Sure, done. I backup HD-DVD on a regular basis thanks to fire sale prices and I've ripped a BD disk too but the format and lack of tools make it a bitch to do much with yet. 40Gigs for a movie on BD is a little silly too when HD-DVD did it with less than 21Gigs, thankfully they all compress down into the 10Gig range with no discernible loss of quality to my eye or ears.
Pirate tools? No, I use AnyDVD-HD and while it doesn't YET get past BD+ protection on FOX films prices on those movies are high enough I'm not really interested anyway. AnyDVD purchased from a legit albeit offshore company that I'm sure pisses off the motion picture guys but I do not care.
BTW *some* of the HD-DVD stuff is apparently not even encrypted. So, with "just" Microsoft tools you can copy the EVO files off and process them just fine with freely available open source tools. UDF 2.5 support is built-in to Vista, so far I've yet to get it working with Ubuntu and people act like trying to do so is criminal. I hope the next version of Ubuntu has it native, my HTPC runs Ubuntu and it would be convenient - especially once more thing can play EVO and M2TS files. Right now I just rip and compress everything on Vista 64 for playback using XBMC on Ubuntu. Ironic huh?
I have a feeling that some of what you are seeing is due to some "adjustments" made by SP1. See Vista caches lots of programs into memory and this leads to what appears to be high memory usage. Lots of people scream and wail about how Vista uses SO much memory at boot time - not realizing it's cached programs for faster loading. Why this change wasn't apparent when you loaded SP1 on the intial install I don't know but I do know that many people screaming about the high usage of memory "just to load the desktop" did so out of ignorance. I have a feeling Microsoft tweaked things to either hide this somewhat or has perhaps turned down the caching some. Since it dumps those cached programs when it needs the memory I'm not sure it's fair to call that memory "used" in the first place.
I run Vista Ultimate 64 on a dual core 4ghz 4GB machine and it's as responsive as I'd expect, I'm not sure I've even seen the file copy issues but will load SP1 tonight to see. I frequently move multi Gig programs so any increase in speed would be welcomed. The woman on the other hand runs Vista on a preloaded Compaq laptop and nearly threw it out the window - till I added a 2Gig stick of memory. It had only a single Gig of memory and probably a shared video card. Whoever came up with that config for a business machine ought to be shot! 2.5Gigs of memory now and I've not heard a peep out of her about it since.
I'm fairly agnostic when it comes to OS but it looks like at least one or two of my current XP machines are getting wiped for Vista, one of them will go Ubuntu. I'll keep an XP laptop just in case but so far only one program has failed to load on Vista 64 and that was because the programmer refused to sign his driver - oh well.
FUD, sorry but this is pure FUD. What "DRM shite" exactly are you referring to? Yeah, Vista is so chock full of DRM that I shouldn't be able to rip HD-DVD, BD disks, or even play back high def vid without HDCP - and yet I do. You have made a cause and effect connection that's not valid.
Does it take too long to copy files or delete them? Yup. Is it DRM? Nope.
I'm sorry but I fail to see *anything* in my statement that specified NEED. I said that I RUN it on that, not that I NEEDED that. My machine runs 4ghz because I like to game and because, as I also mentioned, I transcode video. My HD-DVD collection is being moved to my NAS and I've decided to compress the video somewhat to save some space. Encoding times were running 80hours or so on my slower machine so I've moved the work to my faster one and can now do the encoding in under 15 hours. I run a fast machine because I need the horsepower not because Vista somehow "required" it. My next box might be a slower clocked quad since I can use all the cores for the work I'm doing but those draw more juice so I'm waiting for the 45nm versions to come down. Even with this CPU at 4Ghz and a G92 8800GTS running this machine and a multi TB server together only draw 289watts at full chat. Funny what happens when you don't buy silly large P/S and get spec 80+ rated ones:-)
Kudos to you for running Vista on something slower, that wouldn't have met my needs.
Funny, I run Vista64 too, Ultimate - no issues. My XP system is dragging pretty badly though and I think I might slap Home Premium on it instead. I've found a total of two pieces of software that I'm interested in that have issues with Vista - an advanced encoding CODEC and an unsigned driver for a hardware monitor - speedfan I think. everything else has run smooth as butter and while some of the UI elements irritate me - the start menu in particular - I've found that it works great overall. Mind you I run it on a 4Ghz machine with 4Gigs of RAM so it sure as hell ought to be snappy!
I run Ubuntu on another machine - my HTPC. I've had only a little trouble with it, digital sound disappearing twice for no reason. I have a backup image of it and can load it from scratch or backup in record time. I'm comfortable in either O/S right now. I AM seriously thinking I might try Ubuntu on a new desktop I'm planning just because Vista costs so damned much. I need to check and see if the various tools I want to run on that machine exist on Linux, I have a sneaking suspicion they do. Since it will be a box just for video encoding etc. it won't need games etc. to be loaded.
To each his own but despite all the screeching about Vista I'm not finding it an issue and the DRM hasn't gotten in my way once despite the mountain of FUD about "tilt bits" and other horseshit. I rip HD-DVD with no problems and transcode them while playing games - no worries. I would suggest that those having issues check out how much memory they have - quite a few OEM's skimped and shipped machines with only a Gig of memory. Try two...
Wow! Now THAT is impressive - kudos to your company for having that sort of forward thinking and for helping out the community. Now we just need a zillion more of them to cover the rest of the planet;-)
You forgot one - Verizon has has stopped maintaining their old copper infrastructure and while installing the FIOS is taking a "salt the Earth" approach cutting\trashing existing copper as the glass goes in - FIOS is often a one way street in my area. The techs I know are actually being told, in FIOS "class", to do this. They have also told me that maintenance of copper has ceased and those techs reassigned or the contractors assigned let go. The result being that the copper is slowly failing as they move off of it, they do repairs only - nothing preventative. The infrastructure partially paid for by our tax dollars, just like the new glass, is being intentionally allowed to rot away.
When told they had to share the copper they slowed fiber rollout to a crawl and lobbied like hell for an exemption, they got it, fiber rolling now and copper dieing. Local Govts are just now starting to notice this in my area (NOVA) with the Post having an article on it months ago but I know for a fact it's also occurring around Baltimore. It will be interesting to see what, if any, repercussions occur when this is figured out. Whoever decides to take over the copper after them is going to really be hating life - which is exactly what they want.
IMO they have a responsibility to maintain that infrastructure. Removing copper from the ground or cutting the cables flush with the ground during installs is bullshit and petty. No, not all techs do it but they are TOLD to do it in this area - likely in other areas too.
I do not believe that the HD is being decompressed and recompressed by the latest TIVOs nor was it that way with the DTIVO. No DVR I know of is doing anything with HD but putting it compressed on disk off the wire, to do so otherwise would take WAY too much processing power. I think you'll also find that DTV and DISH also compress the hell out of their signals. I do not know how it compares to FIOS and cable but I'm told that as they add channels they are pressing it hard. How exactly are the new boxes "better" and how many revisions did this take? How long were you a guinea pig for exactly?
As for moving content, I'm not sure that TIVO wishes it to be as open as it is but for me the end user I don't care - I can take what's transferred and move it to a PSP or iPod instead of being told to buy my provider's device. Transferring to a USB is nice and I can see the use but why not make it more open?
In the end what DISH did was dirty. TIVO showed them their box, TIVO shared specs with them and it looked like an agreement was imminent and then they pulled out - and built their "own" box that really sucked. Perhaps the new one is somehow better, perhaps had TIVO not had to spend half it's time and money fighting their's might be even better too. Instead they have had to deal with greedy content providers and I for one am happy to keep using them. Were it not for CableCard, crappy as it is, the content providers would've been quite happy to cut off TIVO's air supply long ago...
Mind actually CITING such a thing? Apparently TIVO has indeed sued them and has been for YEARS, just how scared could they be? I'd like to know what patent this is...
In bed with them?! I have a Direct TV TIVO in my living room, unplugged it this past week. Why? Because they don't provide a means for TIVO HD to work with their system and insist, no seriously they will ARGUE, that their box is "just as good as a TIVO" despite the shit interface and multitude of bugs. Am I using a cable company to provide my feed? Nope, FIOS.
TIVO used to work WITH Direct, they even had an HD box. Then some schmuck at Direct decided that they wanted to buy TIVO and TIVO told them to piss off. This hurt their feelings. They then decided to use their "own PVR" and dropped their TIVO license all the while knowing about TIVO's patents. Lawsuits began as TIVO tried to find a way to get back the lost revenue,competitors hoped to starve themout of money - TIVO built the S3.
Not sure where things stand with Direct NOW except SD DTIVOs still get updates, Direct HD TIVOs are going away as Direct moves to a new compression format, and TIVO is suing others who copied their idea. Direct TV can kiss my ass.
Why does ComCast have an "agreement" with TIVO? Threat of a lawsuit. Think FIOS made it easy for me to use the TIVO HD I have? Nope, they are so in bed with TIVO they tried to convince me their box was "just as good" too.
Funny, I don't think I've EVER heard one of these clowns claim that their box was "better" than a TIVO and if they did I'd sure like to know what feature they could claim made it better. Hey, can you transfer video files to and from that DISH box? Say for an iPod or PSP? Ooops.
Except TIVO didn't do this, DISH did. TIVO told them ages ago that this infringed, DISH told them to piss off. TIVO would have happily licensed to themas they used to with Direct, DISH told them to piss off. ComCast has a license agreement with TIVO, DISH told them to piss off. Who exactly is it that has refused to work this out? Here's an idea - use a TIVO and compare it to the SHIT you've been shoveled by DISH, see which company innovated and which company copied another's idea. Agree or disagree with the patent, TIVO holds it and DISH doesn't and they KNEW it.
TIVO *is* making something better! the problem is that the content providers aka DISH, Direct, ComCast, etc. woke up one day and decided that they would really like to have the money TIVO is making recording "their" content. Since they had a great deal of capital and a means to market directly to the customers most likely to want this they decided to cut out TIVO - TIVO being the market innovator. Their reps will even tell you, point blank, that their box does everything a TIVO does. It's bullshit but they do it - one tried that last night when we canceled DTV. We canceled because FIOS is finally available and I can use an HD TIVO instead of the SD DTIVO I've been using - and which they stopped selling. ComCast now has an agreement with TIVO so they are covered, not sure WTF Direct is going to do, DISH decided to fight and try to bankrupt them - and it seems failed.
Everyone stands around and says that TIVO's idea was "obvious". In 20:20 hindsight it is but when it came out it wasn't. For every person who claims they thought of it I offer this - what did you do about it? TIVO actually built something and now competitors have been trying to go around their patent. This is what patents were made for, to protect innovators. Certainly TIVO could have done some things differently but if it were my investment that built TIVO as a company I'd probably be suing too.
Oh and yes I think what they did to prevent modifications was pretty shitty too but the boxes are still being modified, it just takes more work.
I on the other hand just dumped DTV. Why? FIOS finally became available and I could move to an HD DVR thathas te TIVO interface - a TIVO HD. The DVR that Direct sells these days is their own, much like DISH, after they abandoned their agreement with TIVO. Prior to this I had a hacked DTIVO and SD video that worked GREAT. I didn't move fully to HD until I coudl do it with TIVO. I like the interface and it's why I moved from DISH many years ago. Some ass at Direct thoguth they would save some bux once upon a time - it's now bit them in the ass as I and my money move elsewhere.
Yes, on a good HD TV there is indeed a noticeable difference in quality.
Sony's UMD, their memory sticks, Beta, the list of failed attempts to gain lifetime life support from royalties is lengthy. Sadly this "war" is going to go on it seems. Frankly if Sony wins it will mean stronger crypto, more DRM weirdness, and fun things like region coding. Those of you breathing a sigh of relief apparently don't know what you wished for. Superior capacity isn't even a big deal IMO since the HD-DVD held plenty for today's features...
You don't actually need really fast disks on the backend to serve up streaming video etc. to front-ends. Remember it's compressed until it gets decoded by the front-end, that helps. For instance I have an HDHomerun that can stream two HD streams from OTA or QAM tuners - it has a 100meg NIC on it and uses less than 10megs with both streams going. They have an 8 tuner unit - it has a Gig NIC on it and really, are you can't stream faster than the NIC anyway right? 5400RPM IDE drives can handle your HD video streaming needs so long as everyone in the house doesn't hit the same disk for different streams all at once.
Mine is running on Mythbuntu 7.10 from SVN. Nearly feature complete and on a good CPU will play 1080P just fine. This is on x86 PC hardware and is under VERY active development.
I stated that they push proprietary formats - and gave examples -> UMD, Beta, and their memory stick. This logic appears to have escaped you. I do not care so much about the PS3 as I do Sony as a company that is as close to evil as most any other save maybe Microsoft. For that reason I do not support the PS3, well that and it pushes yet another of Sony's formats they would like to see rule the world so they can receive unending royalties. If that hardware were made by someone else and wasn't pushing a proprietary format I might even own one, alas that is NOT the case. You're looking at a game console, I'm looking at the entire cmopany and deciding to not buy or support said console - there's the difference.
So the PS3 runs Linux in a crippled VM - what of it? As I said, they won't intentionally give you access to the metal underneath. I'd hardly call that "support".
P.S. The 360 isn't using a Celeron. The original XBOX used a P3 and last I checked no one was putting anything out back then that stored 50GB optically. Hell the 360 was out before the PS3 by a decent margin, the PS3 is almost a generation later and yet they get compared. Sounds like maybe Sony wasn't as far ahead as you seem to think...
Beta, UMD, Memory Stick Duo, BluRay. Probably more I've missed. I'm far from an XBOX fan - the only older XBOX I own are hacked to run XBMC and I only bought a 360 after they began to crack it too. I'm presently working on setting up XBMC on Linux and it's pretty solid but the Linux part can be a PITA. I won't get into an O/S pissing match\debate - we're talking about Sony not MSFT. Sony music and movies are a large part of their business. Know what DVD are hardest to rip these days? In my experience it's Sony's because they dork up the format so badly - I'm ripping my 600+ DVD collection to disk right now so yeah I'm feeling the pain. Guess which music CDs are a PITA to rip? Yup, as often as not it's Sony's! They crap on that format too. MSFT has DRM? Guess who pressures them to put it in? If they want to legally display DVD they have to cowtow to Macrovision and all the rest which means contracts that force them into it - ask TIVO how that works out. Research what MSFT had to do for CableCard certification sometime for a real chill. Sony is as much a part of that crap as any other content company and judging from their media they're big fans of it - rootkits and all. If you think that Sony was unaware of what the company was doing that built their "rootkit" then you need todo more research into that company - they were as close to in-house as you can get and still have deniability.
By all means be impressed by the Sony hardware, it's apparently good stuff. Just don't ever think Sony will ever intentionally give you full access to it for your own means. If you're lucky it will get broken like the PSP and XBOX. I for one hope that it and BluRay die a log expensive death and take Sony with it, they are far far from benevolant.
BTW NGSB is so nebulous that not even Google gives a consistant answer on it. >
Perhaps it's not so strange considering the aforementioned rootkit and their continuous pushing of proprietary formats at every chance. Sony seems to always want to do it differently - for a cost premium to the end user. Their arrogance has gotten old and I, like many, avoid them when possible. Is that really so hard to understand?! I as a consumer fear the day they actually manage to get one of their "special" formats accepted as any kind of standard. Let's not forget they are as much a part of the various *AAs as any other company - that alone is reason enough to be angry with their behavior. If none of that makes any sense to you then I'm sorry, you're beyond hope;-)
rm, I have a several years old daily worn watch with both a titanium band and case and yet it shows almost no scratches. I believe you'll find that some rings aren't made the same - I've been told that there are issues with being able to cut them off in an emergency etc. but dunno' if that's true or not. The real aircraft grade titanium supposedly shouldn't be used for rings I was told In any case my watch isn't showing much wear at all and is light as a feather which is why I'll always want a Ti watch from now on:-)
Boy am I glad that I didn't have time to finish downloading the 600megs or so of "premium content"! I paused it halfway through and figured I'd restart it today sometime. Dodged a bullet! I'm sure I could get around it and I've got other machines\bootable disks but it would still have been damned irritating. A very good idea to warn folks when they popped on, hope my corp mates got the message!
Yes swap can be added, I said as much. However it's not there out of the box and it requires some tweaking to do it - and you'll use space that might normally be used for data storage. Most folks won't goto the trouble of adding tons of software, it's not designed for it. But yeah, it CAN be done and there's a forum specifically for doing this on the support site...
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Sure, done. I backup HD-DVD on a regular basis thanks to fire sale prices and I've ripped a BD disk too but the format and lack of tools make it a bitch to do much with yet. 40Gigs for a movie on BD is a little silly too when HD-DVD did it with less than 21Gigs, thankfully they all compress down into the 10Gig range with no discernible loss of quality to my eye or ears.
Pirate tools? No, I use AnyDVD-HD and while it doesn't YET get past BD+ protection on FOX films prices on those movies are high enough I'm not really interested anyway. AnyDVD purchased from a legit albeit offshore company that I'm sure pisses off the motion picture guys but I do not care.
BTW *some* of the HD-DVD stuff is apparently not even encrypted. So, with "just" Microsoft tools you can copy the EVO files off and process them just fine with freely available open source tools. UDF 2.5 support is built-in to Vista, so far I've yet to get it working with Ubuntu and people act like trying to do so is criminal. I hope the next version of Ubuntu has it native, my HTPC runs Ubuntu and it would be convenient - especially once more thing can play EVO and M2TS files. Right now I just rip and compress everything on Vista 64 for playback using XBMC on Ubuntu. Ironic huh?
I have a feeling that some of what you are seeing is due to some "adjustments" made by SP1. See Vista caches lots of programs into memory and this leads to what appears to be high memory usage. Lots of people scream and wail about how Vista uses SO much memory at boot time - not realizing it's cached programs for faster loading. Why this change wasn't apparent when you loaded SP1 on the intial install I don't know but I do know that many people screaming about the high usage of memory "just to load the desktop" did so out of ignorance. I have a feeling Microsoft tweaked things to either hide this somewhat or has perhaps turned down the caching some. Since it dumps those cached programs when it needs the memory I'm not sure it's fair to call that memory "used" in the first place.
I run Vista Ultimate 64 on a dual core 4ghz 4GB machine and it's as responsive as I'd expect, I'm not sure I've even seen the file copy issues but will load SP1 tonight to see. I frequently move multi Gig programs so any increase in speed would be welcomed. The woman on the other hand runs Vista on a preloaded Compaq laptop and nearly threw it out the window - till I added a 2Gig stick of memory. It had only a single Gig of memory and probably a shared video card. Whoever came up with that config for a business machine ought to be shot! 2.5Gigs of memory now and I've not heard a peep out of her about it since.
I'm fairly agnostic when it comes to OS but it looks like at least one or two of my current XP machines are getting wiped for Vista, one of them will go Ubuntu. I'll keep an XP laptop just in case but so far only one program has failed to load on Vista 64 and that was because the programmer refused to sign his driver - oh well.
FUD, sorry but this is pure FUD. What "DRM shite" exactly are you referring to? Yeah, Vista is so chock full of DRM that I shouldn't be able to rip HD-DVD, BD disks, or even play back high def vid without HDCP - and yet I do. You have made a cause and effect connection that's not valid.
Does it take too long to copy files or delete them? Yup. Is it DRM? Nope.
I'm sorry but I fail to see *anything* in my statement that specified NEED. I said that I RUN it on that, not that I NEEDED that. My machine runs 4ghz because I like to game and because, as I also mentioned, I transcode video. My HD-DVD collection is being moved to my NAS and I've decided to compress the video somewhat to save some space. Encoding times were running 80hours or so on my slower machine so I've moved the work to my faster one and can now do the encoding in under 15 hours. I run a fast machine because I need the horsepower not because Vista somehow "required" it. My next box might be a slower clocked quad since I can use all the cores for the work I'm doing but those draw more juice so I'm waiting for the 45nm versions to come down. Even with this CPU at 4Ghz and a G92 8800GTS running this machine and a multi TB server together only draw 289watts at full chat. Funny what happens when you don't buy silly large P/S and get spec 80+ rated ones :-)
Kudos to you for running Vista on something slower, that wouldn't have met my needs.
Funny, I run Vista64 too, Ultimate - no issues. My XP system is dragging pretty badly though and I think I might slap Home Premium on it instead. I've found a total of two pieces of software that I'm interested in that have issues with Vista - an advanced encoding CODEC and an unsigned driver for a hardware monitor - speedfan I think. everything else has run smooth as butter and while some of the UI elements irritate me - the start menu in particular - I've found that it works great overall. Mind you I run it on a 4Ghz machine with 4Gigs of RAM so it sure as hell ought to be snappy!
I run Ubuntu on another machine - my HTPC. I've had only a little trouble with it, digital sound disappearing twice for no reason. I have a backup image of it and can load it from scratch or backup in record time. I'm comfortable in either O/S right now. I AM seriously thinking I might try Ubuntu on a new desktop I'm planning just because Vista costs so damned much. I need to check and see if the various tools I want to run on that machine exist on Linux, I have a sneaking suspicion they do. Since it will be a box just for video encoding etc. it won't need games etc. to be loaded.
To each his own but despite all the screeching about Vista I'm not finding it an issue and the DRM hasn't gotten in my way once despite the mountain of FUD about "tilt bits" and other horseshit. I rip HD-DVD with no problems and transcode them while playing games - no worries. I would suggest that those having issues check out how much memory they have - quite a few OEM's skimped and shipped machines with only a Gig of memory. Try two...
Wow! Now THAT is impressive - kudos to your company for having that sort of forward thinking and for helping out the community. Now we just need a zillion more of them to cover the rest of the planet ;-)
Damn, beat me to it! This was my EXACT thought when I read this. Deluded to say the least...
You forgot one - Verizon has has stopped maintaining their old copper infrastructure and while installing the FIOS is taking a "salt the Earth" approach cutting\trashing existing copper as the glass goes in - FIOS is often a one way street in my area. The techs I know are actually being told, in FIOS "class", to do this. They have also told me that maintenance of copper has ceased and those techs reassigned or the contractors assigned let go. The result being that the copper is slowly failing as they move off of it, they do repairs only - nothing preventative. The infrastructure partially paid for by our tax dollars, just like the new glass, is being intentionally allowed to rot away.
When told they had to share the copper they slowed fiber rollout to a crawl and lobbied like hell for an exemption, they got it, fiber rolling now and copper dieing. Local Govts are just now starting to notice this in my area (NOVA) with the Post having an article on it months ago but I know for a fact it's also occurring around Baltimore. It will be interesting to see what, if any, repercussions occur when this is figured out. Whoever decides to take over the copper after them is going to really be hating life - which is exactly what they want.
IMO they have a responsibility to maintain that infrastructure. Removing copper from the ground or cutting the cables flush with the ground during installs is bullshit and petty. No, not all techs do it but they are TOLD to do it in this area - likely in other areas too.
I do not believe that the HD is being decompressed and recompressed by the latest TIVOs nor was it that way with the DTIVO. No DVR I know of is doing anything with HD but putting it compressed on disk off the wire, to do so otherwise would take WAY too much processing power. I think you'll also find that DTV and DISH also compress the hell out of their signals. I do not know how it compares to FIOS and cable but I'm told that as they add channels they are pressing it hard. How exactly are the new boxes "better" and how many revisions did this take? How long were you a guinea pig for exactly?
As for moving content, I'm not sure that TIVO wishes it to be as open as it is but for me the end user I don't care - I can take what's transferred and move it to a PSP or iPod instead of being told to buy my provider's device. Transferring to a USB is nice and I can see the use but why not make it more open?
In the end what DISH did was dirty. TIVO showed them their box, TIVO shared specs with them and it looked like an agreement was imminent and then they pulled out - and built their "own" box that really sucked. Perhaps the new one is somehow better, perhaps had TIVO not had to spend half it's time and money fighting their's might be even better too. Instead they have had to deal with greedy content providers and I for one am happy to keep using them. Were it not for CableCard, crappy as it is, the content providers would've been quite happy to cut off TIVO's air supply long ago...
Tried a TIVO? I think you might like it even better.
Mind actually CITING such a thing? Apparently TIVO has indeed sued them and has been for YEARS, just how scared could they be? I'd like to know what patent this is...
In bed with them?! I have a Direct TV TIVO in my living room, unplugged it this past week. Why? Because they don't provide a means for TIVO HD to work with their system and insist, no seriously they will ARGUE, that their box is "just as good as a TIVO" despite the shit interface and multitude of bugs. Am I using a cable company to provide my feed? Nope, FIOS.
TIVO used to work WITH Direct, they even had an HD box. Then some schmuck at Direct decided that they wanted to buy TIVO and TIVO told them to piss off. This hurt their feelings. They then decided to use their "own PVR" and dropped their TIVO license all the while knowing about TIVO's patents. Lawsuits began as TIVO tried to find a way to get back the lost revenue,competitors hoped to starve themout of money - TIVO built the S3.
Not sure where things stand with Direct NOW except SD DTIVOs still get updates, Direct HD TIVOs are going away as Direct moves to a new compression format, and TIVO is suing others who copied their idea. Direct TV can kiss my ass.
Why does ComCast have an "agreement" with TIVO? Threat of a lawsuit. Think FIOS made it easy for me to use the TIVO HD I have? Nope, they are so in bed with TIVO they tried to convince me their box was "just as good" too.
Funny, I don't think I've EVER heard one of these clowns claim that their box was "better" than a TIVO and if they did I'd sure like to know what feature they could claim made it better. Hey, can you transfer video files to and from that DISH box? Say for an iPod or PSP? Ooops.
Except TIVO didn't do this, DISH did. TIVO told them ages ago that this infringed, DISH told them to piss off. TIVO would have happily licensed to themas they used to with Direct, DISH told them to piss off. ComCast has a license agreement with TIVO, DISH told them to piss off. Who exactly is it that has refused to work this out? Here's an idea - use a TIVO and compare it to the SHIT you've been shoveled by DISH, see which company innovated and which company copied another's idea. Agree or disagree with the patent, TIVO holds it and DISH doesn't and they KNEW it.
TIVO *is* making something better! the problem is that the content providers aka DISH, Direct, ComCast, etc. woke up one day and decided that they would really like to have the money TIVO is making recording "their" content. Since they had a great deal of capital and a means to market directly to the customers most likely to want this they decided to cut out TIVO - TIVO being the market innovator. Their reps will even tell you, point blank, that their box does everything a TIVO does. It's bullshit but they do it - one tried that last night when we canceled DTV. We canceled because FIOS is finally available and I can use an HD TIVO instead of the SD DTIVO I've been using - and which they stopped selling. ComCast now has an agreement with TIVO so they are covered, not sure WTF Direct is going to do, DISH decided to fight and try to bankrupt them - and it seems failed.
Everyone stands around and says that TIVO's idea was "obvious". In 20:20 hindsight it is but when it came out it wasn't. For every person who claims they thought of it I offer this - what did you do about it? TIVO actually built something and now competitors have been trying to go around their patent. This is what patents were made for, to protect innovators. Certainly TIVO could have done some things differently but if it were my investment that built TIVO as a company I'd probably be suing too.
Oh and yes I think what they did to prevent modifications was pretty shitty too but the boxes are still being modified, it just takes more work.
I on the other hand just dumped DTV. Why? FIOS finally became available and I could move to an HD DVR thathas te TIVO interface - a TIVO HD. The DVR that Direct sells these days is their own, much like DISH, after they abandoned their agreement with TIVO. Prior to this I had a hacked DTIVO and SD video that worked GREAT. I didn't move fully to HD until I coudl do it with TIVO. I like the interface and it's why I moved from DISH many years ago. Some ass at Direct thoguth they would save some bux once upon a time - it's now bit them in the ass as I and my money move elsewhere.
Yes, on a good HD TV there is indeed a noticeable difference in quality.
Sony's UMD, their memory sticks, Beta, the list of failed attempts to gain lifetime life support from royalties is lengthy. Sadly this "war" is going to go on it seems. Frankly if Sony wins it will mean stronger crypto, more DRM weirdness, and fun things like region coding. Those of you breathing a sigh of relief apparently don't know what you wished for. Superior capacity isn't even a big deal IMO since the HD-DVD held plenty for today's features...
You don't actually need really fast disks on the backend to serve up streaming video etc. to front-ends. Remember it's compressed until it gets decoded by the front-end, that helps. For instance I have an HDHomerun that can stream two HD streams from OTA or QAM tuners - it has a 100meg NIC on it and uses less than 10megs with both streams going. They have an 8 tuner unit - it has a Gig NIC on it and really, are you can't stream faster than the NIC anyway right? 5400RPM IDE drives can handle your HD video streaming needs so long as everyone in the house doesn't hit the same disk for different streams all at once.
Clarification - the SVN is of XBMC for Linux not of Mythbuntu. The Myth distro is out of the box with the latest NVIDIA binaries added for my card.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Linux_port_project
Mine is running on Mythbuntu 7.10 from SVN. Nearly feature complete and on a good CPU will play 1080P just fine. This is on x86 PC hardware and is under VERY active development.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=52 for more info.
I stated that they push proprietary formats - and gave examples -> UMD, Beta, and their memory stick. This logic appears to have escaped you. I do not care so much about the PS3 as I do Sony as a company that is as close to evil as most any other save maybe Microsoft. For that reason I do not support the PS3, well that and it pushes yet another of Sony's formats they would like to see rule the world so they can receive unending royalties. If that hardware were made by someone else and wasn't pushing a proprietary format I might even own one, alas that is NOT the case. You're looking at a game console, I'm looking at the entire cmopany and deciding to not buy or support said console - there's the difference.
So the PS3 runs Linux in a crippled VM - what of it? As I said, they won't intentionally give you access to the metal underneath. I'd hardly call that "support".
P.S. The 360 isn't using a Celeron. The original XBOX used a P3 and last I checked no one was putting anything out back then that stored 50GB optically. Hell the 360 was out before the PS3 by a decent margin, the PS3 is almost a generation later and yet they get compared. Sounds like maybe Sony wasn't as far ahead as you seem to think...
Beta, UMD, Memory Stick Duo, BluRay. Probably more I've missed. I'm far from an XBOX fan - the only older XBOX I own are hacked to run XBMC and I only bought a 360 after they began to crack it too. I'm presently working on setting up XBMC on Linux and it's pretty solid but the Linux part can be a PITA. I won't get into an O/S pissing match\debate - we're talking about Sony not MSFT. Sony music and movies are a large part of their business. Know what DVD are hardest to rip these days? In my experience it's Sony's because they dork up the format so badly - I'm ripping my 600+ DVD collection to disk right now so yeah I'm feeling the pain. Guess which music CDs are a PITA to rip? Yup, as often as not it's Sony's! They crap on that format too. MSFT has DRM? Guess who pressures them to put it in? If they want to legally display DVD they have to cowtow to Macrovision and all the rest which means contracts that force them into it - ask TIVO how that works out. Research what MSFT had to do for CableCard certification sometime for a real chill. Sony is as much a part of that crap as any other content company and judging from their media they're big fans of it - rootkits and all. If you think that Sony was unaware of what the company was doing that built their "rootkit" then you need todo more research into that company - they were as close to in-house as you can get and still have deniability.
By all means be impressed by the Sony hardware, it's apparently good stuff. Just don't ever think Sony will ever intentionally give you full access to it for your own means. If you're lucky it will get broken like the PSP and XBOX. I for one hope that it and BluRay die a log expensive death and take Sony with it, they are far far from benevolant.
BTW NGSB is so nebulous that not even Google gives a consistant answer on it. >
Perhaps it's not so strange considering the aforementioned rootkit and their continuous pushing of proprietary formats at every chance. Sony seems to always want to do it differently - for a cost premium to the end user. Their arrogance has gotten old and I, like many, avoid them when possible. Is that really so hard to understand?! I as a consumer fear the day they actually manage to get one of their "special" formats accepted as any kind of standard. Let's not forget they are as much a part of the various *AAs as any other company - that alone is reason enough to be angry with their behavior. If none of that makes any sense to you then I'm sorry, you're beyond hope ;-)
rm, I have a several years old daily worn watch with both a titanium band and case and yet it shows almost no scratches. I believe you'll find that some rings aren't made the same - I've been told that there are issues with being able to cut them off in an emergency etc. but dunno' if that's true or not. The real aircraft grade titanium supposedly shouldn't be used for rings I was told In any case my watch isn't showing much wear at all and is light as a feather which is why I'll always want a Ti watch from now on :-)
Boy am I glad that I didn't have time to finish downloading the 600megs or so of "premium content"! I paused it halfway through and figured I'd restart it today sometime. Dodged a bullet! I'm sure I could get around it and I've got other machines\bootable disks but it would still have been damned irritating. A very good idea to warn folks when they popped on, hope my corp mates got the message!
Yes swap can be added, I said as much. However it's not there out of the box and it requires some tweaking to do it - and you'll use space that might normally be used for data storage. Most folks won't goto the trouble of adding tons of software, it's not designed for it. But yeah, it CAN be done and there's a forum specifically for doing this on the support site...