Someone will come along in five years and bury both HD-DVD and BD-ROM technology.
In five years? Heck, get a few manufacturers to start chucking AVC chips into their DVD players tomorrow, and we can just short-circuit this whole mess using h.264 on red laser.
Authoring and playback are here, now, today, on Macs. Playback in Linux and Windows can't be far off, if it isn't here already.
Gee, maybe the gubment plans to subsidise $349.95 of the cost to offer them at $50. I knew the people in charge weren't stupid enough to think $50 converters were available.
I posted a Ask Slashdot article a couple of days ago, but it was rejected, that I'ld have liked your comment on.
I am today thinking about buying a portable MP3 player, which I need to have at least 20Gb, voice recording and a car adapter. I only need MP3. And a screen, so I can choose what to play.
So, let's see here. For $250, you get a cool-looking but big and chunky thing that's a closed platform with proprietary media formats and only a handful of games.
On the other hand, for just $20 more, you can get a Tapwave Zodiac...
It would be good if some Linux hardware vendors would pick this up and get this out into the real world. I would much rather buy hardware with Linux installed in the BIOS.
LinuxBIOS is available as an option in some hardware.
During the course of the last week (possibly on Morning Becomes Eclectic), I heard someone say that the station will begin to archive a lot of their stuff in mp3.
KCRW has announced that they will soon be podcasting all of their local talk programs. That may be the announcement you heard. Nothing I've heard from them has indicated that their archives will be moving away from RealMedia format.
The more times I hear this the sadder I become. Where you eat is none of your employer's business. What you drink in your own time is between you and your softdrink god.
My wife works for a large pet supply company. During the hiring process, every employee has to sign a document agreeing to immediate termination if he/she is ever seen in another pet store or purchasing any pets or pet supplies from any other retailer.
By the terms of the contract, she can't buy a can of food for the cat while she's picking up bread and milk at the grocery store. I'll let you guess how much she pays attention to this contract.
Completely off-topic, I'm doing a little side project for which I'm considering cannibalizing the LCD from a Compaq Contura. I've been having difficulty finding some reliable specs, however, so maybe you can help. Specifically, is it color or monochrome, and do you happen to know the display's maximum resolution?
Yes, the Compaq website used to provide quite a wealth information and resources for their old notebooks. Unfortunately, that mostly disappeared when HP showed up.
More unfortunately, I believe there were a range of Compaq Contura models, and I only have experience with the Contura Aero, an odd-ball in the Contura family. I can tell you that the Contura Aero 4/33c featured a color screen, while the Contura Aero 4/25 was greyscale. Both were 640x480 and only 8 inches diagonal. Laughable today, but not bad for the first subnotebook all those years ago.
Anyway, good luck with your project. Your best bet for specs may be Googling for information on getting Linux--and more specifically, the X Windows System--running on Compaq Contura systems.
Re:"Apples == expensive" not a stereotype
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
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· Score: 1
Have fun in virus land with your high-TCO toy. I'll be doing real work for less money with my 12" Powerbook.
I hope your Powerbook serves you well. With my two year-old 15" Powerbook Titanium, I'm on my third power adapter, second battery, and second SuperDrive. I baby the thing, so I'm told it has actually held up better than many of the other Titanium Powerbooks at work.
The Powerbook is a great machine, and I love it, but sometimes I think it has as many design issues as my old Compaq Contura Aero 4/33c. Yay, screen clutch!
"After I graduate, I'm going to college as a computer engineering major. I'm going to make a computer where the whole Internet is in hardware so it's faster."
Nothing's forcing you not to use Vegas, Cleaner, and Combustion. All 3 blow the doors off the Adobe equivalent.
An excellent point, but I'd recommend avoiding Cleaner. Discreet broke the interface, stopped releasing updates some time ago, and has now pulled all their coders off the product. It's dead.
Instead, try ProCoder, the new Squeeze, or one of the other alternatives.
Yep, it's pretty much mutual assured destruction: Slashdot links to B3ta, B3ta links to Fark, Fark links to Slashdot. Then, on Friday, NTK links to anyone left standing.
Or do you also have to pay a pr. stream fee on top of that too for the codec?
The use of certain codecs (e.g. MPEG-4) may lead to fees in some situations. Additionally, a few companies (e.g. Acacia) are making grabs for cash regardless of what software, transports, and codecs are used.
We've considered archiving our video in some kind of compressed streaming format like AVI, Quicktime, or MPEG-2, but none of these offer lossless codecs that are appropriate for us, and we're unwilling to accept using a lossy compressor.
It doesn't sound as though "compressed streaming format[s]" are what you're really looking for, and AVI isn't a streaming format in any case. However, there are archival-type video codecs that may suit your needs:
BitJazz SheerVideo is an excellent, relatively quick, lossless, 4:4:4 video codec. The encoder is fairly inexpensive, the decoder is free, and they're working on a 10-bit version.
Digital Anarchy Microcosm is a lossless, 64-bit, RGBA codec. It's excellent if you're not working in YUV. The encoder is even less expensive than SheerVideo, and the decoder is free.
Apple Pixlet is quite nice, though not completely lossless.
Motion JPEG might be considered if you need pretty-much-visually-lossless but not mathematically lossless.
In a perfect world, you'd have one of these working behind the scenes in some sort of network storage device in a manner similar to the dpsVelocityVTFS. If you haven't worked with an editing system that uses VTFS, I recommend getting a demo.
...I remember a lot of people using the argument that Macs (we're talking Power Macs here, this would be around the days of the blue and white G3s and the first G4s) didn't have enough expandability in the way of PCI. I never could understand that.
At the time of the early blue and whites, I needed:
one--or preferably two--video cards
a good analog video capture card
a professional audio I/O card
an MPEG-1/2 compression accellerator card
at least two SCSI host adapters
Since we couldn't get approval to purchase a PCI expansion bridge, we were stuck swapping PCI cards several times a day as we worked on projects. Meanwhile, our Apple sales and support reps kept rabbiting on about how the machines were perfectly designed for professional audio/video editing. Bleh.
That would be particularly effective for me, living in an area with no cell phone coverage, and working in a windowless office in a converted coal bunker.
The cell phone only option may be viable if you live in a city, but wired solutions tend to work better in those big empty spaces in between, even if it does mean a bit of phone spam now and again.
...of course, it's probably one of those systems that hangs up if they get an actual human.
Oh, how I hate those.
Some business in our area has been annoying us with automated, answering-machine-only calls since the day we got our phone activated in our current house, before we gave the number to anyone, even our family. The do not call list did nothing to slow the assault, and caller ID always reports the caller as "Unknown/Unknown".
The message the system leaves does not include a business name or any hints as to what they're trying to sell, so we don't even know who we hate. All we get is a local phone number and encouragement to call right away about some matter too important to disclose on an answering machine. Unfortunately, I get no results when I reverse lookup the callback number and calling to complain just gets me a short, "Please hold for the next available representative" message as I'm sent into the land of muzak. I've waited up to 35 minutes and never made it out of the holding pattern or even been given a business name.
Were it a 900-type number, the scheme would be evil, but at least make sense. As a local, toll-free number, it doesn't even have that going for it.
There is no "edge" like dvd playability for any of the new systems.
Well, the Xbox 2 could be the first readily available, inexpensive DVD player with VC-9 support. "Step into Liquid" and "Corel Reef Adventure" could be the big release titles!
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Did you really just use "try and" in this discussion, of all places? Please, please tell me doing so was an attempt at humor.
One of the screenshots on this page gives an idea of the horror of which you speak.
In five years? Heck, get a few manufacturers to start chucking AVC chips into their DVD players tomorrow, and we can just short-circuit this whole mess using h.264 on red laser.
Authoring and playback are here, now, today, on Macs. Playback in Linux and Windows can't be far off, if it isn't here already.
There's no demand for converters yet, so production is low. CAE folks expect to produce boxes that can sell in the $40 to $50 range. See: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA608668. html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
Try visiting dapreview.net and posting in the "Which DAP to buy?" forum.
Twenty dollars more than a PSP for the Zodiac1? Heck, you can get a Zodiac2 for less than a PSP, shipping included.
(Unlike the parent, I have no connection with Tapwave. Or ebuyer.)
Taco Bell stopped selling Santa Fe Chicken Gorditas.
Illustrator is not a new addition. In fact, Adobe originally purchased Photoshop with the intention of making it an Illustrator plug-in.
KCRW has announced that they will soon be podcasting all of their local talk programs. That may be the announcement you heard. Nothing I've heard from them has indicated that their archives will be moving away from RealMedia format.
My wife works for a large pet supply company. During the hiring process, every employee has to sign a document agreeing to immediate termination if he/she is ever seen in another pet store or purchasing any pets or pet supplies from any other retailer.
By the terms of the contract, she can't buy a can of food for the cat while she's picking up bread and milk at the grocery store. I'll let you guess how much she pays attention to this contract.
Yes, the Compaq website used to provide quite a wealth information and resources for their old notebooks. Unfortunately, that mostly disappeared when HP showed up.
More unfortunately, I believe there were a range of Compaq Contura models, and I only have experience with the Contura Aero, an odd-ball in the Contura family. I can tell you that the Contura Aero 4/33c featured a color screen, while the Contura Aero 4/25 was greyscale. Both were 640x480 and only 8 inches diagonal. Laughable today, but not bad for the first subnotebook all those years ago.
Anyway, good luck with your project. Your best bet for specs may be Googling for information on getting Linux--and more specifically, the X Windows System--running on Compaq Contura systems.
I hope your Powerbook serves you well. With my two year-old 15" Powerbook Titanium, I'm on my third power adapter, second battery, and second SuperDrive. I baby the thing, so I'm told it has actually held up better than many of the other Titanium Powerbooks at work.
The Powerbook is a great machine, and I love it, but sometimes I think it has as many design issues as my old Compaq Contura Aero 4/33c. Yay, screen clutch!
Most people do not spring for conservation clear glass when framing, so in most cases, the glass isn't going to help much.
"After I graduate, I'm going to college as a computer engineering major. I'm going to make a computer where the whole Internet is in hardware so it's faster."
What do DEC have to do with Mac OS running on Windows?
Step away from the reality distortion field.
An excellent point, but I'd recommend avoiding Cleaner. Discreet broke the interface, stopped releasing updates some time ago, and has now pulled all their coders off the product. It's dead.
Instead, try ProCoder, the new Squeeze, or one of the other alternatives.
Yep, it's pretty much mutual assured destruction: Slashdot links to B3ta, B3ta links to Fark, Fark links to Slashdot. Then, on Friday, NTK links to anyone left standing.
The use of certain codecs (e.g. MPEG-4) may lead to fees in some situations. Additionally, a few companies (e.g. Acacia) are making grabs for cash regardless of what software, transports, and codecs are used.
It doesn't sound as though "compressed streaming format[s]" are what you're really looking for, and AVI isn't a streaming format in any case. However, there are archival-type video codecs that may suit your needs:
In a perfect world, you'd have one of these working behind the scenes in some sort of network storage device in a manner similar to the dpsVelocity VTFS. If you haven't worked with an editing system that uses VTFS, I recommend getting a demo.
At the time of the early blue and whites, I needed:
Since we couldn't get approval to purchase a PCI expansion bridge, we were stuck swapping PCI cards several times a day as we worked on projects. Meanwhile, our Apple sales and support reps kept rabbiting on about how the machines were perfectly designed for professional audio/video editing. Bleh.
"I defy you to come up with a better name than Seven."
That would be particularly effective for me, living in an area with no cell phone coverage, and working in a windowless office in a converted coal bunker.
The cell phone only option may be viable if you live in a city, but wired solutions tend to work better in those big empty spaces in between, even if it does mean a bit of phone spam now and again.
Oh, how I hate those.
Some business in our area has been annoying us with automated, answering-machine-only calls since the day we got our phone activated in our current house, before we gave the number to anyone, even our family. The do not call list did nothing to slow the assault, and caller ID always reports the caller as "Unknown/Unknown".
The message the system leaves does not include a business name or any hints as to what they're trying to sell, so we don't even know who we hate. All we get is a local phone number and encouragement to call right away about some matter too important to disclose on an answering machine. Unfortunately, I get no results when I reverse lookup the callback number and calling to complain just gets me a short, "Please hold for the next available representative" message as I'm sent into the land of muzak. I've waited up to 35 minutes and never made it out of the holding pattern or even been given a business name.
Were it a 900-type number, the scheme would be evil, but at least make sense. As a local, toll-free number, it doesn't even have that going for it.
Well, the Xbox 2 could be the first readily available, inexpensive DVD player with VC-9 support. "Step into Liquid" and "Corel Reef Adventure" could be the big release titles!
Or maybe not.