No, when I say re-encode, I don't mean to reduce the resolution. If you'll follow the link above, you'll see 4 Mb/s is the HD DiVX rate for 720p. It's all HD!
I'm sure this will get lost in the noise, but my biggest problem with Microsoft is something that can almost be termed anti-competitive, but not against their competitors.
I previously worked for a company that created graphics chips for the PC. Our primary customers were PCs built for businesses for office use. Our business was good.
Then Microsoft decided to make 3-D graphics mandatory for all graphics chips. No, they don't dictate to 3rd parties what they should do. But they effectively do this when they tie their requirements to their Logo requirements. (For those who don't know, to get the Windows Logo ("Designed for Windows...") on your PC, the machine must pass a set of tests at Microsoft. The Logo wouldn't be all that important, except that along with it comes a huge savings on the O/S. Instead of full retail, something in the neighborhood of $35!)
Microsoft didn't say "hey, if you do 3-D and want it to work with Windows, this is the way we support." They said "you must have 3-D." They even dictated the minimum performance, which meant that a bare-bones solution (i.e. cheap) for us wouldn't help.
Our customers didn't care about 3-D. But they sure cared about that extra savings. So we had to scramble to hire a 3-D team to add it to our device. That serious budget and schedule hit, coupled with mismanagement on a number of other issues, resulted in the demise of the graphics chip team at that company.
----
So I had to move to another company. There we were working on a Modem. One of the requirements Microsoft added to their Logo program was for something called Distinctive Ring. (For those who don't know, you can get more than one phone line assigned to your phone. To tell which line is ringing, a different ring pattern is assigned to each line. So instead of just ring...ring...ring, you might hear ring, ring....ring, ring. The requirement was for the Modem to be able to distinguish between the different rings and decide whether to answer or not.) Well what fraction of a percent of people have multiple lines? And what fraction of that fraction have a modem attached to those phone lines? But every single Modem has to have this feature.
Again, Microsoft didn't say "if you want to add distinctive ring, here's how to do it so it will work with the O/S." They said "every Modem must have this feature."
----
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of competition. If our graphics chip company's customers wanted 3-D and we didn't provide it, we deserved to lose them as customers. If we provided it and it was too slow, then our penalty would have been lost revenue. But our customers specifically told us they didn't care about 3-D. And if we could have offered our devices for $1 less a chip than our competitors because we didn't include 3-D and they did, they'd have beat a path to our door.
And if the other company's Modem lacking Distinctive Ring meant we couldn't sell our Modem, that's Capitalism at work. But my guess is that if a customer even knew what Distinctive Ring was, and they really needed a Modem capable of handling it, they'd be willing to pay $5 or something to add the feature to a Modem. And that would offset the development cost of this feature.
But in both cases (and others I wasn't directly involved in, but which were similar), Microsoft chose to dictate the features that hardware vendors put into their hardware. They effectively removed our ability to differentiate from the competition. That's pretty close to the definition of anti-competitive. And they also removed our ability to balance budgets for features with demand. Basically, all those features had to be added for free, because every competing hardware vendor was doing it too.
Certainly Microsoft's goal is to bound their support. They want stability and to simplify their own implementations. But they flattened the landscape and drove some companies out of business.
Instead, if they had just said that IF the features were i
Can someone pretending to be a lawyer (we know there are no real lawyers on slashdot) explain to me how it is legal for someone to come into my home and take something of mine? I own my EchoStar DVR, and I don't pay a monthly fee to use it. If either of those were true, then I can see disabling the unit or discontinuing the service. But it's mine.
I have never heard of a product being sold, later to be found in violation of a patent, and then all the consumers who bought having it taken from them. If someone sold a DVD player that violated someone's patent, would they be allowed to come take them away from anyone who bought it!? And isn't that kind of double-jeopardy anyway? I mean they got money from the infringer, and then the consumer had to go out and buy the product again!
I agree with the OP. Neither side deserves to win. But what's the alternative? How about HD on one of today's red laser DVD±R/Ws? Well, DivX, WMV, and even MPEG-4 can fit, but it's not practical if you have to have a PC to play it.
90 minutes on a single-layer DVD should look excellent. You will use a bitrate of about 6 Mbps, which is plenty for high quality SD. But you must use a decent encoder.
Nero's, as well as those on most all-in-one DVD edit/encode/author software are crap. The one that comes with Premiere is actually very good, but I prefer CinemaCraft Encoder Basic available at Visible Light for a mere $58. (Understand that the full version retails for over $2500 and has been used on commercial DVDs for many years.) It's not only quite good, but it's very fast. And it will plug directly into Premiere so you don't have to save that 19 GB intermediate AVI (or go through the associated additional encode/decode cycle, which also degrades the quality).
After encoding, you must author your DVD. Adobe's Encore is good, but at $350, it's pretty expensive. I recommend DVD-Lab, the standard version of which is only $99.
Both of these are available for trial download, so you don't have to take my word for it.
Note that for audio, you can use MP2 for PAL destinations, even for commercial DVDs, and CCEB will do this for you. But for NTSC destinations, MP2 is not required to be supported by the players. You'll need to obtain a DolbyDigital (AC3) encoder, which is a different story (or you can use PCM, but this would force you to use a lower bitrate on the video, which would degrade the quality, so I don't recommend it).
I'm sorry, but this isn't a format comparison. It's a codec comparision. It's an encoder/compressionist comparison. It's possibly a DVD author comparison. It's a product line comparison. And it's a player comparison. But there is absolutely no way to legitimately attribute any of the issues to the formats themselves.
OTOH, given that there is no way to look at the data directly, it's impossible to do an analysis to determine where all the issues lie. Yet another reason the closed system they are forcing down our throats keeps us from differentiating between poor codec choices, crappy encoding, incompetent authoring, garbage players, or inferior formats.
Then again, maybe that's what they want....
So I take it all back. Since I can't assign the issues to where they belong, Blu-Ray sucks more than HD-DVD. If that's what they wanted, then screw 'em.
Movielink and Sonic Solutionsalso announced an alliance that would allow downloaded movies to be burned to DVD. Theirs also will use a DRM technology that claims to allow the DVDs to play in "standard DVD players," but will be a "protected format" so you can't copy them.
Given that pressed DVDs can't achieve this, and that CSS isn't possible on burned DVDs, I find this difficult to believe.
There are at least FIVE DVD players capable of playing high definition video from regular red laser DVD*Rs in MPEG-2 (including ATSC/DVB-T), DivX, WMV, and MPEG-4 (some models), in addition to standard DVDs. Street prices range from about $250 to $430:
Most have DVI or HDMI, and all have digital audio outputs.
Most interestingly, these players all have networking included (this is why Fry's has theirs in the network section instead of the DVD section), and some include wireless. So you can play your streams directly from your PC (for example, if you have an ATSC/QAM tuner card) without burning anything!
The whole using Bittorrent to distribute anything for a profit should be axed by users until they get a cut. No media, no home theater, single machine, no bandwidth, no storage, but the full DVD price!? Yeah, that'll fly.
Even my $600 Samsung CRT HDTV has a DVI input, which is fully compatible with HDMI (HDMI is just DVI with audio, so all it takes is a cable with HDMI on one end and DVI on the other to make it work).
Not really. DVI is electrically equivalent to HDMI without sound. But DVI doesn't necessarily have HDCP (the copy protection). Some DVI devices supported HDCP, but most didn't. So even if you have DVI, you're still SOL if you want HD from a HD-DVD or BluRay disc.
...the difference between 720x480 (and that's assuming the disc is anamorphic, otherwise it's more like 480x360)...
DVDs are 720x480, whether 4:3 or 16:9.
Now, all that said, I give it a matter of months before some Chinese or Taiwanese company comes out with an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player that outputs full resolution over component. It'll be one of those "oops!" moments that the manufacturer claims was unintentional but results in a run on that particular model.
Unlike current DVDs, if such a thing happens, the keys can be revoked. That means that HD-DVD/BluRay discs manufactured after the "mistake" is discovered, will not work with those devices. They learned from SD DVDs and figured out a way (theoretically) to put the cat back in the bag.
Yeah. Comparing 2-D playback of DVDs in 2006, is like comparing 3-D frame rates using Quake II...passe.
Riddle me this Batman:
1. Can the card accelerate MPEG-2 playback (DxVA, et al)? 1.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
2. Can the card accelerate MPEG-4 (h.264 part 10) playback? 2.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
3. Can the card accelerate WMV (VC-1) playback? 3.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
4. Can the card accelerate MPEG-2 encode? 4.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
5. Can the card accelerate MPEG-4 (h.264 part 10) encode? 5.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
6. Can the card accelerate WMV (VC-1) encode? 6.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
7. Can the card synchronize 1080i video with 1080i display (i.e. the field synchronization between the decoded video and played video don't drift - hint, neither ATI nor nVidia can do this today)?
I thought the same as you until I worked through all the combinations. The Wikipedia entry has a nice diagram to help.
But take a look at your explanation: You're right that there are four outcomes. What you miss is that each of them does not have the same probability of occurring. You assume each has a 1/4 chance. But take a look:
You start by choosing either Goat A, Goat B, or the Car. That is a 1/3 chance for each, right?
So in your list of 4 options, 1 and 2 have a 1/3 chance, but 3 and 4 both come from your choice of the car, which had a 1/3 chance. So each has a 1/6 chance.
That means you have a 1/6+1/6=1/3 chance of losing, and a 1/3+1/3=2/3 chance of winning by switching.
(BTW, loose is the opposite of tight or secure; lose is the opposite of win.)
The article mentions that it can record from DVDs and VCRs as well. That plus the info that the least expensive model only records audio, tells me that it includes an analog capture ability. So you can capture from any camcorder or other video device, albeit via analog.
Well, excuse me. Apparently it was only a dream where I read where the browser in Mozilla was going to be replaced with Firefox, since I can't seem to locate the reference. In case you didn't notice, I ASKED whether that was the case, specifically because I only (apparently incorrectly) vaguely recall reading this. There's no need to be asinine about it.
Or they could differentiate between anonymous and registered. Registered users would be allowed free editing. Anonymous editors would require some validation, either explicit moderation, or perhaps peer moderation--the proposed edit could be posted and a registered editor could be allowed the option of validating it.
The Buffalo LinkTheater, IOData LinkPlayer2, and the JVC SRDVD-100U (coming in September) will all play DivX HD or WMV HD from today's DVDs. And all of the above will output HD on component (although HDCP is included in the JVC, which might limit DRM'd content). MSRPs are less than $400, and you can use your current DVD burner to make DVDs, so the media is cheap and already available! Let's just tell both camps to get stuffed.
So yeah, they are rallying for a single format. Plus ten for style, but minus several hundred for insisting that the copy protection be severe, including the prohibition of analog HD.
So now, I can't download the update at work, where we have broadband, and transport it home (via CD or thumb drive) because I can't validate my home installation!? I have two machines at home. One is connected via dialup, and the other (an HTPC) is not connected to the internet at all.
Do you know how long 266 MB takes to download over dialup!? OVER 11 1/2 HOURS!!
(I assume you mean content vice media.) I don't know. I think if there were enough players of this type, and especially if they outnumbered HD-DVD and BluRay players, it would be difficult to ignore them. They didn't stop producing CDs when copying came to the mainstream.
Plus, the pr0n industry probably wouldn't have a problem creating content (I understand much of their DVD content isn't CSS protected--probably to avoid licensing costs), which would spur sales:-) One of the theories is that VHS beat Beta because of their choice. And many say the Internet took off because of them. Why not DivX DVDs as well?
Slashdot Mirror
No, when I say re-encode, I don't mean to reduce the resolution. If you'll follow the link above, you'll see 4 Mb/s is the HD DiVX rate for 720p. It's all HD!
Xesdeeni
Ahhh. Good point. I hadn't considered it wasn't really posted as a practical download, but just to say "Nya Nya Nya."
[Jeff Dunham]"Hey Xesdeeni. Whewng!"[/Jeff Dunham]
Xesdeeni
19.6 GB ÷ 119 min = 23.5 Mb/s.
That's serious overkill for MPEG-4. OTA HD is MPEG-2 and limited to 19.2 Mb/s.
If some kind soul would re-encode the movie to something more appropriate...say DiVX at 4 Mb/s, it'd only be 3.5 GB.
That's more reasonable to download, and will fit on a single-layer DVD.
Xesdeeni
I'm sure this will get lost in the noise, but my biggest problem with Microsoft is something that can almost be termed anti-competitive, but not against their competitors.
I previously worked for a company that created graphics chips for the PC. Our primary customers were PCs built for businesses for office use. Our business was good.
Then Microsoft decided to make 3-D graphics mandatory for all graphics chips. No, they don't dictate to 3rd parties what they should do. But they effectively do this when they tie their requirements to their Logo requirements. (For those who don't know, to get the Windows Logo ("Designed for Windows...") on your PC, the machine must pass a set of tests at Microsoft. The Logo wouldn't be all that important, except that along with it comes a huge savings on the O/S. Instead of full retail, something in the neighborhood of $35!)
Microsoft didn't say "hey, if you do 3-D and want it to work with Windows, this is the way we support." They said "you must have 3-D." They even dictated the minimum performance, which meant that a bare-bones solution (i.e. cheap) for us wouldn't help.
Our customers didn't care about 3-D. But they sure cared about that extra savings. So we had to scramble to hire a 3-D team to add it to our device. That serious budget and schedule hit, coupled with mismanagement on a number of other issues, resulted in the demise of the graphics chip team at that company.
----
So I had to move to another company. There we were working on a Modem. One of the requirements Microsoft added to their Logo program was for something called Distinctive Ring. (For those who don't know, you can get more than one phone line assigned to your phone. To tell which line is ringing, a different ring pattern is assigned to each line. So instead of just ring...ring...ring, you might hear ring, ring....ring, ring. The requirement was for the Modem to be able to distinguish between the different rings and decide whether to answer or not.) Well what fraction of a percent of people have multiple lines? And what fraction of that fraction have a modem attached to those phone lines? But every single Modem has to have this feature.
Again, Microsoft didn't say "if you want to add distinctive ring, here's how to do it so it will work with the O/S." They said "every Modem must have this feature."
----
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of competition. If our graphics chip company's customers wanted 3-D and we didn't provide it, we deserved to lose them as customers. If we provided it and it was too slow, then our penalty would have been lost revenue. But our customers specifically told us they didn't care about 3-D. And if we could have offered our devices for $1 less a chip than our competitors because we didn't include 3-D and they did, they'd have beat a path to our door.
And if the other company's Modem lacking Distinctive Ring meant we couldn't sell our Modem, that's Capitalism at work. But my guess is that if a customer even knew what Distinctive Ring was, and they really needed a Modem capable of handling it, they'd be willing to pay $5 or something to add the feature to a Modem. And that would offset the development cost of this feature.
But in both cases (and others I wasn't directly involved in, but which were similar), Microsoft chose to dictate the features that hardware vendors put into their hardware. They effectively removed our ability to differentiate from the competition. That's pretty close to the definition of anti-competitive. And they also removed our ability to balance budgets for features with demand. Basically, all those features had to be added for free, because every competing hardware vendor was doing it too.
Certainly Microsoft's goal is to bound their support. They want stability and to simplify their own implementations. But they flattened the landscape and drove some companies out of business.
Instead, if they had just said that IF the features were i
Can someone pretending to be a lawyer (we know there are no real lawyers on slashdot) explain to me how it is legal for someone to come into my home and take something of mine? I own my EchoStar DVR, and I don't pay a monthly fee to use it. If either of those were true, then I can see disabling the unit or discontinuing the service. But it's mine.
I have never heard of a product being sold, later to be found in violation of a patent, and then all the consumers who bought having it taken from them. If someone sold a DVD player that violated someone's patent, would they be allowed to come take them away from anyone who bought it!? And isn't that kind of double-jeopardy anyway? I mean they got money from the infringer, and then the consumer had to go out and buy the product again!
Xesdeeni
DivX 6.1 Supports 720p. plans for 1080i and even 1080p in the works
Stay away from the standard profiles and you can do 1080p (that's 1920x1080@24p), which covers 95%+ of all movies.
DVD players should be out in time for Xmas, at price points only slightly above current SD DVD players.
A number of players that support DiVX HD (as well as WMV HD, and some that support MPEG-4 HD) have been available for well over a year.
screw new discs, new hardware, new DRM, and new high prices.
Hear! Hear!
Xesdeeni
I agree with the OP. Neither side deserves to win. But what's the alternative? How about HD on one of today's red laser DVD±R/Ws? Well, DivX, WMV, and even MPEG-4 can fit, but it's not practical if you have to have a PC to play it.
But there are a number of Sigma-Designs based DVD players that can play HD content available TODAY . Even better, they can also play HDV content recorded with today's HD camcorders. And they are networkable (some include wireless), so you can preview your HD masterpiece on your TV via network from you PC, while you are editing!
Prices range from $250-$400. Let's tell both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps to take a hike!
Xesdeeni
90 minutes on a single-layer DVD should look excellent. You will use a bitrate of about 6 Mbps, which is plenty for high quality SD. But you must use a decent encoder.
Nero's, as well as those on most all-in-one DVD edit/encode/author software are crap. The one that comes with Premiere is actually very good, but I prefer CinemaCraft Encoder Basic available at Visible Light for a mere $58. (Understand that the full version retails for over $2500 and has been used on commercial DVDs for many years.) It's not only quite good, but it's very fast. And it will plug directly into Premiere so you don't have to save that 19 GB intermediate AVI (or go through the associated additional encode/decode cycle, which also degrades the quality).
After encoding, you must author your DVD. Adobe's Encore is good, but at $350, it's pretty expensive. I recommend DVD-Lab, the standard version of which is only $99.
Both of these are available for trial download, so you don't have to take my word for it.
Note that for audio, you can use MP2 for PAL destinations, even for commercial DVDs, and CCEB will do this for you. But for NTSC destinations, MP2 is not required to be supported by the players. You'll need to obtain a DolbyDigital (AC3) encoder, which is a different story (or you can use PCM, but this would force you to use a lower bitrate on the video, which would degrade the quality, so I don't recommend it).
Xesdeeni
I'm sorry, but this isn't a format comparison. It's a codec comparision. It's an encoder/compressionist comparison. It's possibly a DVD author comparison. It's a product line comparison. And it's a player comparison. But there is absolutely no way to legitimately attribute any of the issues to the formats themselves.
OTOH, given that there is no way to look at the data directly, it's impossible to do an analysis to determine where all the issues lie. Yet another reason the closed system they are forcing down our throats keeps us from differentiating between poor codec choices, crappy encoding, incompetent authoring, garbage players, or inferior formats.
Then again, maybe that's what they want....
So I take it all back. Since I can't assign the issues to where they belong, Blu-Ray sucks more than HD-DVD. If that's what they wanted, then screw 'em.
Xesdeeni
Movielink and Sonic Solutions also announced an alliance that would allow downloaded movies to be burned to DVD. Theirs also will use a DRM technology that claims to allow the DVDs to play in "standard DVD players," but will be a "protected format" so you can't copy them.
Given that pressed DVDs can't achieve this, and that CSS isn't possible on burned DVDs, I find this difficult to believe.
Xesdeeni
There are at least FIVE DVD players capable of playing high definition video from regular red laser DVD*Rs in MPEG-2 (including ATSC/DVB-T), DivX, WMV, and MPEG-4 (some models), in addition to standard DVDs. Street prices range from about $250 to $430:
IOData AVeL LinkPlayer2
Buffalo LinkTheater
JVC SRDVD-100U
DVICO TVIX-HD M-5000
Zensonic Z500
Most have DVI or HDMI, and all have digital audio outputs.
Most interestingly, these players all have networking included (this is why Fry's has theirs in the network section instead of the DVD section), and some include wireless. So you can play your streams directly from your PC (for example, if you have an ATSC/QAM tuner card) without burning anything!
Inexpensive players! Plentiful burners! Cheap media! Networked playback! HD!
Who needs HD-DVD or Blu-ray!?
Xesdeeni
The whole using Bittorrent to distribute anything for a profit should be axed by users until they get a cut. No media, no home theater, single machine, no bandwidth, no storage, but the full DVD price!? Yeah, that'll fly.
Xesdeeni
Even my $600 Samsung CRT HDTV has a DVI input, which is fully compatible with HDMI (HDMI is just DVI with audio, so all it takes is a cable with HDMI on one end and DVI on the other to make it work).
...the difference between 720x480 (and that's assuming the disc is anamorphic, otherwise it's more like 480x360)...
Not really. DVI is electrically equivalent to HDMI without sound. But DVI doesn't necessarily have HDCP (the copy protection). Some DVI devices supported HDCP, but most didn't. So even if you have DVI, you're still SOL if you want HD from a HD-DVD or BluRay disc.
DVDs are 720x480, whether 4:3 or 16:9.
Now, all that said, I give it a matter of months before some Chinese or Taiwanese company comes out with an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player that outputs full resolution over component. It'll be one of those "oops!" moments that the manufacturer claims was unintentional but results in a run on that particular model.
Unlike current DVDs, if such a thing happens, the keys can be revoked. That means that HD-DVD/BluRay discs manufactured after the "mistake" is discovered, will not work with those devices. They learned from SD DVDs and figured out a way (theoretically) to put the cat back in the bag.
Xesdeeni
A Terminator DVD is available for $9.99.
And for the same price, you can get Terminator 2 at (Amazon.com).
And oh BTW, that version already has an HD version .
Red DVDRs with DiVX, MP4 or (ech!) WMV in HD, played using DVD players available from JVC, Iodata, Buffalo, Zensonic, etc. are the way to go!
Xesdeeni
Yeah. Comparing 2-D playback of DVDs in 2006, is like comparing 3-D frame rates using Quake II...passe.
Riddle me this Batman:
1. Can the card accelerate MPEG-2 playback (DxVA, et al)?
1.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
2. Can the card accelerate MPEG-4 (h.264 part 10) playback?
2.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
3. Can the card accelerate WMV (VC-1) playback?
3.a. How much CPU is necessary to play back HD content (720@24p, 720@60p, 1080@24p, 1080@30i) without dropping frames?
4. Can the card accelerate MPEG-2 encode?
4.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
5. Can the card accelerate MPEG-4 (h.264 part 10) encode?
5.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
6. Can the card accelerate WMV (VC-1) encode?
6.a. How much CPU is required to get real-time encode (i.e. 1 hour of video takes 1 hour to encode)?
7. Can the card synchronize 1080i video with 1080i display (i.e. the field synchronization between the decoded video and played video don't drift - hint, neither ATI nor nVidia can do this today)?
Xesdeeni
I thought the same as you until I worked through all the combinations. The Wikipedia entry has a nice diagram to help.
But take a look at your explanation: You're right that there are four outcomes. What you miss is that each of them does not have the same probability of occurring. You assume each has a 1/4 chance. But take a look:
You start by choosing either Goat A, Goat B, or the Car. That is a 1/3 chance for each, right?
So in your list of 4 options, 1 and 2 have a 1/3 chance, but 3 and 4 both come from your choice of the car, which had a 1/3 chance. So each has a 1/6 chance.
That means you have a 1/6+1/6=1/3 chance of losing, and a 1/3+1/3=2/3 chance of winning by switching.
(BTW, loose is the opposite of tight or secure; lose is the opposite of win.)
Xesdeeni
The article mentions that it can record from DVDs and VCRs as well. That plus the info that the least expensive model only records audio, tells me that it includes an analog capture ability. So you can capture from any camcorder or other video device, albeit via analog.
Xesdeeni
Well, excuse me. Apparently it was only a dream where I read where the browser in Mozilla was going to be replaced with Firefox, since I can't seem to locate the reference. In case you didn't notice, I ASKED whether that was the case, specifically because I only (apparently incorrectly) vaguely recall reading this. There's no need to be asinine about it.
Xesdeeni
Isn't the Mozilla browser now Firefox?
Xesdeeni
Or they could differentiate between anonymous and registered. Registered users would be allowed free editing. Anonymous editors would require some validation, either explicit moderation, or perhaps peer moderation--the proposed edit could be posted and a registered editor could be allowed the option of validating it.
Or some such...
Xesdeeni
Firefox with FlashBlock or AdBlock is your friend.
Xesdeeni
The Buffalo LinkTheater, IOData LinkPlayer2, and the JVC SRDVD-100U (coming in September) will all play DivX HD or WMV HD from today's DVDs. And all of the above will output HD on component (although HDCP is included in the JVC, which might limit DRM'd content). MSRPs are less than $400, and you can use your current DVD burner to make DVDs, so the media is cheap and already available! Let's just tell both camps to get stuffed.
Xesdeeni
So yeah, they are rallying for a single format. Plus ten for style, but minus several hundred for insisting that the copy protection be severe, including the prohibition of analog HD.
Xesdeeni
So now, I can't download the update at work, where we have broadband, and transport it home (via CD or thumb drive) because I can't validate my home installation!? I have two machines at home. One is connected via dialup, and the other (an HTPC) is not connected to the internet at all.
Do you know how long 266 MB takes to download over dialup!? OVER 11 1/2 HOURS!!
Xesdeeni
(I assume you mean content vice media.) I don't know. I think if there were enough players of this type, and especially if they outnumbered HD-DVD and BluRay players, it would be difficult to ignore them. They didn't stop producing CDs when copying came to the mainstream.
:-) One of the theories is that VHS beat Beta because of their choice. And many say the Internet took off because of them. Why not DivX DVDs as well?
Plus, the pr0n industry probably wouldn't have a problem creating content (I understand much of their DVD content isn't CSS protected--probably to avoid licensing costs), which would spur sales
Xesdeeni