and the poster disuaded him.
Maybe he DOESN'T play Wolfenstien?
The statement was made that a GF2MX was adequate "for any current game". That's simply not true. Wolfenstein is hardly the only game that can push more data than a GF2MX can handle.
Something I think game devlopers have forgotten lately is how to make a game fun
I enjoy games that help you use your brain
Grats on the non sequiteur. Neither point has anything to do with the original supposition (and this entire thread really has nothing to do with the article). But that said...
Yes, some developers forget the fun part and go for eye candy. The good games don't do this. Yes, they have eye candy, but they also have good gameplay. If you don't have the gameplay, you won't surive, no matter how pretty you attempt to make it. Witness Daikatana. Look at all the really bad strategy games.
As for the "use your brain" - nice way to try and make FPS's look like games for children. They aren't. Frankly, I'm mediocre at best in deathmatch/CTF. I've played with some top calibur people, and while, yes, they have incredible reflexes, they also KNOW what their opponents are going to do. Which is why when you play someone that good you'll wonder how the hell they knew where you were, or how they made that shot. They got inside your head and knew what you would do. Which is why a good player on a modem can defeat some LPB regardless of ping.
Strategy games are a different calibur, and I don't even want to think how much time I've spent playing Civ, Civ2, Masters of Orion, and the like. But they have very different requirements in terms of hardware (although most of the RTS's are now getting high system requirements like FPS's do).
ALso, for someone who only plays games occasionally, it just costs way to much to buy one of these hot video cards.
Did you even READ the original? The guy wanted a bigger card, because he apparantly does play games enough to justify it. And either he could afford it or he was purchasing a new PC for no real purpose in the first place.
If you don't have the requirements for item X, then don't buy item X. The requirements put forth in the prior posting had some incorrect conclusions. Nothing you've said has influenced that.
That's right. After all, businesses don't do this now.
Oh hold it... what's that "please bring your social security card and a picture id or your passport" bit that I go through everytime I change jobs?
Yes, this is all very preliminary. But I don't think it's an absurd concept to think that should the government move this way that a MS Passport would become the defacto electronic registration method for, well, everything. Legally, nobody is supposed to ask for your Social Security Number except the Social Security Administration and the IRS. Realistically it has become a form of national ID, particularly in the credit and financial sector. I know. I worked with credit data for four years.
Given that, ensuring that it does not happen is entirely reasonable.
Either card will push images to his (expensive) TV or (cheap) monitor as fast as it can take them for any current game.
That's simply not true.
Go play Everquest, get into an area using a bunch of different models and textures, and watch your system choke under a GF2 MX. Last I heard GF4's could handle it all without much problem, but I also haven't played in 3-4 months.
Go look at some of those same benchmarks, particularly for newer games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The GF2MX400 64M barely runs the game adequately at 1024x768. And that's just average frame rate - what kills you are the spikes where the framerate drops through the floor. All the published benchmarks are also with things like sound disabled.
Sure, a GF3 Ti200 is 2.5x the cost of a GF2MX400. That's all of an extra $75. You argued him out of a better video card, one that is not missing major features that are being used by CURRENT games (not even looking at games coming out in under 6 months) over $75?
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Yeah, but realize that when the 5C stuff gets added to the stream (presuming it goes over broadcast as well), then all of the devices will immediately be in violation of the DMCA... fun fun fun.
And yes, the HiPix is the most popular. WinTV-D is so crippled as to be nearly useless. I'm not very familiar with the AccessDTV card yet.
Heh.
Go read my other post on this... Open Cable Labs is the same "company" that has made the HDTV cable box standard. And yes, there is a standard agreed upon. There's no licensing rules yet though, so until that occurs forget any cable company using it.
Much the same is true with the standard cable box. The cable companies are inntentionally dragging their feet here. It's really not in their best interest to have standards, because it opens them up to competition and piracy. They know this.
Plus, if you look at the recent FCC mandates, decisions, and so forth you'll see that the FCC cares very little for the public (who it is supposed to represent) and has been siding more and more with big business (particularly the distribution side such as studios). Which is why long standing rules regarding station ownership have been ignored or changed (Rupert Murdoch owning 2 stations in NYC, ClearChannel owning 49% of god-knows-how-many stations nationwide, etc.). Also why the FCC decided "must carry" doesn't apply to HDTV. And why they've failed to impose any reasonable standards on the industry, instead letting the various manufacturers, broadcasters, etc. fight it out for a decade or so.
That said, it may actually happen. Eventually. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Ah... both TiVo and Replay are computer based solutions.
They just hide the bits that look like a computer.
And there's no reason that a future, home built, system can't do this too. But it requires a very different mindset for the UI - particularly since the user will want to interact via a remote instead of a keyboard (and no, an IR/RF keyboard/mouse isn't good enough - they're too damn big).
Convergence is finally coming, just not in the way that was expected.
Why do nanobots have to be metallic and reliant upon the whims of EM?
You're right. They could be ceramic. But the leading research right now is using metallic atoms right now. Ceramic molecules tend to be on the large side for this scale work.
Virii and bacterium have been doing fine for millions of years without caring about magnetics except where it was an advantage.
Ok, a couple things here... first off, some of the nanotech that's going on make a virus look like a freaking planet. And bacteria are that much bigger yet than virii. So the scale is off.
Second, you are no longer talking about nano-technology here. You're talking about biologics. The two are vastly different (although there is some work being done using bacteria as transistors). Bacteria and virii tend to be self-replicating, which is not a necessary goal for nanotechnology (nor is it inherently a good thing for nanobots - c.f. gray goo). They are constructed entirely differently, and it's doubtful that we'd ever bother to build one "from scratch" instead of taking something that works and modifying it to do what we wanted to.
Yeah, I suppose you could try and build nanotech out of protein chains and whatnot as well, but that's another field of research that's in it's infancy, even as compared to nanotech.
Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo
I would love this. Unfortunately the cable industry is convinced that any form of standardization is inherently evil, so TiVo would have to negotiate with each fiefdom separately.
Of course, the cable companies aren't entirely stupid. They're looking at this as well. Of course, they are sufficiently stupid that instead of talking to TiVo, SonicBlue, or even MS, they're working on it on their own. Each of them (c.f. standardization above).
Our cable provider moved to digital cable awhile back. And I can't get sattelite because of some 60' trees blocking my SW view (no, they're not on my property, so cutting them down isn't an option). So I have the wonderful IR blasters controlling my cable box. And they occasionally don't change the channel, which leads to odd things getting recorded. Yeah, it sucks. Big time.
Sadly, you'll have to keep dreaming here.
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A TiVo-like device for HDTV is years off, if ever. First, there's a distinct lack of interface standardization between set-top box makers. Sure, there's been standards agreed to, even for the cable industry. They've been summarily ignored, and the FCC is too balless to actually step in and impose a standard that they've been asking for since 1998
On top of that, Hollywood stepped in a few years ago and started the standard whining on how evil it is for peons, er, I mean, consumers to be able to record shows and then do something as absurd as watch them when they want instead of when the broadcast studio wants. Ridiculous concept. So part of the agreement includes requirements so that shows can be flagged for record, record-once (e.g. - no copies), or no-record. This has been agreed to by everyone involved - the studios, the broadcasters, and the equipment manufacturers.
Think we're done yet? Nope. Because while Hollywood whined until they got the above, they then decided about a year later that this was utterly insufficient. Why? Because they still didn't have the control they wanted. No, they set about to make a standard that not only allowed them to control what you recorded, but also how long you recorded it for and how many times you could watch it! That's right, they wanted equipment manufacturers to build into their systems the ability for an outside source to delete recordings after an arbitrary amount of time, or make it so you could only watch something once (gee, hope everyone in the household was around to watch it).
Both the cable industry and the studios were all for this. The equipment manufacturers collectively told them to stick it up their ass.
But, all told, the hope for a digital VCR or PVR that will do direct digital recording is slim right now. There's no way to stop someone from building a TiVo-like device that re-encodes the stream, but you have the inherent problems of quality degradation and increased silicon requirements.
I think making the specs public is all we ever really asked for.
Which is akin, in some cases, to saying "come on in and take the kitchen sink while you're at it" for hardware manufacturers.
The Linux community (and the OSS community at large) needs to get over this. Open Source is fine and grand, but it's not always viable. With that in mind, a company should either make the interface available, or make reliable, fast, and solid drivers available on a regular basis.
Those that choose neither may very well be reviled. Those that choose one or the other should be praised. And those that choose to reveal the interface AND help in writing the drivers should be revered.
But bitching about a company that chooses to keep trade secrets secret is really f'ing stupid.
The other replies have it well said, except that as a geek I think putting an ethernet interface on this would be a really, really bad move.
USB is way, way easier to deal with than ethernet. You don't have to worry about the connection. There's absolutely zero setup beyond a driver. With ethernet you would have to have a rather extensive setup - give it an IP or have a DHCP server somewhere, have a switch/hub with a spare port, point the damn thing at the computer that has the software installed, etc. etc. etc.
With USB you plug it in, install the driver (which would probably also install the software you need to use it), and go. USB is more than capable of handling the bandwidth for this, the ports are more widely available (even bargain basement PC's have 2 USB root ports; good PC's nowadays have 6-10, with 2-4 on the front), and cheaper.
It has nothing to do with being marketed for geeks or for the general public. It has everything about using the right tool for the right job.
For KDE and GNOME that slowness rather stems from the kparts/bonobo component architectures
So? The point remains that it's significantly slower than other windowing systems that aren't network transparant.
Then, of course, there's the utter lack of standardized widgets for doing just about anything. Which is where kparts, gtk, etc. come in. But it's a sad statement that a GUI that is WELL over 10 years old (X11 predates XFree86) is just starting to get some decent standardized widgets (sorry, no, CDE, OpenWindows, Motif, etc. didn't cut the mustard even when they were new).
And while developing for Windows is a PITA, developing for X has been even worse traditionally. It's changing, again thanks to the libraries mentioned above, but it's taken way way too long.
Realistically the only trick that X11 has over the competition is network transparancy. And that kicks ass, no question. But I don't think it's worth everything that has been missing (and will continue to be missing) for that. I mean come on, if you can run a Windows desktop over the network with decent response then network transparancy doesn't mean a hell of a lot anymore. Windows is about as network-hostile of a desktop as you can get.
I should've gone and looked for specific models... like the Michelin X-1 which is rated for 80,000 miles, the Firestone Affinity Touring also rated for 80K, and the Goodyear Regatta2. Yokohama, Bridgestone, and pretty much all the other big tire companies also have 70-80k rated tires.
Whether or not they're available for your car is another question (doubtful if you have a car that likes Z rated tiers), and they're all "touring" tires, which basically means general usage in moderate climates. They're all designed to work well in the rain as well as dry roads, but probably aren't top-notch in snow/ice (but work fine with snow chains if legal wherever you live).
I'd also question the long-term usability. I suspect that they were originally designed for use by high-mileage vehicles, but they're certainly being marketed toward the general public. On the upside, they've come down in price since I last looked at tires. About 2 years ago they were in the $100-150 range each, now they're in the $50-75 range.
You also receive product updates, at least on the software side. Of course, the amount of development work they can do is significantly limited by the hardware, but they've still added some nice stuff in 1.3, 2.0, and a bit of stuff in 3.0.
Yes, it is rather like the various other "get the hardware for free and lease the software" schemes that have almost universally failed. And I hope that isn't in the cards for TiVo, but who knows.
My claim is simply that you're paying for more than just the listings. And I believe that currently that's a worthwhile service. If you don't think that, well, you bought the hardware. Wipe the drives clean and write your own software from the ground up. A fair number of the hardware interfaces you'll need are open sourced, since TiVo linked them to the kernel, and available at TiVo's site. But don't use their software, download listings into it from a 3rd party source, and then claim that TiVo's service is a ripoff... you're still using the majority of it without paying. The only thing you paid for upfront was the hardware.
I think you should go and look at some newer tires. Maybe here.
There are numerous brands of tires for standard passanger vehicles with rated lifetimes of 70,000 miles. No, they're not sporty tires. They don't have the grip that S and up brands have because they're made of harder rubber. If you start looking at the really sporty tires (V-Z ratings) you'll notice that few, if any, have mileage ratings. The few that do will be 18000 miles or less. Most Z rated tires will only last a few thousand miles. Why? Because the rubber on them is very soft in order to grip the road better. It also means it wears down faster.
There are tradeoffs in tires, just as with anything else, but if you're not going to drive like a race car driver then a 70,000 mile rated tire may very well be cost effective. The one big advantage to buying a more sporty tire (S or T rating) is that you'll have the additional grip in instances you NEED it. I know, for sure, that new tires have saved me from more than one accident.
The service, in question, is the whole PVR bundle.
Nobody's done everything that TiVo can yet, much less doing it with nearly rock-solid stability and an easy user interface. When you can, then you can start whining about how TiVo is too expensive. Not until then.
And since by that time I will have been using my TiVo for well over 2 years, and I paid for the "lifetime" subscription, well, I'll have easily have gotten my money's worth.
Do you really want the TV to start to flicker when the kid is playing Quake 5?
It's called a dedicated system. If the kid is playing Quake5, then he's doing it on the TV, so it's not an issue.
What many forget (or never knew) is that a PVR is recording at least one stream of TV to disk 24/7. That's a pretty big load on a current machine to begin with if you try to do other things with the computer too.
Uh... I have two TiVo's. I'm quite familiar with them. And did you know that the original TiVo does all that encoding, plus decoding a second stream, plus indexing various data with a 80 MHz CPU, right?
It's, again, called dedicated hardware. A MPEG-2 encoder offloads nearly 100% of the burdon from the CPU. MPEG-2 decoding is pretty strenuous, but a modern video card offloads the heaviest parts, so you can easily get away with "as little as" a 500 MHz P3. TiVo's have dedicated MPEG2 decoding as well, but you really don't want that if you want the deinterlacing abilities as well.
I could care less about watching TV at my computer. But if you follow trends in the Home Theater market you'd know that, right now, you can put together a $1500 computer that does virtually everything that a $30000 line multiplier, a $1000 DVD player, a $1000 MP3 jukebox, and large bits of what a $4000 preamp can do.
Plus you can play games, have a CD catalog, full X10 control, and quite a bit else which is either difficult or expensive to do with a traditional home theater setup.
Within a few months to a year you'll be able to do all of the above, plus 100% of a pre-amp, a PVR, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.
Replacing $40k+ of equipment with a $1500 box is what the old idea of convergence is all about. Not to mention that you're replacing 3-5 separate components with one, and that one is more configurable and expandable than the original components were.
So what's missing? Well, there are some really good sound cards out there now (check AVS Forum for info), but I don't think they do all the latest sound formats, particularly the 7.1 or 8.1 ones. There's a big gap in user friendliness, ease of setup (and that's considering how intricate a lot of high-end AV gear is to setup too), and stability. And there's still no replacement for a stand-alone PVR - although it's getting closer and closer.
That said, I will continue to shake my head sadly at people who refuse to buy a TiVo/Replay because they either think it's too expensive ("$10/month? That's absurd!") or are worried about it being around in X amount of time. To the former I say - if you can build it for cheaper, do it. Thusfar nobody has. There's a reason you're paying for the service, it's because nobody else can provide it. To the latter, well, this _is_ the future of television. In this time of hard to get VC, both companies are still getting it. And, worst comes to worst, if they fold then the data needed to make the unit functional (guide data) is available from other sources. (I don't agree with not paying for service as long as TiVo exists, because then you're just looking for a free lunch and not paying for services rendered -- but I also think not getting the lifetime service is rather silly).
Exactly.
And, of course, if he'd used cables worth a damn the video would've been fine. Not that CompUSA sells those kind of cables.
The only nit is that the people really should've checked measurements and whatnot beforehand to make sure that things would work as expected in the location they wanted, but who here has ever bought something and discovered that it doesn't QUITE fit? Personally, I keep expecting Lowe's and Home Depot to tell me "No, sorry sir, you've returned/exchanged enough this year"
Will we ever see easy to change CD-Rom drive front covers to match your beige/black computer?
Most CD drives have this already, and have had it for, well, forever... and I've never seen a floppy drive without a removable front bezel, largely because some cases don't allow a bezel at all on the floppy.
There are many cases with a door over all the bezels so that even if you have mismatching colors, you can just hide it.
Finally, you might be amazed at just how well a black felt tipped pen works on a beige or white bezel.
The best online place I've seen for black cases, accessories, and bezels is Directron. They have decent prices and a pretty good record too. They have a large variety of color cases as well, along with aluminum, transparant, and random other stuff.
AMD _IS_ making money on most of their chips
Sure. And they're still losing money. Go look at their financials. The 10-K for 2001 shows a net loss of $60 million for last year.
Whether or not they're making a profit on a chip is irrelevant. They bled green last year, especially considering that they had a $1B net profit for 2000... the same year they were selling GHz chips for $1k each. They need higher margins, and they know it.
Check out the Sub $200 Video card roundup on Anandtech and VGA Charts on Tom's Hardware.
The former has more commentary and a wider range of benchmarks. The latter has a wider range of cards.
And yes, you could bump up performance by turning off options, but, uh... you can turn it back on by spending another $10-25 too.
The games that give the top end cards problems are generally those with really shitty engines. Everquest, for example, has one of the worst engines I know of. But that doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most popular games out there, and that if you're an EQ player you are concerned PURELY with how the system will perform in EQ, not whether or not the code is well written.
One of the reasons Dell won't use Athlon's is that AMD can't supply them enough chips, particularly when a new chip comes out.
Of course, it's questionable (at best) that Intel supplies Dell with enough chips when a new CPU comes out, but at least with Intel it's not a question whether or not they'll be able to ramp production up in a relatively short period.
Sorry, don't have the reference on exactly how many fabs AMD has access to currently, but it's a relatively low number, and the number of fabs that can produce the newest chips is even smaller (3 as I recall).
Plus AMD is still using 8" (200mm) wafers, and has no plans to upgrade to 12" (300mm) wafers for several years. Intel uses 12" wafers in some (or all?) of its fabs. Personally, I'm amazed that AMD is still using 8" wafers... TI transitioned its lead plants to 12" back when I worked there in '96. There's 225% more area on a 12" wafer compared to an 8" wafer, without an equivalent increase in process time and cost.
Plus, once the Hammers are released, the price of Athlons should take a cut.
Questionable... AMD hasn't been dropping prices recently. Because they're not making money.
The Hammer series is likely to debut at a considerably higher price than the most expensive Athlon now - a lot of pundits are saying the $500-$750 range, and a few believe $750-$1000 is more likely. After all, it was under 2 years ago that the first gigahertz CPU's came out, and they were priced at >$1000 ea.
There will be some price cuts, as there always is, but probably not the freefall that we've seen in the past few years.
One of AMD's critical weaknesses is a lack of fab space. They have very few fabs available to them, and they need to very carefully select which fab will produce which silicon. (This is actually a common issue with silicon fabs, since a new fab runs $3B or so nowadays, but AMD has a really bad space shortage problem for the size they are)
If you look at the AMD roadmap the future is the Hammer series - which incorporates the x86-64 instruction set - and Barton, which is allegedly a hyped up Athlon on a smaller core (0.13 micron) with no x86-64. Barton is being poised as the low end processor, while the Hammers are high-end.
With that in mind, where would a Duron fit? Realize that AMD is currently losing money. Ridding themselves of Duron not only frees up fab space, but also allows them to move the entire processor cost structure up a notch or two.
The current bottom end of the market is probably going to disappear, since the Celeron doesn't have much life in it either. But since they're already unpopular in the retail market, it's not a huge loss. If you want to build a cheap system, you're better off buying components that aren't brand new anyway. Swaps, ebay, and so forth are dirt cheap on those kinds of things.
Maybe he didn't have the extra 75 dollars?
I suspect the brother did, since the brother was wanting to buy the GF3 and the poster disuaded him.
Maybe he DOESN'T play Wolfenstien?
The statement was made that a GF2MX was adequate "for any current game". That's simply not true. Wolfenstein is hardly the only game that can push more data than a GF2MX can handle.
Something I think game devlopers have forgotten lately is how to make a game fun
I enjoy games that help you use your brain
Grats on the non sequiteur. Neither point has anything to do with the original supposition (and this entire thread really has nothing to do with the article). But that said...
Yes, some developers forget the fun part and go for eye candy. The good games don't do this. Yes, they have eye candy, but they also have good gameplay. If you don't have the gameplay, you won't surive, no matter how pretty you attempt to make it. Witness Daikatana. Look at all the really bad strategy games.
As for the "use your brain" - nice way to try and make FPS's look like games for children. They aren't. Frankly, I'm mediocre at best in deathmatch/CTF. I've played with some top calibur people, and while, yes, they have incredible reflexes, they also KNOW what their opponents are going to do. Which is why when you play someone that good you'll wonder how the hell they knew where you were, or how they made that shot. They got inside your head and knew what you would do. Which is why a good player on a modem can defeat some LPB regardless of ping.
Strategy games are a different calibur, and I don't even want to think how much time I've spent playing Civ, Civ2, Masters of Orion, and the like. But they have very different requirements in terms of hardware (although most of the RTS's are now getting high system requirements like FPS's do).
ALso, for someone who only plays games occasionally, it just costs way to much to buy one of these hot video cards.
Did you even READ the original? The guy wanted a bigger card, because he apparantly does play games enough to justify it. And either he could afford it or he was purchasing a new PC for no real purpose in the first place.
If you don't have the requirements for item X, then don't buy item X. The requirements put forth in the prior posting had some incorrect conclusions. Nothing you've said has influenced that.
That's right. After all, businesses don't do this now.
Oh hold it... what's that "please bring your social security card and a picture id or your passport" bit that I go through everytime I change jobs?
Yes, this is all very preliminary. But I don't think it's an absurd concept to think that should the government move this way that a MS Passport would become the defacto electronic registration method for, well, everything. Legally, nobody is supposed to ask for your Social Security Number except the Social Security Administration and the IRS. Realistically it has become a form of national ID, particularly in the credit and financial sector. I know. I worked with credit data for four years.
Given that, ensuring that it does not happen is entirely reasonable.
Either card will push images to his (expensive) TV or (cheap) monitor as fast as it can take them for any current game.
That's simply not true.
Go play Everquest, get into an area using a bunch of different models and textures, and watch your system choke under a GF2 MX. Last I heard GF4's could handle it all without much problem, but I also haven't played in 3-4 months.
Go look at some of those same benchmarks, particularly for newer games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The GF2MX400 64M barely runs the game adequately at 1024x768. And that's just average frame rate - what kills you are the spikes where the framerate drops through the floor. All the published benchmarks are also with things like sound disabled.
Sure, a GF3 Ti200 is 2.5x the cost of a GF2MX400. That's all of an extra $75. You argued him out of a better video card, one that is not missing major features that are being used by CURRENT games (not even looking at games coming out in under 6 months) over $75?
I think you did him a disservice.