Well first of all it's the scan is not on a print but on the original camera negative. Anyway when I look at vintage 70mm prints and at the last movies shot in 65mm (Far and Away, Hamlet or Little Buddha) I'm not really sure the the modern prints are sharper or crispier that the old ones.
There have been may changes in films since the 1960's but I'm really wondering if they lead to a actual quality improvement: having a finner grain allows to use faster film to reduce the need for artificial lighting or changes on an easier/cheaper film process (Kodakchrome vs "E6"chrome).
You know, I've been thinking for a few years now that ATMs (in the UK at least) seem to be getting slower and slower to use. 10 years back, you'd insert your card, be able to key in your pin number straight away and be straight into the menu.
Beside OS and software there is a big difference. 10 years ago, most ATMs where offline while today all ATMs should be online. I'm pretty sure that this makes a big difference regardless of the OS or software used.
There was a news on/. a few days ago basically there is about half a dozen of games that are advertized as working perfectly and about 250 with some glitches. You can get a prepackaged download version of WineX from $15.
I don't think it's fair to compare digital projection with film projection for TPM, Toy story II, and others.
At the moment digital projections are nothing more than public demos : there are only a handful of theatres that will project SWII in digital (19 screens vs several thousands). Each screen will be equiped with brand new projectors operated by highly qualified crew (at least one full time operator for the digital booth). Same for the lab work. The picture compression will surely be supervised by LFL people (may be Lucas himself) and the sound will be multitracks uncompressed PCM.
On the analog side you'll have thousands of prints to be made as quick and as cheap as possible, the projection hardware may not be properly maintained and the operator (or the popcorn boy) will have to run several screens at the same time.
So wouldn't it be a pity if the digital projection was not better that 35mm if you look at these differences ?
The biggest problem with these new protocols (actually that's not a protocol problem but rather a data format, WML vs HTML rather than whateverP vs http) is that there is not content available yet while there are zillions of HTML pages.
So whenever you want to setup something you want to market as webish (Mobile phones, TV, Microwave oven, etc.) you'll have to face the problem to display HTML sites to your device. AFAIK there are only two solutions around, either build a huge conversion platform or embed a html browser in your device. In both case if a web site wants to be seen by your device users it'll have to be any browser compliant or develop a specific version for your device.
Beside being more supported for email (ie: usable with more user agents on more platforms) I think that PGP should not have been a bad move for this particular case.
Since there seems to be a limited number of identified recipients you can always generate your key, send the public key to the recipient by email and check the finger print by telephone.
S/MIME is more suitable to do secure email with the world since it does not require you to check the public keys (certificates) you receive with their owners. That's right but it does not really solve the problem, it only moves it somewhere else: instead of asking yourself I'm I sure that the key belong to whom it claims you'll have to ask can I trust the certification authority.
Look at the certification authorities in Netscape or Mozilla, there are dozens of them. Well I think I can trust Verisign, Thawte (ok it's the same) but can I trust the other ones? Can I be sure that they properly check the identity before issuing certificates? Sincerly I cannot tell.
In my opinion the biggest advantage of x509 over PGP is the possibility to use your personnal certificate not only to sign or crypt email but also to authenticate yourself on access controled web sites with the same key.
Nope. MP3 is open since its spec are available publically and it is available for licensing since the encoding process is covered by patents. So it may probably be the same thing for MP3Pro. So I don't think there is any contradiction in the article.
According to this http://www.neteconomie.fr/news/infoCOM.php3?id=838 (in french can't find anything in english, sorry), MP3Pro shouldn't be the only new codec blooming in spring 2001. Universal Musics wants to launch his new codec: BlueMatter (developped by Entrust (http://www.entrust.com/?).
According to
this interview (once again, in french sorry)
of the director of Universal Music France, BlueMatter should be used to make people pay for online music (I also read about Universal projects of online music and it seems to be streaming only).
So I guess that the new formats won't be as public as MP3 has been to prevent unauthorized players and encoders. One can always try to revers enginer the codec but it'll be hard both technically and legaly (especially in USA with the DCMA if they intermix an access control process with the codec). Beside, this was the strategy used by Apple with the Sorenson codec and unfortunatly there is still no free (as speech) Sorenson codec.
Note: In compliance with the MPAA, DVD-R discs with CSS-encrypted video data cannot be read.
I'm not sure that this is a software restriction from Apple. I remember to read somewhere (sorry, don't remember where) that the blank DVD media will have to have the CSS key location preblanked.
When the first DAT recorder came out, the only copy protection system they had was a sample frequency lock (it was not possible to record directly from the digital input 44100hz sampled signals while it was ok with 48khz). It didn't seems to be enough for the music editors and most of them (included Polygram owned at the moment by Philips) did everything they can to prevent DAT recorders to hit the consumer market.
Finally they (the editors and the manufacturers) agreed on the final system which prevent making digital copy from a digital copy. But it had been years between the first DAT presentation and this agreement.
So when the DAT was finaly ready to hit the consumer market other products really cheaper like the DCC and the MD were ready to compete. I guess that's why most manufacturers stop making DAT recorders since they are more complex to do than the fixed heads DCC or the MD.
Well I doubt D-VHS will replace DVD soon. First of all the DVD has just become a standard accepted by the consumers so I doubt that the motion picture industry will run the risk of introducing a new standard so soon. On the consumer side, D-VHS has some advantages but I don't think that'll be enough for the consumer.
it's reccordable but DVD RW is coming so it won't be an advantage over DVD when it'll be ready for primetime
D-VHS can reccord up to 1080 lines but I don't think that even in the USA there is enough HDTV sources worth reccording.
D-VHS is VHS compatible; that's right, exactly the same way the now defunct DCC was with the audio tapes.
On the other side there are a lots of drawbacks that prevent this system to get a wide acceptance from the public:
this is basically a magnetic tape so the usual problems are back: demagnetization, no direct access (and with the D-VHS bit rate there will be a lot of tape to wind to get to the end or a film), etc.
at the moment this is still a JVC only system may be less standardized that the multiple DVD-RW.
I'll work only with specific TVsets so buying a D-VHS means either not using it at it's full capability or changing your TV/RPTV/Projector/Whatsoever.
To add a something on the motion picture industry support to HD I doubt it'll come before years. The next challenge for theaters will be to switch from analog classical film to digital projection. The only two systems demonstrated so far had resolutions of 1920x1080 and 1280x1024. Yes, that's right, that's HDTV resolution or a little bit less. So I don't think that the studios will like to give the customers the same quality they use for theaters.
And the last thing: how many customers are interested in picture quality? If many people really cared about picture quality I think that analog HDTV could have been a success in Europe or Japan and I also think that the motion picture industry wouldn't have dropped the 65mm cinematography and the 70mm prints.
Beside the latency problem I'm wondering how this technology can scale up when there'll be more and more users using it. "Ordinary" satellites only have to receive data from a few sites but with the starband system there'll be hundred or thousands of sites sending data to the same satellite. I guess that'll be a big problem to prevent to users using the same frequency, polarization, etc. to send data at the same time.
Slashdot Mirror
Well first of all it's the scan is not on a print but on the original camera negative. Anyway when I look at vintage 70mm prints and at the last movies shot in 65mm (Far and Away, Hamlet or Little Buddha) I'm not really sure the the modern prints are sharper or crispier that the old ones.
There have been may changes in films since the 1960's but I'm really wondering if they lead to a actual quality improvement: having a finner grain allows to use faster film to reduce the need for artificial lighting or changes on an easier/cheaper film process (Kodakchrome vs "E6"chrome).
You know, I've been thinking for a few years now that ATMs (in the UK at least) seem to be getting slower and slower to use. 10 years back, you'd insert your card, be able to key in your pin number straight away and be straight into the menu.
Beside OS and software there is a big difference. 10 years ago, most ATMs where offline while today all ATMs should be online. I'm pretty sure that this makes a big difference regardless of the OS or software used.
There was a news on /. a few days ago basically there is about half a dozen of games that are advertized as working perfectly and about 250 with some glitches. You can get a prepackaged download version of WineX from $15.
I don't think it's fair to compare digital projection with film projection for TPM, Toy story II, and others.
At the moment digital projections are nothing more than public demos : there are only a handful of theatres that will project SWII in digital (19 screens vs several thousands). Each screen will be equiped with brand new projectors operated by highly qualified crew (at least one full time operator for the digital booth). Same for the lab work. The picture compression will surely be supervised by LFL people (may be Lucas himself) and the sound will be multitracks uncompressed PCM.
On the analog side you'll have thousands of prints to be made as quick and as cheap as possible, the projection hardware may not be properly maintained and the operator (or the popcorn boy) will have to run several screens at the same time.
So wouldn't it be a pity if the digital projection was not better that 35mm if you look at these differences ?
The biggest problem with these new protocols (actually that's not a protocol problem but rather a data format, WML vs HTML rather than whateverP vs http) is that there is not content available yet while there are zillions of HTML pages.
So whenever you want to setup something you want to market as webish (Mobile phones, TV, Microwave oven, etc.) you'll have to face the problem to display HTML sites to your device. AFAIK there are only two solutions around, either build a huge conversion platform or embed a html browser in your device. In both case if a web site wants to be seen by your device users it'll have to be any browser compliant or develop a specific version for your device.
Beside being more supported for email (ie: usable with more user agents on more platforms) I think that PGP should not have been a bad move for this particular case. Since there seems to be a limited number of identified recipients you can always generate your key, send the public key to the recipient by email and check the finger print by telephone.
S/MIME is more suitable to do secure email with the world since it does not require you to check the public keys (certificates) you receive with their owners. That's right but it does not really solve the problem, it only moves it somewhere else: instead of asking yourself I'm I sure that the key belong to whom it claims you'll have to ask can I trust the certification authority.
Look at the certification authorities in Netscape or Mozilla, there are dozens of them. Well I think I can trust Verisign, Thawte (ok it's the same) but can I trust the other ones? Can I be sure that they properly check the identity before issuing certificates? Sincerly I cannot tell.
In my opinion the biggest advantage of x509 over PGP is the possibility to use your personnal certificate not only to sign or crypt email but also to authenticate yourself on access controled web sites with the same key.
Nope. MP3 is open since its spec are available publically and it is available for licensing since the encoding process is covered by patents. So it may probably be the same thing for MP3Pro. So I don't think there is any contradiction in the article.
According to this http://www.neteconomie.fr/news/infoCOM.php3?id=838
(in french can't find anything in english, sorry), MP3Pro shouldn't be the only new codec blooming in spring 2001. Universal Musics wants to launch his new codec: BlueMatter (developped by Entrust (http://www.entrust.com/?).
According to this interview (once again, in french sorry) of the director of Universal Music France, BlueMatter should be used to make people pay for online music (I also read about Universal projects of online music and it seems to be streaming only).
So I guess that the new formats won't be as public as MP3 has been to prevent unauthorized players and encoders. One can always try to revers enginer the codec but it'll be hard both technically and legaly (especially in USA with the DCMA if they intermix an access control process with the codec). Beside, this was the strategy used by Apple with the Sorenson codec and unfortunatly there is still no free (as speech) Sorenson codec.
The story of the DAT is a little bit different.
When the first DAT recorder came out, the only copy protection system they had was a sample frequency lock (it was not possible to record directly from the digital input 44100hz sampled signals while it was ok with 48khz). It didn't seems to be enough for the music editors and most of them (included Polygram owned at the moment by Philips) did everything they can to prevent DAT recorders to hit the consumer market.
Finally they (the editors and the manufacturers) agreed on the final system which prevent making digital copy from a digital copy. But it had been years between the first DAT presentation and this agreement.
So when the DAT was finaly ready to hit the consumer market other products really cheaper like the DCC and the MD were ready to compete. I guess that's why most manufacturers stop making DAT recorders since they are more complex to do than the fixed heads DCC or the MD.
Well I doubt D-VHS will replace DVD soon. First of all the DVD has just become a standard accepted by the consumers so I doubt that the motion picture industry will run the risk of introducing a new standard so soon. On the consumer side, D-VHS has some advantages but I don't think that'll be enough for the consumer.
On the other side there are a lots of drawbacks that prevent this system to get a wide acceptance from the public:
To add a something on the motion picture industry support to HD I doubt it'll come before years. The next challenge for theaters will be to switch from analog classical film to digital projection. The only two systems demonstrated so far had resolutions of 1920x1080 and 1280x1024. Yes, that's right, that's HDTV resolution or a little bit less. So I don't think that the studios will like to give the customers the same quality they use for theaters.
And the last thing: how many customers are interested in picture quality? If many people really cared about picture quality I think that analog HDTV could have been a success in Europe or Japan and I also think that the motion picture industry wouldn't have dropped the 65mm cinematography and the 70mm prints.
Beside the latency problem I'm wondering how this technology can scale up when there'll be more and more users using it. "Ordinary" satellites only have to receive data from a few sites but with the starband system there'll be hundred or thousands of sites sending data to the same satellite. I guess that'll be a big problem to prevent to users using the same frequency, polarization, etc. to send data at the same time.