I'm assuming your only talking about the 1080i HDTVs that don't support 720p (since I don't know of any 720p sets that were made without 1080i support).
The reason is that ALL output devices except playstation 3 support proper scaling, thats just the way the standards work, the TVs are fixed sizes and the devices scale accordingly.
Actually the reason is because 1080i was the ONLY standard for HDTV when the initial models came out. Once 720p was finally standardized, that started showing up in sets with 1080i conversion. Likewise we're now seeing 1080p and whatever follow-on resolution people come up with (whether we need it or not).
I would agree that the PS3 should be able to scale a 720p signal to 1080i, and if this affects you, then by all means, don't buy one, however to claim that it is a widespread and pervasive problem ignores the fact that the only people who it touches are those who were on the leading edge of HDTV two years ago, and that with the increasing adoption rate of HDTV, those users represent a smaller and smaller percentage of a rapidly growing community.
This is not meant to minimize your experience. I am glad the 360 works for you, and I certainly hope the PS3 adds the ability, but it is much less of a "make or break" feature for most people (yourself obviously excluded).
No, I hadn't. From friends comments, I understood that you needed to purchase the proprietary memory cards to download games, saves, content, etc. onto.
I know the flames are going to fly after this. But honestly... you know they're going to buy anything that Sony throws at them.
I'd like to think sans-flame discussion is possible.:)
If people were really that Gung-Ho over Sony (in general), then you would have seen a greater adaption rate of all those proprietary media formats that they tried to push.
People only really bought into them though, when they liked the product they were paired with.
Heck, most people I know with a PS3 (most of whom got it within the first month or two it was out) opted NOT to get a Sony bravia TV when they upgraded to an HD TV, instead getting a Samsung model that was comparably featured an about half the price. We're only talking in the 32" range (living space is an issue:) ), but the universal opinion has been that the PS3 excels at what its trying to do: Play Games, Play Music/Video, Play DVD/Blu-Ray.
How is this anything but a sales pitch for Nintendo and Microsoft? How is it "news", even by slashdot's normally loose definition?
What? You want him to actually research what's new on Sony's platform also?
That would be HARD to find. Heck I mean its stickied at the top of the Forums even.
In summary, MKII was just released last thursday, either Super Rub-A-Dub (addictive puzzle game) or Calling All Cars (from Al Jaffe) is expected tomorrow.
For a minute I had forgotten about Zonk's slant on gaming news. Good to know he's back in usual form.
They'd just be following in MS's footsteps (take a look at the expected price for the proprietary HD upgrade for the XBox360 vs. the user swappable one for the PS3).
Heck... the PS3 even uses standard USB drives for external storage, just like the XBox 360... what? you mean the 360 uses some proprietary storage? Shocker.:/
Face it, Sony as a company may have done some things that have people angry, but the PS3, between its use of Bluetooth for headsets, keyboards and mice, USB for external storage, and user swap-able SATA HardDrive, is the most OPEN mainstream console we've seen. Heck, even the HDMI port is standard (go buy the $10 cable if you want).
Most of the complaints I've heard from actual owners of the PS3 have to do with its lack of scaling. Playing a 720p game on a 1080-only screen? Tough luck bitch, it's 480i for you. Playing a 1080 blu-ray movie on a 720-only screen? You're back to 480i.
This is only a problem for 1080i screens that don't support 720p (all 12 of them), and likewise 720p screens that don't support 1080i/p (are there even any of these?).
Yes, I'm exaggerating slightly, and this is certainly an issue that affects only the most bleeding edge early adopters (I have friends with a set that supports 1080i but not 720p... because the bought it three years ago).
As for the Folding@Home client, hey, its a nice idea to give back to the community, and they've also addressed a number of issues that existed with Bluetooth devices, added background downloading and a download queue (should have been there at launch, but its there now), and a number of games are in the pipeline (MKII was released last thursday, either Super Rub-A-Dub or Calling All Cars are set to debut this thursday).
I think I used one of the first SATA optical drives (that I know of), about a year ago (Plextor Dual layer DVD Burner).
I spent close to three weeks banging my head during setup (new machine), with an ASUS motherboard based on the Nvidia chipset.
Finally I got Nvidia to admit that the chipset wouldn't support RAID, and the SATA optical drive at the same time (after lots of finger pointing between ASUS, who make great boards, and Nvidia, who I'm less than thrilled with).
I *HOPE* things like this have changed, but its not something I blame the drive makers for, at all.
The important message here is that (a) they flinched, and (b) they flinched bad enough that they whipped out some phony/misleading statistic to try to defend their failed policy of sticking DRM on everything.
And here I thought the important message here was that they (a) admitted there was a problem, (b) fixed that problem and (c) offered to provide replacement disks, complete with an 800 number to process those requests.
Gee, maybe they should just close down the company and provide torrent links of all their IP instead.:-/
Actually, MS is in that space. The problem is that MS is not very sophisticated and they are WAY behind. They are hoping that by buying double click that they can compete head-on with google. Not sure that I really want Google to buy them, but I KNOW that MS buying them will be a far worse event.
This sounds like what a friend of mine who works in the industry also has been saying.
True, but the company I work with has been holding off on a major purchase until 10.5 comes out (they are specifically interested in 10.5 server due to its native 64-bit on intel codebase).
I can't imagine that we're the only ones holding off purchases until 10.5 comes out, which means that Apple may also be pushing revenue to the quarter AFTER the iPhone to help bolster the companies outlook, if the iPhone doesn't immediately take off ("The iPhone needs time to build its market, meanwhile we've seen record sales numbers this quarter."
Nice idea, but at this point I think Lawyers and/or Career Politicians are all we're going to get.
The single biggest argument against a third party that most people make is that the U.S. has traditionally had only two main parties since it was founded. The thing most people seem to forget is that neither the 'D' or 'R' party has been around all that time. Who those two parties ARE can (and has) changed.
Of course I hope we're close to seeing one (or both) of them go, but I don't see that happening for another ten years.
There is only one Board of Directors for Sony. There is only one Chariman and CEO of Sony. They are responsible for every last employee from both the Games and Entertainment divisions. The responsibility is with them, whether or not they approved the actions or not.
I feel the same way about Vista, IE, and Clippy.
Heck, I feel the same way about the idea of being saddled with a consoled named "Wii" instead of "Revolution".
With the $480 360 Elite, if Sony REALLY wanted to, they could skip buying this year's ivory back scratchers and drop the PS3 to $500 and really put the pressure on the top end of the 360 consumer. Sure there'd be a lot of PS3 owners pissed off to see a price drop so soon, but, it wouldn't be the first time Sony's spit in the faces of their fanboys.
Sony may tick off some people, but, as someone who bought a PS3 in December, I certainly wouldn't be angry about a price drop in the June-September time frame.
Sony certainly is not ticking off as many of their "fanboys" as MS has/is. MS dropped support on the original XBox after a very short life. They may have had to do that to remain "competitive" by releasing the 360, but it still left those who bought into the original XBox high and dry. Now, those who thought they were getting the "Premium" model (instead of just "Core"), find out there was an "Elite" model. Again, they might have had to do this to stay "competitive", but adding a new "top model" that includes HDMI and a huge hard-drive isn't anywhere near as disruptive as dropping the lowest model being produced.
MS has also managed to tick off developers this generation by not including a hard-drive as a standard feature. Games for the 360 can't take it for granted, and even if you DO have one, the deployed hard drive is either small, or requires a costly proprietary replacement. If I was a content maker, or a consumer, the latter part would tick me off (for different reasons:) ).
Heck, even Nintendo has been ticking people off this generation by not making Wiis fast enough (which SHOULDN'T be a reason in my book, but some people are getting mighty angry about it).
After reading the headline "Boarding Pass Hacker Targets Back of America" I couldn't help but wonder what sort of bank would let someone take money out of an account using only a Boarding Pass as their form of I.D.
Well... the GP did mention that they in the previous 6 weeks they had installed anti-virus software company wide, so perhaps they knew they had a problem, but couldn't track it down since his computer was off (and they might not have had an on-site tech support department, according to his email).
I bet most companies under 30 employees don't have a dedicated IT person, just someone who's job got made to include IT (if even that).
9 times out of 10, they either get consultants to cover the stuff they can't handle "in-house", or else they do without. For those people, it just doesn't pay to have an IT person who would have tracked this down and nipped it in the bud, and if you have to call a consultant that you pay by the hour (probably a high $$$ amount), then if you think the problem went away (the computer was off and everyone was using anti-virus software), you might not have thought you needed to call it an expert.
Anyone who's got "well over 750 gigs" of music needs to look at the hardware they manage the library with. That old G4 with 256 meg of RAM may well be able to play any music just fine... but it's not the thing to manage a library of that size with.
Interesting idea, I hope the original poster comes back with some specs on the hardware he is currently using. If it is a G4 era mac (or even a mac mini), the first suggestion of getting a MacPro... or even better, contact apple's business support division and ask them if a MacPro would support what he needs (for instance they might suggest more memory specifically to handle the index without it having to swap to disk).
Alternatively, again trying to stick to a Mac centered approach, as the poster asked, perhaps Leopard (to be released Q2 this year), supporting 64-bit CPUs, might be better able to take advantage of a Quad Core MacPro w/muh memory, to better handle the index and increase responsiveness.
It said in the TOS for Virtual Console when I got mine that you can only have 1 Authorized console available, that seems to me that you can. How to do that, I have no clue. The only caveat is that it has to be joined to your nintendo.com username.
Right. I'd imagine that there must be some way to do (actually I'd be shocked if you couldn't).
Speaking only towards the PS3 (since thats what I have, and I can't directly comment on other consoles), you can have up to 3 Consoles (PS3/PSP) authorized at any one time for downloadable games. The requirement is that you have to have your user ID on the machine, so you can go over to a friends house, create an account, download a game, play, and then de-authorize their system/delete the account when you leave. Not sure, but you might just be able to de-authorize the system when you leave, and then reauthorize it the next time you are over, but remember not to leave your password on the system.
I would be surprised with all the push for downloadable content that MS or Nintendo wouldn't have a similar system in place to help users keep their purchased content as they moved between machines.
This is going to become even more critical later into the console cycle as machines wear out and need to be replaced/serviced, and as we start to transition to the "next-gen" consoles, whatever they are (even though its WAY to early for us to start thinking about that).
Yeah... and its a good thing the MS's XBox 360 won't use the HD-DVD player for games. Helps people realize that you should buy a separate system for games and movies.
Actually I'm dropping my standalone Toshiba DVD player, the PS3 has been that good as a replacement (managing to play through DVDs with scratches that locked up the Toshiba).
I'm enjoying it as a game system, and it makes a killer DVD/Blu-Ray player (especially if you spring for the bluetooth remote which makes it helps it pass the "wife test").
As an added bonus, besides playing Blu-Ray movies (which look pretty good), its eliminating 5 cables from the rack when I pull out the standalone player (component+audio), and there is only one little cable taking its place (HDMI). All in all I see it as a plus since you can only use the TV for one thing at a time anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the reason is because 1080i was the ONLY standard for HDTV when the initial models came out. Once 720p was finally standardized, that started showing up in sets with 1080i conversion. Likewise we're now seeing 1080p and whatever follow-on resolution people come up with (whether we need it or not).
I would agree that the PS3 should be able to scale a 720p signal to 1080i, and if this affects you, then by all means, don't buy one, however to claim that it is a widespread and pervasive problem ignores the fact that the only people who it touches are those who were on the leading edge of HDTV two years ago, and that with the increasing adoption rate of HDTV, those users represent a smaller and smaller percentage of a rapidly growing community.
This is not meant to minimize your experience. I am glad the 360 works for you, and I certainly hope the PS3 adds the ability, but it is much less of a "make or break" feature for most people (yourself obviously excluded).
No, I hadn't. From friends comments, I understood that you needed to purchase the proprietary memory cards to download games, saves, content, etc. onto.
I'd like to think sans-flame discussion is possible.
If people were really that Gung-Ho over Sony (in general), then you would have seen a greater adaption rate of all those proprietary media formats that they tried to push.
People only really bought into them though, when they liked the product they were paired with.
Heck, most people I know with a PS3 (most of whom got it within the first month or two it was out) opted NOT to get a Sony bravia TV when they upgraded to an HD TV, instead getting a Samsung model that was comparably featured an about half the price. We're only talking in the 32" range (living space is an issue
What? You want him to actually research what's new on Sony's platform also?
That would be HARD to find. Heck I mean its stickied at the top of the Forums even.
In summary, MKII was just released last thursday, either Super Rub-A-Dub (addictive puzzle game) or Calling All Cars (from Al Jaffe) is expected tomorrow.
For a minute I had forgotten about Zonk's slant on gaming news. Good to know he's back in usual form.
They'd just be following in MS's footsteps (take a look at the expected price for the proprietary HD upgrade for the XBox360 vs. the user swappable one for the PS3).
... the PS3 even uses standard USB drives for external storage, just like the XBox 360 ... what? you mean the 360 uses some proprietary storage? Shocker. :/
Heck
Face it, Sony as a company may have done some things that have people angry, but the PS3, between its use of Bluetooth for headsets, keyboards and mice, USB for external storage, and user swap-able SATA HardDrive, is the most OPEN mainstream console we've seen. Heck, even the HDMI port is standard (go buy the $10 cable if you want).
This is only a problem for 1080i screens that don't support 720p (all 12 of them), and likewise 720p screens that don't support 1080i/p (are there even any of these?).
Yes, I'm exaggerating slightly, and this is certainly an issue that affects only the most bleeding edge early adopters (I have friends with a set that supports 1080i but not 720p
As for the Folding@Home client, hey, its a nice idea to give back to the community, and they've also addressed a number of issues that existed with Bluetooth devices, added background downloading and a download queue (should have been there at launch, but its there now), and a number of games are in the pipeline (MKII was released last thursday, either Super Rub-A-Dub or Calling All Cars are set to debut this thursday).
I think I used one of the first SATA optical drives (that I know of), about a year ago (Plextor Dual layer DVD Burner).
I spent close to three weeks banging my head during setup (new machine), with an ASUS motherboard based on the Nvidia chipset.
Finally I got Nvidia to admit that the chipset wouldn't support RAID, and the SATA optical drive at the same time (after lots of finger pointing between ASUS, who make great boards, and Nvidia, who I'm less than thrilled with).
I *HOPE* things like this have changed, but its not something I blame the drive makers for, at all.
And here I thought the important message here was that they (a) admitted there was a problem, (b) fixed that problem and (c) offered to provide replacement disks, complete with an 800 number to process those requests.
Gee, maybe they should just close down the company and provide torrent links of all their IP instead.
... does this mean that work on Vista will have to be moved out of state?
This sounds like what a friend of mine who works in the industry also has been saying.
True, but the company I work with has been holding off on a major purchase until 10.5 comes out (they are specifically interested in 10.5 server due to its native 64-bit on intel codebase).
I can't imagine that we're the only ones holding off purchases until 10.5 comes out, which means that Apple may also be pushing revenue to the quarter AFTER the iPhone to help bolster the companies outlook, if the iPhone doesn't immediately take off ("The iPhone needs time to build its market, meanwhile we've seen record sales numbers this quarter."
Nice idea, but at this point I think Lawyers and/or Career Politicians are all we're going to get.
The single biggest argument against a third party that most people make is that the U.S. has traditionally had only two main parties since it was founded. The thing most people seem to forget is that neither the 'D' or 'R' party has been around all that time. Who those two parties ARE can (and has) changed.
Of course I hope we're close to seeing one (or both) of them go, but I don't see that happening for another ten years.
At least.
That's just wrong ... in a "The Producers" way (the original movie, not that movie based on a show based on a movie).
I feel the same way about Vista, IE, and Clippy.
Heck, I feel the same way about the idea of being saddled with a consoled named "Wii" instead of "Revolution".
Sony may tick off some people, but, as someone who bought a PS3 in December, I certainly wouldn't be angry about a price drop in the June-September time frame.
Sony certainly is not ticking off as many of their "fanboys" as MS has/is. MS dropped support on the original XBox after a very short life. They may have had to do that to remain "competitive" by releasing the 360, but it still left those who bought into the original XBox high and dry. Now, those who thought they were getting the "Premium" model (instead of just "Core"), find out there was an "Elite" model. Again, they might have had to do this to stay "competitive", but adding a new "top model" that includes HDMI and a huge hard-drive isn't anywhere near as disruptive as dropping the lowest model being produced.
MS has also managed to tick off developers this generation by not including a hard-drive as a standard feature. Games for the 360 can't take it for granted, and even if you DO have one, the deployed hard drive is either small, or requires a costly proprietary replacement. If I was a content maker, or a consumer, the latter part would tick me off (for different reasons
Heck, even Nintendo has been ticking people off this generation by not making Wiis fast enough (which SHOULDN'T be a reason in my book, but some people are getting mighty angry about it).
You mean there is more then one OS? You must mean XP and Vista, right? ;)
(posted from Linux, by way of a tunneled session from OSX)
After reading the headline "Boarding Pass Hacker Targets Back of America" I couldn't help but wonder what sort of bank would let someone take money out of an account using only a Boarding Pass as their form of I.D.
Well ... the GP did mention that they in the previous 6 weeks they had installed anti-virus software company wide, so perhaps they knew they had a problem, but couldn't track it down since his computer was off (and they might not have had an on-site tech support department, according to his email).
I bet most companies under 30 employees don't have a dedicated IT person, just someone who's job got made to include IT (if even that).
9 times out of 10, they either get consultants to cover the stuff they can't handle "in-house", or else they do without. For those people, it just doesn't pay to have an IT person who would have tracked this down and nipped it in the bud, and if you have to call a consultant that you pay by the hour (probably a high $$$ amount), then if you think the problem went away (the computer was off and everyone was using anti-virus software), you might not have thought you needed to call it an expert.
Interesting idea, I hope the original poster comes back with some specs on the hardware he is currently using. If it is a G4 era mac (or even a mac mini), the first suggestion of getting a MacPro
Alternatively, again trying to stick to a Mac centered approach, as the poster asked, perhaps Leopard (to be released Q2 this year), supporting 64-bit CPUs, might be better able to take advantage of a Quad Core MacPro w/muh memory, to better handle the index and increase responsiveness.
Ditto.
Its flat out floored a few ex-girlfriends when they saw my eyes and watched them do that (normally wear glasses so they are less visible).
Of course since they tend to be three or four different colors by default, they were already shaking their head.
Right. I'd imagine that there must be some way to do (actually I'd be shocked if you couldn't).
Speaking only towards the PS3 (since thats what I have, and I can't directly comment on other consoles), you can have up to 3 Consoles (PS3/PSP) authorized at any one time for downloadable games. The requirement is that you have to have your user ID on the machine, so you can go over to a friends house, create an account, download a game, play, and then de-authorize their system/delete the account when you leave. Not sure, but you might just be able to de-authorize the system when you leave, and then reauthorize it the next time you are over, but remember not to leave your password on the system.
I would be surprised with all the push for downloadable content that MS or Nintendo wouldn't have a similar system in place to help users keep their purchased content as they moved between machines.
This is going to become even more critical later into the console cycle as machines wear out and need to be replaced/serviced, and as we start to transition to the "next-gen" consoles, whatever they are (even though its WAY to early for us to start thinking about that).
Yeah ... there are people who already do what you want. ... they're using Sony's PSN, it supports this sort of functionality.
Which one?
... or the one played by Dirk Benedict? :)
The alcohol guzzling, cigar smoking, disobedient, hot-shot pilot
Actually I'm dropping my standalone Toshiba DVD player, the PS3 has been that good as a replacement (managing to play through DVDs with scratches that locked up the Toshiba).
I'm enjoying it as a game system, and it makes a killer DVD/Blu-Ray player (especially if you spring for the bluetooth remote which makes it helps it pass the "wife test").
As an added bonus, besides playing Blu-Ray movies (which look pretty good), its eliminating 5 cables from the rack when I pull out the standalone player (component+audio), and there is only one little cable taking its place (HDMI). All in all I see it as a plus since you can only use the TV for one thing at a time anyway.