It needs better protection because Hollywood wants to turn DTV into its' own PPV model. They want to give you a taste of the show when it airs, but they don't want you to be able to DO anything but watch that airing. That way, when they come out with the $100 box set of season 1, you'll HAVE to buy it if you want to keep that show (since you can't legally have a copy of that show off-air).
Also remember HDTV is not the end-all, be-all of DTV. HDTV is just one aspect of it. There are thousands of stations currently complying with the DTV transition, yet broadcasting no HD, by encoding their NTSC signal and broadcasting it as SDTV (standard definition). Everyone could quite feasibly quit broadcasting all HD, and only broadcast SD, and they'd be complying with the FCC.
What irks me is how cable companies want to make extra money from off-air HDTV. I can see them charging a bit extra for the HD receivers themselves, I could see charging a bit extra for HBO HD and other premium HD services. What I can't see paying for is the local ABC station's OTA HD signal. And it also irks me how these boxes do not downconvert - you MUST have a full HD setup to even enjoy it. That's not so much of an issue with the local station, because unless ABC is broadcasting HD, they're just upconverting. But wouldn't it be nice to have the option to flick to HBO HD and watch a movie, letterboxed and all, on your analog set? With higher quality connections like S-Video, it's about as good as you can get without an actual HD set (I would wager that downconverted HD, sent over S-Video, can look equal to or even better than DVD video sent over the same cable). But alas, these things will never happen, because they don't even want you to be able to downconvert HD (after all, if you can do that, you can take the downconverted signal and RECORD IT ON TAPE!). Heaven forbid you set the wrong aspect ratio and record anamorphic 16:9, because then you've got an even higher resolution downconversion (with many more scanlines available), and thus your pirated material (since you want to manipulate video, Hollywood considers you a pirate) can look even better!
TV is dying. I see one of two things happening from here: 1) Nobody takes notice of this until it's entrenched. People buy hook, line, and sinker into the HD transition. Then, people find out they lose features, so all of it gets packed up and taken back to the store.
2) People see this over the horizon, and they decide not to pad Hollywood's coffers with purchasing HD equipment. Then, when they finally DO shut off NTSC (which I don't predict will happen on schedule), people will watch the stuff they already have, and ratings will plummet as noone watches DTV.
The FCC is trying really hard to push this DTV transition through in less than 10 years. But tell me this - how long did it take from the time the FCC decided they'd go with RCA's compatible color system (over CBS' incompatible field-sequential system, complete with rotating color filter), until you could confidently say 'our programs are watched by more people in color than in b&w'? Took damn longer than 10 years, at any rate. The FCC should slow down a bit and let the technology get out there for the bleeding edge people, as the equipment gets cheaper to manufacture, prices will come down, more people will buy DTV equipment because 'it's compatible with everything that's on the old TV, plus this new stuff', then about 20 years from now, when DTV equipment is widespread, start shutting off the old NTSC.
I bet you that if we'd gone with CBS' color system we'd have had similar problems, as far as trying to make a transition (only likely without all this hullabaloo about 'content protection', since it wasn't really a hot-button issue then).
Instead of migrating to an all-digital system, they should have went with an analog-digital hybrid, with room for expansion in the future to eliminate the NTSC requirement. Were it up to me, I'd broadcast standard NTSC, with digital augmentation to fill the full 16:9 frame and enhance the resolution. Then, when NTSC is mostly outmoded, send the whole signal digitally and break compatibility with the 10 sets that still rely on the analog video.
If you think the Commodore 64 was good, you guys are REALLY gonna be bowled over by the Nintendo NES!
Of course the C64 was good. Way better graphics capabilities than the NES. Don't think so? I beg to differ. Especially check out the Crest demos. Digital Magic has some of the best graphics to date on the C64, and it's all stock, no hardware mods.
Can the NES display graphics outside the 'normal' screen? Can the NES stretch a sprite vertically up to the entire length of the screen? Sure, the C64's multicolor mode has fat pixels, but that can be easily overcome in software, as can the relatively low color resolution. It's gotten to the point where you can have graphics with normal sized pixels, and each pixel can pretty much use any of approx. 100 colors, independently from the others.
The VIC-II is way more flexible than any other graphics chip of the era. You can scroll the screen in pretty much any direction with very little actual work to do on the part of the processor. Of course, many of the great effects are really only usable in demos and not games, but that doesn't really matter. And there are lots of effects that I'm not even touching on right now.
And people thought that giving up 40 cycles every 8 scanlines was a bad idea;)
It is a democratic government's DUTY to protect idiots from themselves when their behaviour has ramifications for the whole of society.
BULLSHIT. You can twist anything to say it affects everyone, to justify controlling it.
This world needs a country that respects personal privacy and that doesn't patronize its citizens by saying "you're not smart enough to make that decision, we make it for you, if you disagree you go to jail". One where the fact that your rights end where mine begin is codified into all subdivisions of law.
The US tried to be that, but certain people twisted things around and eradicated states' rights (remember the case where a private farmer was prevented from growing wheat on his own land because 'it would affect interstate commerce'?).
Uh, don't be quite so bleak. Quote from Chris Abbott on lemon64.com:
* Newsflash *
I just spoke to Darren Melbourne from Ironstone Partners,
and I'm now completely happy that they respect the C64 community
and are willing to embrace it rather than close it down. Darren
himself is a huge C64 fan (he even knows the significance of
Martin Galway's SID chip).
Ironstone should release their own press release soon which should clarify matters, but the only people who should worry about getting sued are the people releasing unauthorised Commodore products in the retail chain. That press release had large parts (including the numbers) that were unauthorised by them. Yes, the numbers were fiction.
There should also be a positive development on the C-One very soon,
too.
"Unlike the other custom chips which were christened with women's monikers, the Agnus chip is not a corruption of the name Agnes (as I had previously thought), but rather, according to Jim Williams, Jay Miner named it Agnus from the Latin expression agnus dei ('lamb of God')."
Also check out the prototype pic of the Agnus and Daphne - it clearly says 'Agnus', meaning that it was that way from the beginning. I know of no 'Agnes' to have ever existed in the Amiga.
You're confusing physical space with ROM space. This may very well be true with regards to the actual ROM board, but that has nothing to do with how much ROM space there is internal to the ROM chip(s).
You're limited by the ROM size itself, which is why you wouldn't start burning ROMs until after you're already completely done with the game - you'd likely develop with either a hardware emulator or a flashcart on the real hardware, which would support the maximum the console supports. For example, the Genesis supports 4MB (=32Mb) of ROM without bankswitching hardware. On the NES, which I know less about, and going strictly by the CPU, it can only access 64KB of memory at one time - and part of that is taken by the PPU and I/O (reading carts, hidden I/O port, etc), which probably bumps the accessible ROM space at any given instant down to 32-48K, just guessing. Now you know why mappers are so prevalent in the NES world - mappers are essentially bankswitching hardware (some of them have added features as well, like MMC5). But to access more than the maximum ROM the console supports requires some sort of bankswitching logic to allow the coder to move banks of ROM in and out of the address space.
Many people seem to operate under the assumption that the media business rakes in money had over foot. This simply is not true. We own two of the four television stations in a decent market(140's) . We operate both stations from the same facilities using the same staff and most of the same equipment and are barely staying afloat. The next time you think about bitching about the # of commercials in your favorite show, consider the alternative, not seeing your favorite show at all.
Same here, 92nd DMA, except there's 5 major stations. It's recently been decided that the place should be automated, to reduce the amount of ongoing expense being paid in the form of wages to one of the operators. At my station, I am an operator as well as a production assistant, and I pad the spots I dub by 1 frame on each end.
Well, here in Kingsport TN, my analog channels look a lot worse than the best digital channels (like the premiums, and some of the regular digital channels). Granted, there are some very shitty digital channels, but my digital channels tend to look better. And I can put up with a slight bit of artifacting, I have to look really close to see it anyway.
There's no easy way to make 24fps become 29.97fps for NTSC.
You are correct. 3:2 pulldown does slightly change the speed, since it interpolates to 30fps, not 29.97fps. However, the change is so slight that I doubt anyone would notice unless they had a 'golden eye'.
I also remeber hearing that a lot of studios get lazy for PAL transfers and just slow down the 24 fps to 25 fps.
You are close, but backwards. 25fps is faster (about 4%) than 24fps.
/me wishes there was a widespread 'consumer' 24fps system instead of this pulldown crap. Of course, it's been said that people *like* the look of telecined film, so there you go. I personally hate it and can't wait until I get a progressive scan widescreen monitor and progressive scan DVD player.
Still, considering it's only used by cheap-ass local stations whose NTSC signal is shite compared to a nice, pure digital cable/satellite channel anyway
Only used by cheap-ass local stations? Guess again. I (along with countless others) have witnessed it in use on Game Show Network, among other cable networks. I think TNN runs ST:TNG through one at times, but it's sometimes hard to tell depending on the video quality. The effect on the audio is also very noticeable for me, when I'm watching $100,000 Pyramid and Dick Clark sounds like a chipmunk who is long past puberty. For God's sake, this stuff turns everyone into the Micro Machines guy (can't remember his name).
I agree with you, it is very annoying. Tune in to GSN (if you have it) some day at 12:30pm and watch Match Game Syndicated. When they get to the 'star wheel', notice how it spins.
Besides, it's not used by 'cheap-ass local stations', because I work for one, and the GM wouldn't spend the money on it. But, as a master control operator, I would find one of these useful - not to gain commercial time, but to help me get back on time if I'm, say, 5 seconds over going into a show, I could compress the show by 5 seconds (spread over 30 minutes, that wouldn't be noticeable to even a trained eye) and get back on time.
...I've noticed it in effect on several cable networks (Game Show Network is a serious offender here). They say it's supposed to be unnoticeable, but it jumps out at me.
However, as a master control operator, I believe that one of these things would be nice to gain back a few seconds if you're over. Not 30 seconds, but more like 3 or 4.
I found out on my own the basic gist of how it works - it basically chops off part of a frame and then adds what remains to the next frame. It's really noticeable when there is supposed to be a smooth pan and this box jerks it up.
That's a bad quote. Approximately 100 lines are used for timing information and retracing. Go ask anybody who knows anything about how a TV works if they'd like to do away with their horizontal and vertical sync pulses. Plus, your math is wrong. The refresh rate is 60Hz, not 60MHz. No way you'd be able to do this. Now, it is definitely possible to insert some information in the VBI (vertical blanking interval), but that's normally used by networks to send timing information to affiliate. Ever look at the top of an ABC network signal straight off the satellite? It's loaded with white blips.
Well, imagine that all the stations in the market can pool their bandwidth together (I'm unsure if FCC regs allow this or not). If, in larger markets, you figure 6 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN, WB), then that means about 114Mb/s total bandwidth, of which only 24Mb/s is needed for 6 SD channels, leaving about 90Mb/s total bandwidth available for other services.
Like I said, I'm unsure if FCC regs would even allow this. But, if it would, it would be a great way for stations to offer a type of premium service (whatever it may be) and make a little extra money.
I don't see how this breaks their agreement - they're not using their analog frequencies to do this, they're using part of their digital allotment to do this. Perfectly legal. The FCC doesn't say what a station will do with all of their bandwidth, as long as they are broadcasting at least 1 compliant DTV station.
Personally, I'd like to see all the stations in a particular area (if FCC regs allow it) pool their DTV allotments together, broadcast 1 SD signal each, and use the rest of the bandwidth for premium services (such as this).
Well, apparently I'm lucky, because my cable co. does not encode any channels with Macrovision, because I feed them through a SVHS VCR to an S-Video TV and have not had a problem with Macrovision.
If you can tape your favorite show direct from the network satellite, you'll avoid them.
Not always. I work at an ABC affiliate, and there are two bugs - one that is inserted by a MasterKey (and is station-specific) and another one that is fed on the net feed (which is just an ABC bug). However, you can usually catch some network shows (I know of some ABC shows, don't know about NBC or CBS) fed clean. I saw the first ep of Bob Patterson before it aired, for example. Luckily, over on the UPN station owned by the same people, it's generally the operator's discretion whether or not to add the bug (and guess what? I don't). Still, UPN slaps one up, and even worse? Many shows have their own bug.
I've personally met Boucher and talked with him in some detail...he definitely is not for sale...he's got the right idea about IP in this millenium, unlike most politicos...he's a good man. Cannon, on the other hand, I have no idea about. But you will not see Boucher being bought out.
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It needs better protection because Hollywood wants to turn DTV into its' own PPV model. They want to give you a taste of the show when it airs, but they don't want you to be able to DO anything but watch that airing. That way, when they come out with the $100 box set of season 1, you'll HAVE to buy it if you want to keep that show (since you can't legally have a copy of that show off-air).
Also remember HDTV is not the end-all, be-all of DTV. HDTV is just one aspect of it. There are thousands of stations currently complying with the DTV transition, yet broadcasting no HD, by encoding their NTSC signal and broadcasting it as SDTV (standard definition). Everyone could quite feasibly quit broadcasting all HD, and only broadcast SD, and they'd be complying with the FCC.
What irks me is how cable companies want to make extra money from off-air HDTV. I can see them charging a bit extra for the HD receivers themselves, I could see charging a bit extra for HBO HD and other premium HD services. What I can't see paying for is the local ABC station's OTA HD signal. And it also irks me how these boxes do not downconvert - you MUST have a full HD setup to even enjoy it. That's not so much of an issue with the local station, because unless ABC is broadcasting HD, they're just upconverting. But wouldn't it be nice to have the option to flick to HBO HD and watch a movie, letterboxed and all, on your analog set? With higher quality connections like S-Video, it's about as good as you can get without an actual HD set (I would wager that downconverted HD, sent over S-Video, can look equal to or even better than DVD video sent over the same cable). But alas, these things will never happen, because they don't even want you to be able to downconvert HD (after all, if you can do that, you can take the downconverted signal and RECORD IT ON TAPE!). Heaven forbid you set the wrong aspect ratio and record anamorphic 16:9, because then you've got an even higher resolution downconversion (with many more scanlines available), and thus your pirated material (since you want to manipulate video, Hollywood considers you a pirate) can look even better!
TV is dying. I see one of two things happening from here:
1) Nobody takes notice of this until it's entrenched. People buy hook, line, and sinker into the HD transition. Then, people find out they lose features, so all of it gets packed up and taken back to the store.
2) People see this over the horizon, and they decide not to pad Hollywood's coffers with purchasing HD equipment. Then, when they finally DO shut off NTSC (which I don't predict will happen on schedule), people will watch the stuff they already have, and ratings will plummet as noone watches DTV.
The FCC is trying really hard to push this DTV transition through in less than 10 years. But tell me this - how long did it take from the time the FCC decided they'd go with RCA's compatible color system (over CBS' incompatible field-sequential system, complete with rotating color filter), until you could confidently say 'our programs are watched by more people in color than in b&w'? Took damn longer than 10 years, at any rate. The FCC should slow down a bit and let the technology get out there for the bleeding edge people, as the equipment gets cheaper to manufacture, prices will come down, more people will buy DTV equipment because 'it's compatible with everything that's on the old TV, plus this new stuff', then about 20 years from now, when DTV equipment is widespread, start shutting off the old NTSC.
I bet you that if we'd gone with CBS' color system we'd have had similar problems, as far as trying to make a transition (only likely without all this hullabaloo about 'content protection', since it wasn't really a hot-button issue then).
Instead of migrating to an all-digital system, they should have went with an analog-digital hybrid, with room for expansion in the future to eliminate the NTSC requirement. Were it up to me, I'd broadcast standard NTSC, with digital augmentation to fill the full 16:9 frame and enhance the resolution. Then, when NTSC is mostly outmoded, send the whole signal digitally and break compatibility with the 10 sets that still rely on the analog video.
Only 14MHz? The SuperCPU addon for the C64/128 runs at 20MHz.
A bit pedantic, but that's the way I am
- If you think the Commodore 64 was good, you guys are REALLY gonna be bowled over by the Nintendo NES!
Of course the C64 was good. Way better graphics capabilities than the NES. Don't think so? I beg to differ. Especially check out the Crest demos. Digital Magic has some of the best graphics to date on the C64, and it's all stock, no hardware mods.Can the NES display graphics outside the 'normal' screen? Can the NES stretch a sprite vertically up to the entire length of the screen? Sure, the C64's multicolor mode has fat pixels, but that can be easily overcome in software, as can the relatively low color resolution. It's gotten to the point where you can have graphics with normal sized pixels, and each pixel can pretty much use any of approx. 100 colors, independently from the others.
The VIC-II is way more flexible than any other graphics chip of the era. You can scroll the screen in pretty much any direction with very little actual work to do on the part of the processor. Of course, many of the great effects are really only usable in demos and not games, but that doesn't really matter. And there are lots of effects that I'm not even touching on right now.
And people thought that giving up 40 cycles every 8 scanlines was a bad idea
- It is a democratic government's DUTY to protect idiots from themselves when their behaviour has ramifications for the whole of society.
BULLSHIT. You can twist anything to say it affects everyone, to justify controlling it.This world needs a country that respects personal privacy and that doesn't patronize its citizens by saying "you're not smart enough to make that decision, we make it for you, if you disagree you go to jail". One where the fact that your rights end where mine begin is codified into all subdivisions of law.
The US tried to be that, but certain people twisted things around and eradicated states' rights (remember the case where a private farmer was prevented from growing wheat on his own land because 'it would affect interstate commerce'?).
Uh, no? Taken from Secret Weapons of Commodore:
"Unlike the other custom chips which were christened with women's monikers, the Agnus chip is not a corruption of the name Agnes (as I had previously thought), but rather, according to Jim Williams, Jay Miner named it Agnus from the Latin expression agnus dei ('lamb of God')."
Also check out the prototype pic of the Agnus and Daphne - it clearly says 'Agnus', meaning that it was that way from the beginning. I know of no 'Agnes' to have ever existed in the Amiga.
Isn't it fun when you can bitchslap someone like that? :)
You're confusing physical space with ROM space. This may very well be true with regards to the actual ROM board, but that has nothing to do with how much ROM space there is internal to the ROM chip(s).
You're limited by the ROM size itself, which is why you wouldn't start burning ROMs until after you're already completely done with the game - you'd likely develop with either a hardware emulator or a flashcart on the real hardware, which would support the maximum the console supports. For example, the Genesis supports 4MB (=32Mb) of ROM without bankswitching hardware. On the NES, which I know less about, and going strictly by the CPU, it can only access 64KB of memory at one time - and part of that is taken by the PPU and I/O (reading carts, hidden I/O port, etc), which probably bumps the accessible ROM space at any given instant down to 32-48K, just guessing. Now you know why mappers are so prevalent in the NES world - mappers are essentially bankswitching hardware (some of them have added features as well, like MMC5). But to access more than the maximum ROM the console supports requires some sort of bankswitching logic to allow the coder to move banks of ROM in and out of the address space.
You must be one of those poor souls who have never heard of the Amiga. It's a pity, really.
- Many people seem to operate under the assumption that the media business rakes in money had over foot. This simply is not true. We own two of the four television stations in a decent market(140's) . We operate both stations from the same facilities using the same staff and most of the same equipment and are barely staying afloat. The next time you think about bitching about the # of commercials in your favorite show, consider the alternative, not seeing your favorite show at all.
Same here, 92nd DMA, except there's 5 major stations. It's recently been decided that the place should be automated, to reduce the amount of ongoing expense being paid in the form of wages to one of the operators. At my station, I am an operator as well as a production assistant, and I pad the spots I dub by 1 frame on each end.Well, here in Kingsport TN, my analog channels look a lot worse than the best digital channels (like the premiums, and some of the regular digital channels). Granted, there are some very shitty digital channels, but my digital channels tend to look better. And I can put up with a slight bit of artifacting, I have to look really close to see it anyway.
- But it is illegal in the US.
It is? If so, I wish somebody would tell Rich Cronin and Bob Boden this, those SCOFFLAWS!Seriously, I don't believe it's illegal, or someone would have already been called up on it.
They wouldn't do this because the moment an advertiser found out about it, they'd raise immortal hell.
- There's no easy way to make 24fps become 29.97fps for NTSC.
You are correct. 3:2 pulldown does slightly change the speed, since it interpolates to 30fps, not 29.97fps. However, the change is so slight that I doubt anyone would notice unless they had a 'golden eye'.- I also remeber hearing that a lot of studios get lazy for PAL transfers and just slow down the 24 fps to 25 fps.
You are close, but backwards. 25fps is faster (about 4%) than 24fps.- Still, considering it's only used by cheap-ass local stations whose NTSC signal is shite compared to a nice, pure digital cable/satellite channel anyway
Only used by cheap-ass local stations? Guess again. I (along with countless others) have witnessed it in use on Game Show Network, among other cable networks. I think TNN runs ST:TNG through one at times, but it's sometimes hard to tell depending on the video quality. The effect on the audio is also very noticeable for me, when I'm watching $100,000 Pyramid and Dick Clark sounds like a chipmunk who is long past puberty. For God's sake, this stuff turns everyone into the Micro Machines guy (can't remember his name).I agree with you, it is very annoying. Tune in to GSN (if you have it) some day at 12:30pm and watch Match Game Syndicated. When they get to the 'star wheel', notice how it spins.
Besides, it's not used by 'cheap-ass local stations', because I work for one, and the GM wouldn't spend the money on it. But, as a master control operator, I would find one of these useful - not to gain commercial time, but to help me get back on time if I'm, say, 5 seconds over going into a show, I could compress the show by 5 seconds (spread over 30 minutes, that wouldn't be noticeable to even a trained eye) and get back on time.
...I've noticed it in effect on several cable networks (Game Show Network is a serious offender here). They say it's supposed to be unnoticeable, but it jumps out at me.
However, as a master control operator, I believe that one of these things would be nice to gain back a few seconds if you're over. Not 30 seconds, but more like 3 or 4.
I found out on my own the basic gist of how it works - it basically chops off part of a frame and then adds what remains to the next frame. It's really noticeable when there is supposed to be a smooth pan and this box jerks it up.
That's a bad quote. Approximately 100 lines are used for timing information and retracing. Go ask anybody who knows anything about how a TV works if they'd like to do away with their horizontal and vertical sync pulses. Plus, your math is wrong. The refresh rate is 60Hz, not 60MHz. No way you'd be able to do this. Now, it is definitely possible to insert some information in the VBI (vertical blanking interval), but that's normally used by networks to send timing information to affiliate. Ever look at the top of an ABC network signal straight off the satellite? It's loaded with white blips.
Well, imagine that all the stations in the market can pool their bandwidth together (I'm unsure if FCC regs allow this or not). If, in larger markets, you figure 6 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN, WB), then that means about 114Mb/s total bandwidth, of which only 24Mb/s is needed for 6 SD channels, leaving about 90Mb/s total bandwidth available for other services.
Like I said, I'm unsure if FCC regs would even allow this. But, if it would, it would be a great way for stations to offer a type of premium service (whatever it may be) and make a little extra money.
I don't see how this breaks their agreement - they're not using their analog frequencies to do this, they're using part of their digital allotment to do this. Perfectly legal. The FCC doesn't say what a station will do with all of their bandwidth, as long as they are broadcasting at least 1 compliant DTV station.
Personally, I'd like to see all the stations in a particular area (if FCC regs allow it) pool their DTV allotments together, broadcast 1 SD signal each, and use the rest of the bandwidth for premium services (such as this).
Well, apparently I'm lucky, because my cable co. does not encode any channels with Macrovision, because I feed them through a SVHS VCR to an S-Video TV and have not had a problem with Macrovision.
Not always. I work at an ABC affiliate, and there are two bugs - one that is inserted by a MasterKey (and is station-specific) and another one that is fed on the net feed (which is just an ABC bug). However, you can usually catch some network shows (I know of some ABC shows, don't know about NBC or CBS) fed clean. I saw the first ep of Bob Patterson before it aired, for example. Luckily, over on the UPN station owned by the same people, it's generally the operator's discretion whether or not to add the bug (and guess what? I don't). Still, UPN slaps one up, and even worse? Many shows have their own bug.
You forget - HDTV is already MPEG-2 compressed. This card just stores the raw stream, as distributed.
As the title says, I recommend that any C64 fan watch +H2K by Plush. One of the best C64 demos I've seen.
I've personally met Boucher and talked with him in some detail...he definitely is not for sale...he's got the right idea about IP in this millenium, unlike most politicos...he's a good man. Cannon, on the other hand, I have no idea about. But you will not see Boucher being bought out.