Where is the definition saying that my entire home network is not simply one machine?
Exactly. What if the definition classifies a CPU as one machine? Wouldn't that make multi cpu boxes a violation?
Personally, I think stretching the "one machine" limit to ban home networks is rather retarded, even though the "one machine" rule is just fine in and of itself. An ISP can certainly limit how many concurrent connections to their system the customer can make, but that's about it. That being the case, a router connected directly to your broadband connection, using the IP address assigned to you by your ISP, IS the only thing connecting directly to your ISP. Your computers are connected to the router, but not directly to your ISP. The router does what it is built to do, it re-routes packets from one port to another, not really caring if the packets come from a local connection or a remote connection. To me, having a router connected means you only have one machine connected to the ISP. End of story... unless of course the ISP specifies that sharing the connection through home networking is not permitted, but even the legality of that restriction is debatable.
Shuster, Shyster... what's the difference?
on
Prince of Pop-ups
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· Score: 5, Funny
the dictionary says:
shyster
n. Slang An unethical, unscrupulous practitioner, especially of law.
Perhaps you've been busy the last 200 years so you may not have noticed, but corporations get sued all the time for violating people's constitutional rights. 1st and 4th primarily.
The Bill of Rights was written to protect people's rights, primarily from the government, but it also guarantees those rights, no matter who violates them. That's kinda why they're called RIGHTS.
Unless the article specifically mentions the government as the violator, the rights apply to every person. Doesn't matter who violates them.
Employers have been sued for violating fourth amendment rights for snooping in employees personal effects and for bugging phones and reading emails. No government action mentioned, or needed. Corporations must provide reasonable evidence of suspicion before secretly tapping your work phone or reading your work emails. They can tap it all they want if they inform you upfront, because then you'll have the choice of not working there.
Try making someone work for nothing. You'll not only be breaking state and federal law, you'll be violating the 13th amendment which abolishes slavery. No government action needed to violate it. Yes, I know it's not in the Bill of rights (amendments 1 through 10) since it's number 13, but it is a constitutional violation none the less.
These samples are just something I pulled out of my ass while writing this. They're not examples of actual cases, just samples of situations where they might apply.
PS. That link you provided, shows precious little about how this country is "run". It's a link to THE BILL OF RIGHTS. Perhaps you should read it. This was after all the first link you got from a google search for "bill of rights", right? If you want to know how this country is "run" you need to read a whole hell of a lot more than that. Starting with the declaration of independence, the constitution in it's entirety as well as federal and state law. The Bill of Rights is the foundation upon which we build our personal freedoms.
I think you're giving RIAA a little too much credit, as well as too little to consumers. A certain percentage of all users use the exact same program to rip their audio cds. A certain percentage of those users use the same bitrate and let the program do the rest, including naming the files, so chances are you'll have a number of users with the EXACT same filesize, filename, length, bitrate, samplerate and ID tag (assuming they get the ID tag from cddb). How are you going to differentiate between those files, and those listed in the RIAA database?
As you said yourself, they're going to "delete files that happen to have similar names and the exact same lengths". I'm sorry but that's just not good enough. If there's even a 0.00000001% chance they can delete the wrong file, the program will be a legal liability to the company that releases it.
Besides, they don't have the legal right to delete any files on your hard drive to begin with, so all this hair splitting is useless anyway. Only governments can carry out punishments for crimes people have been CONVICTED of, private entities who have a complaint against another private entity, need to take legal action, or should we just do away with the justice system altogether?.
The problem here is that you have a private corporation bypassing the courts of law, enacting their own kind of punishment for a crime that may or may not have been committed, basically at their whim.
Let's assume for sake of argument that I have 300 songs in mp3 format on my hard drive, all of which I copied myself from CD's I paid for. Let's also assume that this program 'silence' will wind up being distributed in the form of an email (and you can bet your house it will). If I open the file, with nothing illegal on my computer, but the program finds my legal mp3's and deletes them, why should I not sue RIAA for damages? This type of action a violation of more than one constitutional amendment. For instance: It violates my right to be secure in my home from unreasonable searches and seizures. It violates my right to a fair and speedy trial. It violates my right to be informed of the charges against me, but of course in this case, there are no charges and no trial, they just skip ahead straight to punishment, which by the way, is not legally theirs to carry out.
What would I sue them for? The violation of my constitutional rights; for intentional sabotage of property (the files are mine); for intentional and unprovoked abuse of resources (my computer); for gaining unlawful access to my computer; and for intentional infliction of mental anguish. Not to mention lost time. Will they pay for my hours spent making LEGAL backup copies of my LEGALLY OWNED CDs?
Of course, their answer will be: prove that you own the CD's and we will let you keep the files, which is of course perfectly beside the point. They have no right to be looking in the first place, no matter how open my network is.
These people will stop at nothing to make you pay, even if you already have. Even if their tactics are barbaric and illegal (Sopranos come to mind).
Basically, this is their argument:
"The guy who parks next to me in my parking garage has a lot of antenna balls in the backseat of his convertible. My antenna ball is missing, so I think he must have stolen my antenna ball. Because it's a convertible, and the top is down, I must have every right to assume I can gain access to his vehicle, it's practically open for all to see. So, I'm going to go through everything in his car and destroy all the antenna balls I can find. He must have stolen them from somewhere. I will let him keep those for which he can provide proof of purchase. If I happen to destroy those in the process, that's just too bad... he shouldn't have left those other balls in plain sight. Hey, look at that... the guy who parks on the other side of me just handed me my antenna ball, his 8 year old daughter found it in the driveway, it must have fallen off. Well, it was still within my rights to destroy that other guy's antenna balls, they looked suspicious to me."
Sorry, but you're quite wrong. Since they are awarded franchise status by city governments, they are compelled to accept advertisements from anyone offering services or products, as long as they are legal.
I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this violates antitrust laws, since this is a clear example of a corporation abusing its dominance in one market in order to stifle competition in another.
If you own one of the biggest newspapers in your town, and you also own a restaurant in that town, you cannot refuse to run ads in the paper from other restaurants in the same neighborhood as yours. You may however be fully within your rights to refuse ads from other newspapers, but I'm not so sure on that one either.
Exactly. It's sickening to hear government officials calling people traitors and unpatriotic for speaking out in dissent. Labeling those who disagree with the government's policies as unpatriotic and treasonous is in itself extremely unpatriotic and moreover, it's profoundly un-American. Since this country is a democratic republic, the voice of the people must be heard. That means ALL people, not just those who agree with whatever administration happens to be in power. Expressing ones dissent is not only the most patriotic thing you can do, it is the most American thing you can do. Democracy without dissent, is not a Democracy.
These "patriot acts" are fundamentally un-American, and their proponents should be removed from office.
Except for one major difference. Water vapor is not bad for the environment. 70% of the planet's surface is after all covered with water. You can then take that same water vapor, cool it, store it, and use it to make more hydrogen. Clean energy, clean waste, reusable. Kinda neat.
Actually, even though it uses CGI extensively, the technology it uses is quite unique. It applies real footage to 3D models, so you're actually seeing something that was actually shot (then manipulated), so whatever detail they had when they were shot, will still be there (theoretically, mind you, I haven't seen the film yet). The only stuff that was shot digitally (as far as I know) were facial close ups in the virtual cinematography shots, where they used 5 HD cameras to capture the actor's faces, but everything else was 35mm film. In that particular instance, the HD actually works better, since the lack of grain makes tracking the pixels easier (perhaps the new Vision2 Kodak film stock will change that, since its grain is amazingly fine).
But film still has much more latitude than HD, so in grand shots getting comparable color depth is not easy, if at all possible. But a good cinematographer can make HD look as close to film as any digital format ever has. At Panavision, I saw camera tests shot by Allen Daviou, David Tattersall (pre- Star Wars) and others, where they shot the same exact scenes more than once, swapping between HD and 35 mm cameras. I saw them both projected on film. The only dead giveaway was clipping in certain bright areas on the HD material, but the detail was so similar, I found myself wondering which shot was which, until I saw clipping. Very impressive.
Apollo 13 did look stunningly beautiful, and the detail completely blew me away. I didn't know what to expect, but the outcome far surpassed everyone's expectations, I think. Basically, it served to further demonstrate the amazing amount of detail picked up by film.
I also saw SW Episode 2 after the DMR process, and while it did look pretty impressive, it didn't look as good as Apollo 13. Skin tone was rather flat and the gargantuan size of the screen completely ruined many of the visual effects shots, because minor stuff you would never notice in a regular theatre or on DVD, were glaringly apparent.
But, since Reloaded was mostly shot on 35mm, except for some of the visual effects shots (as far as I know) I'm fairly optimistic about its outcome in the IMAX format.
I also saw Ghosts of the Abyss at the IMAX recently, which was shot on HD, and it was amazingly crisp and clear, I was very impressed by it, and the image held up quite nicely on the huge screen.
The Varicam is around $60.000 (plus lenses and accessories), the Sony FW-900 is around $100.000 (plus lenses and accessories) and I actually did make a point of noting that you get what you pay for. If you want HD, this is not the way to go. This camera is getting more hype than it deserves. Basically, it's a cheap camera, with an image that looks every bit as cheap as the camera (around 3% of the full blown HD cameras).
The 19Mbps bitrate, while more than twice that of the highest quality DVD's, the number of pixels it's encoding is almost 3 times the number of pixels in a DVD. Besides, any serious videographer will tell you that it's better to shoot on DV than DVD. For various reasons, A) the bitrate is around 1/5th (yes, even DV has a higher bitrate than this HD camera), B) real-time MPEG encoding will never be as good as post encoding using multiple passes (because it needs to calculate the changes between each of the keyframes, it can't really do that well in real time), C) the single chip design is certainly a huge drawback, even though it is not a typical CCD chip. The quality would still not be stunning, because of the lossy compression. Remember, you're talking to someone who has actually seen the output from this camera, as well as Varicam and the Sony FW-900 24p camera. Believe me, this thing is more hype than substance. DigiBeta would yield better results... I'd rather shoot on an AG-DVX100 (24p DV). At least I'd be getting 24p, and the color saturation is far superior, while still NTSC DV's native 4:1:1, it's still better than this because MPEG uses 4:2:0 (so does PAL DV btw).
Given the choice when shooting, I'd pick the panasonic 24p DV camera over this half-assed HD camera any day. This is a toy for hobbyists, not a tool for professionals. If you want to shoot home movies in HD, this will do the trick just fine. If you want to sell your work, it won't.
Don't get me wrong... I love HD (probably more than most), but HD shouldn't be marginalized to a point where it's debatable whether it's better than SD. In this case it is highly debatable, which is really unfortunate. I had really high hopes when I heard about this camera over a year ago, but the end result was really disappointing. I expected more from JVC, even for $3500.
That's not my point, and you know it. My point is, not all HDTV is GOOD HDTV.
This one isn't good. Cramming 1280x720 into a 19mbps bitrate, which is 6mbps LESS than DV, by the way, is NOT good quality. DVD's with less than 1/3 the number of pixels works fine with MPEG2. But DVDs are not the end-all quality standard. Uncompressed video is, SD or HD. I do this stuff for a living, so I know what I'm talking about.
Because hardware mpeg2 encoders are already available for HD, mpeg4 encoders aren't, and the quality is better. Pretty simple, really.
That being said... I've seen the images from this doohickey, they're not that great.
First of all, it's MPEG2, which while better than mpeg4, is still a very lossy compression (it only saves every 6th frame, using compression algorithms similar to jpg, then uses even more complex algorithms to keep track of changes in the image between those 6 frames). As such, it's only good for two things: Home Movies for those 34 people in the US who have an HDTV in their home, and for independent filmmakers trying to work on a shoestring budget. Even then, there are better choices.
Personally, I'm more excited about the new Panasonic 24p.
And I'm even more excited about the new Panasonic DVCPRO-HD Varicam coming later this year (using a 100mbps DVCPRO format, with 5 times the bitrate of this JVC, but is still low enough so it can be edited on a laptop, in standard NLE's such as Final Cut Pro, Avid Express or even Premiere).
If you want to shoot digital, you can do a whole hell of a lot better than this. If you want to shoot HD, this is the cheapest way to get it... but remember: you get what you pay for.
Why don't they use the original 4:3 image? Because it's got microphones, et cetera in it.
Well, that and the fact that the shot was framed for widescreen, meaning the director used the frame to tell a story, but then you take away the frame and his means of storytelling are compromized. A few of the smarter directors like Jim Cameron, have shot repeatedly on Super35, because it allows them to frame the action for both (more work, may compromise either or both, but in all, a better way of doing it when you know 80% of the audience will see 4:3).
Many use anamorphic widescreen, which uses the full height of the frame, and squeezes the image horizontally to fit from side to side (it's then "unsqeezed" when projected), so these films have no 4:3 material to work with. Those always lose stuff when cropped for 4:3.
Cinema Purists, like myself, prefer widescreen and will not view 4:3 versions on dvd's or tv. But, if you want to ensure most of the audience gets what you're saying, frame for both.
It seems you're not quite clear on what interlacing does or why it exists.
Let me explain this in the simplest terms possible.
Interlacing NEVER applies to film, period. It is strictly used in television, nothing else.
Interlacing only exists because of the way television sets were designed. Go here for a simple explanation of how interlacing in tv works. They explain it better than I would.
In a theatre, there is no scanning of any kind. The image you see is FLASHED on the screen by opening the projector's gate for a specific period of time, 1/48th of a second for 24 frames per second (actually, it's 2x 1/96th of a second, to minimize flicker). The gate is opened and closed by a spinning disc, which is open for 180 out of the 360 circle. It's actually 2x90 cutouts, rather than one 180, as flashing the same image twice in the same period of time reduces flicker. In a camera however, it's one 180 cutout (it can be changed, for effects purposes).
IMAX should be able to at either 24fps or 48 fps, and I don't think the projectionist is forced to use one or the other. (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). But IF you were stuck with a 48fps system, the easiest way to solve that is to optically print every frame twice on the IMAX film at the lab. Your eyes will not notice it because you're already used to 24fps in a regular theatre, where every frame is flashed twice anyway.
Again... Interlacing NEVER works in projected images, because your eyes will see the lines. You will not see lines in television, unless the interlacing is horrendously crappy. Just try catching it on your local news. That's right... you can't. Project that same image without de-interlacing it, and you will.
I do understand they cut many of the crappy plot scenes out of the IMAX version of Ep2 because of the restriction on max length of an IMAX film. That movie would have been better without the "Sound of Music" scene.
In fact, that is exactly what they cut, among other things. In my opinion, the IMAX version was better because of the editing, not because it looked better (even though it did).
The difference here is that they use the DMR process to enlarge the frame, so it can be put to IMAX size 70mm film. To make a long story short, it analyzes each frame and enlarges it to IMAX proportions, maintaining image sharpness and detail along the way. Since the aspect ratio of the IMAX screen is not widescreen, but closer to 4:3, a pan and scan is necessary to use the full screen. Ocean's Eleven did not go through this process. What you saw, was a 35mm print, projected onto an IMAX screen, with a standard 5.1 or 6.1 Dolby Digital audio mix. A completely different thing. 35mm film projected to a screen that huge will go soft (lose sharpness).
I've seen many films projected that way (including Ocean's Eleven, Minority Report and Jurassic Park 3), and while they look huge, and have kick ass sound, the DMR looks so much better, and sounds so much better. That's because the image is processed especially to take advantage of the bigger screen (grain removal, detail enhancing and more) and a new sound mix to take full advantage of the more powerful sound system.
Apollo 13 looked amazing, SWep2 look great, but the HiDef source materical wasn't really made to withstand this type of blowup (even though it was impressive, you could still see pixellation), it was designed for normal sized theatres.
Personally, I'll see the 35mm first, simply because I love and prefer widescreen. Then I'll see the IMAX.
Off-Topic, but what the hell, so was your funny post, so... My favorite reaction to that is what someone wrote in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. If someone in front of you is acting unruly (loud, on the phone, talking to the screen, whatever), simply lean forward, and in your most sinister voice, whisper into his ear: "Do you have any idea how much I can get for your kidney on the black market?"
When that happens, can you imagine the porn industry? Cybersex will have a new meaning. Virtually all the geeks will finally get laid! Emphasis on the word virtually, of course...
Slashdot Mirror
Folks, this isn't about philosophy, it's about cashing in on the popularity of The Matrix.
The headline could just as well have been:
"Cashing in on The Matrix: How to sell your irrelevant book to an otherwise uninterested public."
Where is the definition saying that my entire home network is not
simply one machine?
Exactly.
What if the definition classifies a CPU as one machine? Wouldn't that make multi cpu boxes a violation?
Personally, I think stretching the "one machine" limit to ban home networks is rather retarded, even though the "one machine" rule is just fine in and of itself.
An ISP can certainly limit how many concurrent connections to their system the customer can make, but that's about it.
That being the case, a router connected directly to your broadband connection, using the IP address assigned to you by your ISP, IS the only thing connecting directly to your ISP.
Your computers are connected to the router, but not directly to your ISP. The router does what it is built to do, it re-routes packets from one port to another, not really caring if the packets come from a local connection or a remote connection.
To me, having a router connected means you only have one machine connected to the ISP. End of story... unless of course the ISP specifies that sharing the connection through home networking is not permitted, but even the legality of that restriction is debatable.
the dictionary says:
shyster
n. Slang
An unethical, unscrupulous practitioner, especially of law.
Seems to fit Shuster quite well.
Don't be snide pongo, no reason to be.
Perhaps you've been busy the last 200 years so you may not have noticed, but corporations get sued all the time for violating people's constitutional rights. 1st and 4th primarily.
The Bill of Rights was written to protect people's rights, primarily from the government, but it also guarantees those rights, no matter who violates them. That's kinda why they're called RIGHTS.
Unless the article specifically mentions the government as the violator, the rights apply to every person. Doesn't matter who violates them.
Employers have been sued for violating fourth amendment rights for snooping in employees personal effects and for bugging phones and reading emails. No government action mentioned, or needed. Corporations must provide reasonable evidence of suspicion before secretly tapping your work phone or reading your work emails. They can tap it all they want if they inform you upfront, because then you'll have the choice of not working there.
Try making someone work for nothing. You'll not only be breaking state and federal law, you'll be violating the 13th amendment which abolishes slavery. No government action needed to violate it. Yes, I know it's not in the Bill of rights (amendments 1 through 10) since it's number 13, but it is a constitutional violation none the less.
These samples are just something I pulled out of my ass while writing this. They're not examples of actual cases, just samples of situations where they might apply.
PS. That link you provided, shows precious little about how this country is "run". It's a link to THE BILL OF RIGHTS.
Perhaps you should read it. This was after all the first link you got from a google search for "bill of rights", right?
If you want to know how this country is "run" you need to read a whole hell of a lot more than that. Starting with the declaration of independence, the constitution in it's entirety as well as federal and state law.
The Bill of Rights is the foundation upon which we build our personal freedoms.
As for the constitutional aspects, I don't recall the RIAA being a governmental entity, which means they are not bound by the Constitution.
What planet are you from?
Not bound by the constitution?
You mean I can violate your constitutional rights all I want without worry? Cooool!!
I think you're giving RIAA a little too much credit, as well as too little to consumers.
A certain percentage of all users use the exact same program to rip their audio cds. A certain percentage of those users use the same bitrate and let the program do the rest, including naming the files, so chances are you'll have a number of users with the EXACT same filesize, filename, length, bitrate, samplerate and ID tag (assuming they get the ID tag from cddb).
How are you going to differentiate between those files, and those listed in the RIAA database?
As you said yourself, they're going to "delete files that happen to have similar names and the exact same lengths".
I'm sorry but that's just not good enough. If there's even a 0.00000001% chance they can delete the wrong file, the program will be a legal liability to the company that releases it.
Besides, they don't have the legal right to delete any files on your hard drive to begin with, so all this hair splitting is useless anyway.
Only governments can carry out punishments for crimes people have been CONVICTED of, private entities who have a complaint against another private entity, need to take legal action, or should we just do away with the justice system altogether?.
The problem here is that you have a private corporation bypassing the courts of law, enacting their own kind of punishment for a crime that may or may not have been committed, basically at their whim.
I've probably said it here before, but sarcasm is entirely wasted on me.
The Bill of Rights was created SPECIFICALLY to protect the people from the government.
It's pretty simple.
Let's assume for sake of argument that I have 300 songs in mp3 format on my hard drive, all of which I copied myself from CD's I paid for.
Let's also assume that this program 'silence' will wind up being distributed in the form of an email (and you can bet your house it will).
If I open the file, with nothing illegal on my computer, but the program finds my legal mp3's and deletes them, why should I not sue RIAA for damages?
This type of action a violation of more than one constitutional amendment.
For instance:
It violates my right to be secure in my home from unreasonable searches and seizures.
It violates my right to a fair and speedy trial.
It violates my right to be informed of the charges against me, but of course in this case, there are no charges and no trial, they just skip ahead straight to punishment, which by the way, is not legally theirs to carry out.
What would I sue them for?
The violation of my constitutional rights; for intentional sabotage of property (the files are mine); for intentional and unprovoked abuse of resources (my computer); for gaining unlawful access to my computer; and for intentional infliction of mental anguish.
Not to mention lost time. Will they pay for my hours spent making LEGAL backup copies of my LEGALLY OWNED CDs?
Of course, their answer will be: prove that you own the CD's and we will let you keep the files, which is of course perfectly beside the point. They have no right to be looking in the first place, no matter how open my network is.
These people will stop at nothing to make you pay, even if you already have. Even if their tactics are barbaric and illegal (Sopranos come to mind).
Basically, this is their argument:
"The guy who parks next to me in my parking garage has a lot of antenna balls in the backseat of his convertible. My antenna ball is missing, so I think he must have stolen my antenna ball. Because it's a convertible, and the top is down, I must have every right to assume I can gain access to his vehicle, it's practically open for all to see. So, I'm going to go through everything in his car and destroy all the antenna balls I can find. He must have stolen them from somewhere. I will let him keep those for which he can provide proof of purchase. If I happen to destroy those in the process, that's just too bad... he shouldn't have left those other balls in plain sight.
Hey, look at that... the guy who parks on the other side of me just handed me my antenna ball, his 8 year old daughter found it in the driveway, it must have fallen off. Well, it was still within my rights to destroy that other guy's antenna balls, they looked suspicious to me."
Sorry, but you're quite wrong.
Since they are awarded franchise status by city governments, they are compelled to accept advertisements from anyone offering services or products, as long as they are legal.
I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this violates antitrust laws, since this is a clear example of a corporation abusing its dominance in one market in order to stifle competition in another.
If you own one of the biggest newspapers in your town, and you also own a restaurant in that town, you cannot refuse to run ads in the paper from other restaurants in the same neighborhood as yours.
You may however be fully within your rights to refuse ads from other newspapers, but I'm not so sure on that one either.
To me, this just feels wrong.
Since it's a protein, isn't it going to break down at some point? Or will I have to start feeding my hard drives now?
Exactly. It's sickening to hear government officials calling people traitors and unpatriotic for speaking out in dissent. Labeling those who disagree with the government's policies as unpatriotic and treasonous is in itself extremely unpatriotic and moreover, it's profoundly un-American.
Since this country is a democratic republic, the voice of the people must be heard. That means ALL people, not just those who agree with whatever administration happens to be in power. Expressing ones dissent is not only the most patriotic thing you can do, it is the most American thing you can do. Democracy without dissent, is not a Democracy.
These "patriot acts" are fundamentally un-American, and their proponents should be removed from office.
Except for one major difference.
Water vapor is not bad for the environment.
70% of the planet's surface is after all covered with water.
You can then take that same water vapor, cool it, store it, and use it to make more hydrogen.
Clean energy, clean waste, reusable. Kinda neat.
Actually, even though it uses CGI extensively, the technology it uses is quite unique. It applies real footage to 3D models, so you're actually seeing something that was actually shot (then manipulated), so whatever detail they had when they were shot, will still be there (theoretically, mind you, I haven't seen the film yet).
The only stuff that was shot digitally (as far as I know) were facial close ups in the virtual cinematography shots, where they used 5 HD cameras to capture the actor's faces, but everything else was 35mm film.
In that particular instance, the HD actually works better, since the lack of grain makes tracking the pixels easier (perhaps the new Vision2 Kodak film stock will change that, since its grain is amazingly fine).
But film still has much more latitude than HD, so in grand shots getting comparable color depth is not easy, if at all possible.
But a good cinematographer can make HD look as close to film as any digital format ever has.
At Panavision, I saw camera tests shot by Allen Daviou, David Tattersall (pre- Star Wars) and others, where they shot the same exact scenes more than once, swapping between HD and 35 mm cameras. I saw them both projected on film. The only dead giveaway was clipping in certain bright areas on the HD material, but the detail was so similar, I found myself wondering which shot was which, until I saw clipping. Very impressive.
Apollo 13 did look stunningly beautiful, and the detail completely blew me away. I didn't know what to expect, but the outcome far surpassed everyone's expectations, I think. Basically, it served to further demonstrate the amazing amount of detail picked up by film.
I also saw SW Episode 2 after the DMR process, and while it did look pretty impressive, it didn't look as good as Apollo 13. Skin tone was rather flat and the gargantuan size of the screen completely ruined many of the visual effects shots, because minor stuff you would never notice in a regular theatre or on DVD, were glaringly apparent.
But, since Reloaded was mostly shot on 35mm, except for some of the visual effects shots (as far as I know) I'm fairly optimistic about its outcome in the IMAX format.
I also saw Ghosts of the Abyss at the IMAX recently, which was shot on HD, and it was amazingly crisp and clear, I was very impressed by it, and the image held up quite nicely on the huge screen.
So because it's cheap, it's ok if it's no good?
The Varicam is around $60.000 (plus lenses and accessories), the Sony FW-900 is around $100.000 (plus lenses and accessories) and I actually did make a point of noting that you get what you pay for. If you want HD, this is not the way to go. This camera is getting more hype than it deserves. Basically, it's a cheap camera, with an image that looks every bit as cheap as the camera (around 3% of the full blown HD cameras).
The 19Mbps bitrate, while more than twice that of the highest quality DVD's, the number of pixels it's encoding is almost 3 times the number of pixels in a DVD. Besides, any serious videographer will tell you that it's better to shoot on DV than DVD. For various reasons, A) the bitrate is around 1/5th (yes, even DV has a higher bitrate than this HD camera), B) real-time MPEG encoding will never be as good as post encoding using multiple passes (because it needs to calculate the changes between each of the keyframes, it can't really do that well in real time), C) the single chip design is certainly a huge drawback, even though it is not a typical CCD chip. The quality would still not be stunning, because of the lossy compression.
Remember, you're talking to someone who has actually seen the output from this camera, as well as Varicam and the Sony FW-900 24p camera.
Believe me, this thing is more hype than substance. DigiBeta would yield better results...
I'd rather shoot on an AG-DVX100 (24p DV). At least I'd be getting 24p, and the color saturation is far superior, while still NTSC DV's native 4:1:1, it's still better than this because MPEG uses 4:2:0 (so does PAL DV btw).
Given the choice when shooting, I'd pick the panasonic 24p DV camera over this half-assed HD camera any day.
This is a toy for hobbyists, not a tool for professionals. If you want to shoot home movies in HD, this will do the trick just fine. If you want to sell your work, it won't.
Don't get me wrong... I love HD (probably more than most), but HD shouldn't be marginalized to a point where it's debatable whether it's better than SD. In this case it is highly debatable, which is really unfortunate. I had really high hopes when I heard about this camera over a year ago, but the end result was really disappointing. I expected more from JVC, even for $3500.
That's not my point, and you know it.
My point is, not all HDTV is GOOD HDTV.
This one isn't good.
Cramming 1280x720 into a 19mbps bitrate, which is 6mbps LESS than DV, by the way, is NOT good quality. DVD's with less than 1/3 the number of pixels works fine with MPEG2. But DVDs are not the end-all quality standard. Uncompressed video is, SD or HD.
I do this stuff for a living, so I know what I'm talking about.
Oh, and sarcasm is wasted on me, mr. Anonymous..
Because hardware mpeg2 encoders are already available for HD, mpeg4 encoders aren't, and the quality is better. Pretty simple, really.
That being said... I've seen the images from this doohickey, they're not that great.
First of all, it's MPEG2, which while better than mpeg4, is still a very lossy compression (it only saves every 6th frame, using compression algorithms similar to jpg, then uses even more complex algorithms to keep track of changes in the image between those 6 frames).
As such, it's only good for two things:
Home Movies for those 34 people in the US who have an HDTV in their home, and for independent filmmakers trying to work on a shoestring budget. Even then, there are better choices.
Personally, I'm more excited about the new Panasonic 24p.
And I'm even more excited about the new Panasonic DVCPRO-HD Varicam coming later this year (using a 100mbps DVCPRO format, with 5 times the bitrate of this JVC, but is still low enough so it can be edited on a laptop, in standard NLE's such as Final Cut Pro, Avid Express or even Premiere).
If you want to shoot digital, you can do a whole hell of a lot better than this. If you want to shoot HD, this is the cheapest way to get it... but remember: you get what you pay for.
Why don't they use the original 4:3
image? Because it's got microphones,
et cetera in it.
Well, that and the fact that the shot was framed for widescreen, meaning the director used the frame to tell a story, but then you take away the frame and his means of storytelling are compromized. A few of the smarter directors like Jim Cameron, have shot repeatedly on Super35, because it allows them to frame the action for both (more work, may compromise either or both, but in all, a better way of doing it when you know 80% of the audience will see 4:3).
Many use anamorphic widescreen, which uses the full height of the frame, and squeezes the image horizontally to fit from side to side (it's then "unsqeezed" when projected), so these films have no 4:3 material to work with. Those always lose stuff when cropped for 4:3.
Cinema Purists, like myself, prefer widescreen and will not view 4:3 versions on dvd's or tv.
But, if you want to ensure most of the audience gets what you're saying, frame for both.
Yeah, a friend and I had the same discussion...
But we decided it would be even better in 3D.
Think of a 3D money shot..
Talk about an in your face experience.. eew.
Coming soon in a theatre near you...
eh.. sorry, that should be TO a theatre near you.
It seems you're not quite clear on what interlacing does or why it exists.
Let me explain this in the simplest terms possible.
Interlacing NEVER applies to film, period.
It is strictly used in television, nothing else.
Interlacing only exists because of the way television sets were designed.
Go here for a simple explanation of how interlacing in tv works. They explain it better than I would.
In a theatre, there is no scanning of any kind. The image you see is FLASHED on the screen by opening the projector's gate for a specific period of time, 1/48th of a second for 24 frames per second (actually, it's 2x 1/96th of a second, to minimize flicker). The gate is opened and closed by a spinning disc, which is open for 180 out of the 360 circle. It's actually 2x90 cutouts, rather than one 180, as flashing the same image twice in the same period of time reduces flicker. In a camera however, it's one 180 cutout (it can be changed, for effects purposes).
IMAX should be able to at either 24fps or 48 fps, and I don't think the projectionist is forced to use one or the other. (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
But IF you were stuck with a 48fps system, the easiest way to solve that is to optically print every frame twice on the IMAX film at the lab.
Your eyes will not notice it because you're already used to 24fps in a regular theatre, where every frame is flashed twice anyway.
Again... Interlacing NEVER works in projected images, because your eyes will see the lines. You will not see lines in television, unless the interlacing is horrendously crappy. Just try catching it on your local news. That's right... you can't. Project that same image without de-interlacing it, and you will.
I do understand they cut many of the crappy plot scenes out of the IMAX version of Ep2 because of the restriction on max length of an IMAX film. That movie would have been better without the "Sound of Music" scene.
In fact, that is exactly what they cut, among other things.
In my opinion, the IMAX version was better because of the editing, not because it looked better (even though it did).
You didn't read the article, did you?
The difference here is that they use the DMR process to enlarge the frame, so it can be put to IMAX size 70mm film. To make a long story short, it analyzes each frame and enlarges it to IMAX proportions, maintaining image sharpness and detail along the way.
Since the aspect ratio of the IMAX screen is not widescreen, but closer to 4:3, a pan and scan is necessary to use the full screen.
Ocean's Eleven did not go through this process. What you saw, was a 35mm print, projected onto an IMAX screen, with a standard 5.1 or 6.1 Dolby Digital audio mix. A completely different thing. 35mm film projected to a screen that huge will go soft (lose sharpness).
I've seen many films projected that way (including Ocean's Eleven, Minority Report and Jurassic Park 3), and while they look huge, and have kick ass sound, the DMR looks so much better, and sounds so much better.
That's because the image is processed especially to take advantage of the bigger screen (grain removal, detail enhancing and more) and a new sound mix to take full advantage of the more powerful sound system.
Apollo 13 looked amazing, SWep2 look great, but the HiDef source materical wasn't really made to withstand this type of blowup (even though it was impressive, you could still see pixellation), it was designed for normal sized theatres.
Personally, I'll see the 35mm first, simply because I love and prefer widescreen. Then I'll see the IMAX.
Off-Topic, but what the hell, so was your funny post, so...
My favorite reaction to that is what someone wrote in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.
If someone in front of you is acting unruly (loud, on the phone, talking to the screen, whatever), simply lean forward, and in your most sinister voice, whisper into his ear:
"Do you have any idea how much I can get for your kidney on the black market?"
When that happens, can you imagine the porn industry? Cybersex will have a new meaning.
Virtually all the geeks will finally get laid!
Emphasis on the word virtually, of course...
seems to be /.'ed or something.
Meanwhile, here's another site that actually has the Campanile movie:
http://www.debevec.org/Campanile/