You say that there are problems with using XVID due to patents?
Is this true?
From the FAQ they say: "XviD is Free Software (licensed under the GNU GPL), open to third-party contributions and aims for standard's compliance, portability and interoperability, high processing speed and superior quality." and " We believe that XviD is the best currently available MPEG-4 video codec solution and additionally XviD is free software!"
So, are there actual problems with using XVID or not?
I personally love XVID as a compression codec... I use the wonderful GordianKnot application which makes encoding video just SOOO easy. This makes it wonderful to take my DVDs and rip them to XVID for use on my media server for when I feel the need to do such things...
Ahh, but you see there will always be advertising, whether you like it or not... there HAS to be!
Why?
Well, we do need to be told when something new appears that we may wish to have. How else do you find out about the latest Apple product? You are told by advertising...
Oh, you reckon you don't need advertising cause you could just walk into an Apple store and ASK them what new things they have?
What about the new companies that come along with truly new and inovative products that you might actually want, might actually be able to live a better life with... how are you going to find out about them unless they TELL you about them?
How can they tell you about them? Well, that would be through some mass media form of communication in general, which, guess what? Is called advertising.
This complete and utter aversion to advertising (I wonder if it could be called adversion?) is illogical and counter productive.
Sure there is too much, sure most of it is really for stuff that we already know about or don't need/want... but there will always be legitimate uses for it.
(How about a charity day letting people know it's coming up???)
You obviously haven't used Windows2000 or XP then. It's the thing I like most about these operating systems... I've had IE crash, I've had Explorer crash, but they've just restarted and all is good, no work lost, MP3s in Winamp didn't miss a beat... it's quite the stable system now... How about I start doing comparisons with the GUI of Linux from 1998?
You've hit the ol' nail on the head there, Slashdot will always have people who bitch and moan about something.
However: The thing is that a large chunk of comments and articles these days on Slashdot are about 'Linux becoming mainstream', 'This year is Linux's year', 'Why the f*ck isn't the entire world using Linux dammit?', 'Windows suxxors'
So, the retort to the increasing realisation that each year that Linux is supposed to be 'the' desktop environment that slips by with it still floundering is: 'Make Linux usable for the average desktop user'.
How do you do that?
Make it have an easy to use interface that is attractive and does everything the 'average' user wants...
No, Windows has this... bitch and moan as much as you like about MS, but their interface works pretty darn well... people seem to be able to pick it up pretty well.
"But, but look at those system specs you need"
OK, so do better.
Guess what?! Linux is finally getting desktops that work in a similar fashion, and they TAKE UP RESOURCES!
You don't get things for nothing people... you're starting to see that maybe MS isn't quite as stupid and incompetant as you've always believed... that maybe it's not quite as bloated as you first believed... Hell, you've had the open source community slugging away at this for... how many years now? and they haven't really done any better... so give them a break and rather than trying to convince everyone that Windows really is shit, create something that comparable.
OK, I'm quite the avid photographer, and there is a supurb site for posting your pieces and getting critiqued, and you can end up selling them there too, it's www.deviantart.com Which is always amusing to me when I tell people my page there (spoco2.deviantart.com ) as they assume it's all about porn or other such 'deviant' behaviour... it's a great site, with digital and film photographers and all sorts of other artists as well... a great place to hone your skills
No Matter how you try and justify the validity of looking at these works or not (I happen to think they are lovely), it's perfectly fine to warn people that there is nudity on the page, as quite frankly many work places are going to throw a tantrum if they see you looking at a page with boobs on it.
That's the way it is, so don't pick on the guy for just warning people.
Back in the days, making a demo was about showing off "software"-skills. A demo was all about coding fancy effects on a broad range of hardware with no support for hardware acceleration whatsoever. Ahh, but now, unfortunately, it seems to have gone the way of "We aren't even going to try to run on your machine unless you have pixel shaders". Which is really annoying as every now and again (every few months), I remember about demos and go and hunt some down, download what are currently rated as the best and then find out I can actually run about 1 in 20 of them...:(
"incredibly detailed models and the added (simple) CG of the blasters." Um, no, that wasn't Computer Graphics, that was hand created laser fire... special optical effects did exist before computers.
"Yeah, I have a DVD player hooked up to my TV, I have a DVD player in my computer. Why do I need to install a decoder on my computer, when I don't need to install one in my TV? Is it really valid to make the distinction between the two? I could pirate movies using my TV, it just isn't as easy as on the computer. (I don't) " Um, because the DVD player you have hooked up to your TV has a decoder in it, you paid for the decoder as part of the purchase price. The DVD player you bought for your PC is but a piece of hardware for reading the raw data from the DVD disc, it did not include a decoder.
Well, it probably did, but for Windows... so you're shit out of luck if you have a Mac or Linux as you paid for the price of a decoder for windows.
"Now, I will admit that at the same time a sizable (but, I wouldn't say "most") percentage of pirated works are recent releases. There's people pirating just about anything under the sun, software wise, since the 80s."
really?
Let's look at the current most download bittorrents shall we? (Source search.suprnova.org)
Games: Hitman Contracts - Xbox USA Full DVD... Knights of the Temple DEViANCE HITMAN CONTRACS USA DVD(www.bCGp.net... BREED-DEViANCE Battlefield Vietnam 3CDs NeW TrAcKeR UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 DVD-DEViANCE Splinter Cell pandora tomorrow (4CDs... BREED-DEViANCE_[bt-gm]_[EFnet] Splinter Cell2: Pandora Tomorrow [to... Fallout Tactics GTA - Vice City
Oooh, yeah, look at all those ancient games there... all out of copyright there.
What about movies then? Kill Bill Vol 2 DivX [New TrackeR] Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD1 Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD2 Partyalarm-Finger.weg.von.meiner.Toc... Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD3 KiLL BiLL VoLuMe 2 TS TCR JB87 The Punisher(telesync)SWS Kill Bill Vol 2 PROPER SVCD TELESYNC... Kill.Bill.Volume.1.UNCUT.2003.DVDRip. .. Big.Fish.DVDR-DzN Das.Urteil-Jeder.ist.käufli ch{German... Big.Fish.2003.DVDRip.XviD-DCN (AC3 a... Scary.Movie.3.2003.DVDrip.XViD-ALLiA... Twi sted - Der erste Versuch by bit-t... The Punisher VCD-Cam The Passion Of The Christ [NeW TrAcK...
Oooh, man, That Kill Bill Vol 2 must be out of copyright surely?
Come on, you can't be serious in doubting that the majority of copied works are BRAND NEW. That's why people copy them, they want to see the LATEST things without paying for them.
I'm all for the old, 'lost games' and such being able to be downloaded... I mean, really, the companies have got their money from them by now surely... but that's such a small portion of what is downloaded, I don't think that it bothers the companies much.(A bit yes, as they wouldn't shut down ROM sites if it didn't)
Man, that game was supurb... really helped develop a sense of camera position, editiing etc. in the creation of a movie and narative... excellent, excellent game/sandbox.
Ahhh yes, great example, and it is called Day in the life, from Sgt Peppers... very true... you're there, enjoying the fade out of the piano, and you get "UP NEXT! TEENAGE BABES KISSING LIVE ON THE RADIO! DUUUUDE!"
Although really, that's not apt as it's more like "Maaan, don't you just love the Beatles? Never get tired of them... classics they are... doesn't this note go for a long time? Maaan... that's just groovy... up next, details on the LP collectors expo."
Yeah, I tried that kind of stuff too... but you still had the issue of missing out on the end of the song... there were some songs that kind of 'go on' for some time and the radio stations just can't stop themselves talking over the end... quite ruining the song really. Can't think of any examples, beside one of the Cranberries' songs... but now I can't remember which one... but she keeps wailing away for ages...:D
Seeing as though the posting is a direct copy and paste of the techdirt article... how about we also read the bit that comes straight after that on their site which states that, really, this is hardly a threat to P2P... "Well, some of the comments are a bit misleading. It's not clear just how mainstream this technology really is, and it's certainly not nearly as user friendly for users as basic file sharing applications. The idea is that it records songs directly from streaming radio stations (though, right now, it looks like only certain kinds of streaming radio stations work with the software). Also, copying a song off the radio (which is this basically equivalent to) often involves a lower quality offering with songs cutting into each other, DJs talking over the music and other radio-related reasons why it's not the same as getting a full track. "
I used to tape of the radio too, and ended up knowing songs as ending with 'And that was Vanilla Ice on 2KBY7 with the HOT Ice, Ice Baby... Keep rockin' dude... yeaaah'.*
It's not the same as a pure track... plus, as it says... crap quality.
* No, I didn't actually have any Vanilla Ice tracks on tape... no... really.
Exactly... the whole point of that moment is that LUKE didn't know that Vader was his father... when watching the film WE also got a suprise, but these prequels do nothing to deminish LUKE's suprise at all.
And saying 'worst continuity ever' is just plain stupid as there is no continuity issue here, it's all fine. Jaba the hut shrinking between Ep1 and the crap Ep4 scene, then billowing out again for Ep6 is crap continuity, but this is NOT a continuity issue at all.
"No, not at all. I have been trained that you don't base statisics on a single data point."
Which would be why I would assume he installed many versions of both windows & Linux... but I would like to see what would have happened without it running under VPC.
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE ASSHAT! (Sorry, but if you're going to be insulting, you deserve it)
"Try this: plug a brand-new sound card into a Windows box and when Windows asks for drivers, don't supply them. Does the sound card work? No? Wow, Windows must suck! "
Did you read the article? Did you read how he installed Windows 95 on his brand new machine with the brand new motherboard which has brand new built in sound which didn't exist 9 years ago? Did you read how he didn't install ANY extra drivers, and guess what? IT WORKED!
So it IS the fault of Linux, it can't treat things as 'generic'... if it did what Windows does and installed a 'generic' Sound Blaster driver because the hardware is sound blaster compatible... then it'd work. Then, if the Linux crew can be bothered to create a specific driver for the soundcard then they can install that with whatever optimisations that might carry with it... but until that YOU COULD USE YOUR SOUNDCARD!
So your smartarsed comment only proves that Windows HAS got this part right... it can handle hardware it hasn't yet seen as treating it as 'generic' if it can... whereas Linux is a little... 'snooty' in this department.
So, why didn't you read further and find out that an OUT OF THE BOX install of windows 95 could do this without issue?? That's a windows install from almost 10 years ago for god's sake! All versions of windows he tried back to windows 95 worked, without any configuration required.
The problem is that Linux cannot handle this hardware that is obviously able to be handled by windows created well before it was made because it can't handle 'compatible hardware'. This soundcard is obviously made to be compatible with the soundblaster standard, and the old versions of windows just see it as such AND WORK! If Linux is unable to handle that, and can't handle things that aren't EXACTLY what it's expecting, then it's F&*ked before it even gets off the ground because it will always have the problem of being 'a little behind'.
That doesn't cut it.
If linux can't identify a new soundcard as a soundblaster compatible and run with that until optimised drivers are created for it it's screwed.
If linux can't identify a digital camera as a standard 'mass storage device' and run with that until specific drivers are made for it (if they even need to be), then it's screwed.
All I'm seeing here is excuses, and that's why Linux is screwed, because the zealots all say: "It's not a problem if you know what you're doing" OR "It's not a problem at all... why would you want to do that?" OR, my favourite "So, write a driver yourself"
This WILL NOT be the year of linux as long as this head up your arse attitude continues.
Go back to the original post and read what the point of this is... it's not to cool motherboards, it's to be primarily used as a fire retardent, in places like... museums. The demonstration shows a book being dunked in it and COMING OUT DRY! Try doing that with mineral oil... put out a fire with mineral oil and you're going to have some pretty f**ked up tapestries and illuminated manuscripts.
RTFA - It says it right there in the article that yes there was a similar fluid before, but it was destroying the Ozone layer, this is supposedly environmentally friendly.
Slashdot Mirror
You say that there are problems with using XVID due to patents?
Is this true?
From the FAQ they say:
"XviD is Free Software (licensed under the GNU GPL), open to third-party contributions and aims for standard's compliance, portability and interoperability, high processing speed and superior quality."
and
" We believe that XviD is the best currently available MPEG-4 video codec solution and additionally XviD is free software!"
So, are there actual problems with using XVID or not?
I personally love XVID as a compression codec... I use the wonderful GordianKnot application which makes encoding video just SOOO easy. This makes it wonderful to take my DVDs and rip them to XVID for use on my media server for when I feel the need to do such things...
Yeah, one digital music player supporting it... yeah... that's widespread acceptance.
Ahh, but you see there will always be advertising, whether you like it or not... there HAS to be!
Why?
Well, we do need to be told when something new appears that we may wish to have. How else do you find out about the latest Apple product? You are told by advertising...
Oh, you reckon you don't need advertising cause you could just walk into an Apple store and ASK them what new things they have?
What about the new companies that come along with truly new and inovative products that you might actually want, might actually be able to live a better life with... how are you going to find out about them unless they TELL you about them?
How can they tell you about them? Well, that would be through some mass media form of communication in general, which, guess what? Is called advertising.
This complete and utter aversion to advertising (I wonder if it could be called adversion?) is illogical and counter productive.
Sure there is too much, sure most of it is really for stuff that we already know about or don't need/want... but there will always be legitimate uses for it.
(How about a charity day letting people know it's coming up???)
You obviously haven't used Windows2000 or XP then. It's the thing I like most about these operating systems... I've had IE crash, I've had Explorer crash, but they've just restarted and all is good, no work lost, MP3s in Winamp didn't miss a beat... it's quite the stable system now... How about I start doing comparisons with the GUI of Linux from 1998?
You've hit the ol' nail on the head there, Slashdot will always have people who bitch and moan about something.
However: The thing is that a large chunk of comments and articles these days on Slashdot are about 'Linux becoming mainstream', 'This year is Linux's year', 'Why the f*ck isn't the entire world using Linux dammit?', 'Windows suxxors'
So, the retort to the increasing realisation that each year that Linux is supposed to be 'the' desktop environment that slips by with it still floundering is: 'Make Linux usable for the average desktop user'.
How do you do that?
Make it have an easy to use interface that is attractive and does everything the 'average' user wants...
No, Windows has this... bitch and moan as much as you like about MS, but their interface works pretty darn well... people seem to be able to pick it up pretty well.
"But, but look at those system specs you need"
OK, so do better.
Guess what?! Linux is finally getting desktops that work in a similar fashion, and they TAKE UP RESOURCES!
You don't get things for nothing people... you're starting to see that maybe MS isn't quite as stupid and incompetant as you've always believed... that maybe it's not quite as bloated as you first believed... Hell, you've had the open source community slugging away at this for... how many years now? and they haven't really done any better... so give them a break and rather than trying to convince everyone that Windows really is shit, create something that comparable.
OK, I'm quite the avid photographer, and there is a supurb site for posting your pieces and getting critiqued, and you can end up selling them there too, it's www.deviantart.com Which is always amusing to me when I tell people my page there (spoco2.deviantart.com ) as they assume it's all about porn or other such 'deviant' behaviour... it's a great site, with digital and film photographers and all sorts of other artists as well... a great place to hone your skills
No Matter how you try and justify the validity of looking at these works or not (I happen to think they are lovely), it's perfectly fine to warn people that there is nudity on the page, as quite frankly many work places are going to throw a tantrum if they see you looking at a page with boobs on it.
That's the way it is, so don't pick on the guy for just warning people.
Back in the days, making a demo was about showing off "software"-skills. A demo was all about coding fancy effects on a broad range of hardware with no support for hardware acceleration whatsoever. :(
Ahh, but now, unfortunately, it seems to have gone the way of "We aren't even going to try to run on your machine unless you have pixel shaders". Which is really annoying as every now and again (every few months), I remember about demos and go and hunt some down, download what are currently rated as the best and then find out I can actually run about 1 in 20 of them...
Man I wish I had money, I so want a 9600XT
"incredibly detailed models and the added (simple) CG of the blasters."
Um, no, that wasn't Computer Graphics, that was hand created laser fire... special optical effects did exist before computers.
"Yeah, I have a DVD player hooked up to my TV, I have a DVD player in my computer. Why do I need to install a decoder on my computer, when I don't need to install one in my TV?
Is it really valid to make the distinction between the two? I could pirate movies using my TV, it just isn't as easy as on the computer. (I don't)
"
Um, because the DVD player you have hooked up to your TV has a decoder in it, you paid for the decoder as part of the purchase price. The DVD player you bought for your PC is but a piece of hardware for reading the raw data from the DVD disc, it did not include a decoder.
Well, it probably did, but for Windows... so you're shit out of luck if you have a Mac or Linux as you paid for the price of a decoder for windows.
Now see... the posters above you replied in a useful manner, saying what this does different... you're just being rude. No need for that.
"Now, I will admit that at the same time a sizable (but, I wouldn't say "most") percentage of pirated works are recent releases. There's people pirating just about anything under the sun, software wise, since the 80s."
r Cell2: Pandora Tomorrow [to...
l Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD3. ..i ch{German...i sted - Der erste Versuch by bit-t...
really?
Let's look at the current most download bittorrents shall we? (Source search.suprnova.org)
Games:
Hitman Contracts - Xbox USA Full DVD...
Knights of the Temple DEViANCE
HITMAN CONTRACS USA DVD(www.bCGp.net...
BREED-DEViANCE
Battlefield Vietnam 3CDs NeW TrAcKeR
UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 DVD-DEViANCE
Splinter Cell pandora tomorrow (4CDs...
BREED-DEViANCE_[bt-gm]_[EFnet]
Splinte
Fallout Tactics
GTA - Vice City
Oooh, yeah, look at all those ancient games there... all out of copyright there.
What about movies then?
Kill Bill Vol 2 DivX [New TrackeR]
Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD1
Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD2
Partyalarm-Finger.weg.von.meiner.Toc...
Kil
KiLL BiLL VoLuMe 2 TS TCR JB87
The Punisher(telesync)SWS
Kill Bill Vol 2 PROPER SVCD TELESYNC...
Kill.Bill.Volume.1.UNCUT.2003.DVDRip
Big.Fish.DVDR-DzN
Das.Urteil-Jeder.ist.käufl
Big.Fish.2003.DVDRip.XviD-DCN (AC3 a...
Scary.Movie.3.2003.DVDrip.XViD-ALLiA...
Tw
The Punisher VCD-Cam
The Passion Of The Christ [NeW TrAcK...
Oooh, man, That Kill Bill Vol 2 must be out of copyright surely?
Come on, you can't be serious in doubting that the majority of copied works are BRAND NEW. That's why people copy them, they want to see the LATEST things without paying for them.
I'm all for the old, 'lost games' and such being able to be downloaded... I mean, really, the companies have got their money from them by now surely... but that's such a small portion of what is downloaded, I don't think that it bothers the companies much.(A bit yes, as they wouldn't shut down ROM sites if it didn't)
Man, that game was supurb... really helped develop a sense of camera position, editiing etc. in the creation of a movie and narative... excellent, excellent game/sandbox.
Ahhh yes, great example, and it is called Day in the life, from Sgt Peppers... very true... you're there, enjoying the fade out of the piano, and you get "UP NEXT! TEENAGE BABES KISSING LIVE ON THE RADIO! DUUUUDE!"
Although really, that's not apt as it's more like "Maaan, don't you just love the Beatles? Never get tired of them... classics they are... doesn't this note go for a long time? Maaan... that's just groovy... up next, details on the LP collectors expo."
Yeah, I tried that kind of stuff too... but you still had the issue of missing out on the end of the song... there were some songs that kind of 'go on' for some time and the radio stations just can't stop themselves talking over the end... quite ruining the song really. Can't think of any examples, beside one of the Cranberries' songs... but now I can't remember which one... but she keeps wailing away for ages... :D
Seeing as though the posting is a direct copy and paste of the techdirt article... how about we also read the bit that comes straight after that on their site which states that, really, this is hardly a threat to P2P...
"Well, some of the comments are a bit misleading. It's not clear just how mainstream this technology really is, and it's certainly not nearly as user friendly for users as basic file sharing applications. The idea is that it records songs directly from streaming radio stations (though, right now, it looks like only certain kinds of streaming radio stations work with the software). Also, copying a song off the radio (which is this basically equivalent to) often involves a lower quality offering with songs cutting into each other, DJs talking over the music and other radio-related reasons why it's not the same as getting a full track. "
I used to tape of the radio too, and ended up knowing songs as ending with 'And that was Vanilla Ice on 2KBY7 with the HOT Ice, Ice Baby... Keep rockin' dude... yeaaah'.*
It's not the same as a pure track... plus, as it says... crap quality.
* No, I didn't actually have any Vanilla Ice tracks on tape... no... really.
Exactly, it's not like they are THAT hard to find...
l larssense,00.html
For instance, in Australia:
Here's an EXCELLENT resource at... gee... the most popular job search site in Australia, took me all of 5 minutes to track down:
http://careerone.com.au/resources/index/0,8526,do
If you can't be bothered to look up these things, then I don't think you deserve to know... or get paid much.
Exactly... the whole point of that moment is that LUKE didn't know that Vader was his father... when watching the film WE also got a suprise, but these prequels do nothing to deminish LUKE's suprise at all.
And saying 'worst continuity ever' is just plain stupid as there is no continuity issue here, it's all fine. Jaba the hut shrinking between Ep1 and the crap Ep4 scene, then billowing out again for Ep6 is crap continuity, but this is NOT a continuity issue at all.
Pity this was posted as an AC, as it said some worthwhile things. :(
"No, not at all. I have been trained that you don't base statisics on a single data point."
Which would be why I would assume he installed many versions of both windows & Linux... but I would like to see what would have happened without it running under VPC.
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE ASSHAT!
(Sorry, but if you're going to be insulting, you deserve it)
"Try this: plug a brand-new sound card into a Windows box and when Windows asks for drivers, don't supply them. Does the sound card work? No? Wow, Windows must suck! "
Did you read the article? Did you read how he installed Windows 95 on his brand new machine with the brand new motherboard which has brand new built in sound which didn't exist 9 years ago? Did you read how he didn't install ANY extra drivers, and guess what? IT WORKED!
So it IS the fault of Linux, it can't treat things as 'generic'... if it did what Windows does and installed a 'generic' Sound Blaster driver because the hardware is sound blaster compatible... then it'd work. Then, if the Linux crew can be bothered to create a specific driver for the soundcard then they can install that with whatever optimisations that might carry with it... but until that YOU COULD USE YOUR SOUNDCARD!
So your smartarsed comment only proves that Windows HAS got this part right... it can handle hardware it hasn't yet seen as treating it as 'generic' if it can... whereas Linux is a little... 'snooty' in this department.
So, why didn't you read further and find out that an OUT OF THE BOX install of windows 95 could do this without issue?? That's a windows install from almost 10 years ago for god's sake! All versions of windows he tried back to windows 95 worked, without any configuration required.
The problem is that Linux cannot handle this hardware that is obviously able to be handled by windows created well before it was made because it can't handle 'compatible hardware'. This soundcard is obviously made to be compatible with the soundblaster standard, and the old versions of windows just see it as such AND WORK! If Linux is unable to handle that, and can't handle things that aren't EXACTLY what it's expecting, then it's F&*ked before it even gets off the ground because it will always have the problem of being 'a little behind'.
That doesn't cut it.
If linux can't identify a new soundcard as a soundblaster compatible and run with that until optimised drivers are created for it it's screwed.
If linux can't identify a digital camera as a standard 'mass storage device' and run with that until specific drivers are made for it (if they even need to be), then it's screwed.
All I'm seeing here is excuses, and that's why Linux is screwed, because the zealots all say:
"It's not a problem if you know what you're doing"
OR
"It's not a problem at all... why would you want to do that?"
OR, my favourite
"So, write a driver yourself"
This WILL NOT be the year of linux as long as this head up your arse attitude continues.
Go back to the original post and read what the point of this is... it's not to cool motherboards, it's to be primarily used as a fire retardent, in places like... museums. The demonstration shows a book being dunked in it and COMING OUT DRY! Try doing that with mineral oil... put out a fire with mineral oil and you're going to have some pretty f**ked up tapestries and illuminated manuscripts.
RTFA - It says it right there in the article that yes there was a similar fluid before, but it was destroying the Ozone layer, this is supposedly environmentally friendly.
"including microsoft. (keep that on the hush hush)" OK... just between you and me... I won't say a word.