Several people have claimed that you need an external digital tuner with this box, but it in fact INCLUDES a built in ATSC tuner. Which means that you don't need anything else other than the monitor and a pair of good rabit ears to get local digital TV transmissions on the monitor. These could include high def transmissions as well (DTV != HDTV).
Most external Digital Receivers cost in the area of $400 and up, so the cost off this unit is actually pretty reasonable. A perfect match for my 24" 16:10 Sony Trinitron monitor.
This article might have been useful if they had made it more broadbased and dealt with issues surrounding tape-to-digital conversion in general. As it is, all they've really done is give a specific example of how to use a particular device to do the capture. Not much real information to help people with other setups.
Also, they recommend a $1000 dollar "edit" VCR or a standalone time base corrector. You could just as easily buy a digital VHS deck with a built in time base corrector and built in digital noise correction for $800. I use this deck to stream VHS tapes to my Mac via a Firewire bridge for transfer to DVD. The built-in TBC makes a noticeable difference.
In any case, maybe it's time for me to add something to my Faq-O-Matic about transferring VHS for all systems.
Now that MSFT has been let off virtually penalty free by the Bush administration, why bother to keep propping up a "competitor". Microsoft was desparate during the trial to insure that none of the competition dropped off the face of the earth, which would have added additional fuel to the penalty phase of the trial.
Now that they don't have to worry about being punished, why continue shoring up companies like Corel? I wouldn't be surprised if they also drop their support of Apple (via Office X) for the same reason. They no longer have to prove that they're "good partners".
Frankly, after the previous round of government litigation in the mid-nineties, the same thing happened. Once they were out from under close scrutiny the loosed the dogs of war.
Why do people constantly talk about n-DVD-hours worth of data? Particularly since they are generally referring to DVD-Video, not DVD data.
Comparing the transfer capacity to some number of hours of DVD video material is pointless, since the bitrate is not the same from one title to the next.
For example, 6.7 gigabytes of data is actually only 6.23 gibibytes. A video stream would have to be encoded at around 3.5 mebibits/second to fit four hours of material in 6.23GiB. I wouldn't call that a quality video stream. And that's WITHOUT an audio sub-stream! You're not far away from Super VCD world at this bit rate.
Now, using a more reasonable average bitrate of, say, at least 4.5 mebibits would mean that the 6.23 gibibytes of data would only hold about 3 hours of "DVD-Video quality material".
Which brings us back to my point. Using DVD Video as a measure of data capacity is pointless, since there is no single data rate used for DVD Video.
I thought that was weird as well. It looks as though each capture is 1.4 times too wide for the height of the capture. Eg. if you resize the 1001x309 captures to 709x399 (or 1001x565), then you get the correct aspect ratio of 1.77 as the capture looks correct.
It's odd that the captures are this odd aspect reatio. Is this just a problem with the GNU Radio package, or with the way they captured in GIMP?
Too bad this wasn't a call for contestant on Scrap Heap. The American installments of Junkyard Wars have been generally awful, with pparticipants who act no better than your average (American) football fan. Ugh! The British teams always seemed as if they were actually having fun, but the American teams spend most of their time posturing and sniping at one another. The Young Guns were the worst.
Umm, had he actually been on-screen I would say sure. But (and this is a big but), he didn't! Too bad, so sad. He had nothing more to do with the performance than many other actors who have provided voices for animated characters.
Frequently in Disney's classics, the voice talent actually performed the scenes on film so that the animators could use their mannerisms in the feature. Why wouldn't Robert Patrick also qualify, since he walked around in a Speedo while painted with dots ONSITE for T2?
Also, had Golum actually looked like something other than a CG character I might understand people's motivation on this issue, but it didn't look any better than any other CG character I've seen. I just chalk this up to the JRR Tolkein/Stephen King style sycophantic fan base.
Note that MSG is not hydrolized protein, in the sense of an ingredient or food additive.
However, most consumers (maybe due to the stupifying effects that you've described) refer to any form of free glutamate as "MSG", which is incorrect.
For that reason, if you see a label on food that says "No MSG", or "No Added MSG", the FDA requires that it be free of all "free glutamate" additives, including MSG and hydrolized protiens.
Aspartame appears to have a far larger impact on the general populace and much of it's documented. As for MSG problems, a lot of it is anecdotal and clinical studies have not shown that it has any detrimental effect on brain or nervous funtion.
Being that the same salt occurs naturally in seaweed and is used frequently in both Chinese and Japanese cooking, I would expect that the Japanese and Chinese should be raving idiots after thousands of years of use if it were actually toxic.
While I don't doubt there are people including yourself who are sensitive to MSG and other additives (eg. aspartame), most people don't consume enough to even come close to toxic levels. You're just as likely to die from consuming honey, the perfect anaerobic environment for botulism.
I typically avoid any artificial sweetener, simply because I don't think they taste very good. For the occasional Diet Pepsi I have (8-20 ounces/week), I haven't noticed any health problems that weren't present when I've gone for months without any intake of artificial sweeteners.
Like all else, moderation is the key. The person that puts 5 packets of sacharine in his iced tea is the same as a smoker. We all haves choices and we make them daily. The consequences are ours to pay.
I don't see why people would use this since they're so flighty about monosodium glutamate, a relatively "natural" food additive that enhances the flavor of meat-based foods.
In general, MSG is safe for anyone but a small percentage of people, yet most people in the US avoid it like the plague, though most good Chinese and Japanese food includes it.
Well, I guess if cursing and juvenile antics are a sign of expertise, then you hope should be fulfilled. AICN is just about the most pointless, poorly designed website I've had occasion to visit.
Even the articles they do post are generally slavish, bootlicking odes to bad film.
Frankly, I don't see "convergence" happening in the living rooms of most Americans. How convenient would it really be for most? Not very. A single system unit might be of interest to a person who lives alone, but of what use is it for a normal family. Oh, it would be useful for generating screaming matches between Billy and Janey, because he wants to watch Gunsmoke (dates me, doesn't it ) and she wants to play Nintendo. There's only one screen, so convergence in this case (which would be VERY common) yields a benefit of ZERO.
Best Buy recently had the Mitsubishi D-VHS deck on sale for around $425. It's normally $499.
JVC's rolling an upgrade to the 30K in February, and another of the D-VHS licensees (Hughes, RCA, Phillips, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and Hitachi are all licensees, among others, that have produced D-VHS decks) is expected to announce a D-Theatre enabled deck at CES. The new JVC D-Theatre deck is reported to have an MSRP of $799, which is what the current model is currently marked down to (original MSRP was almost $1500 if I remember correctly).
"Hmm.. normal compressed streams from the networks come in at about 19Mb/sec. Even taking it down to 15 hurts the image."
That's one of the problems with most cable and satellite HD delivery. They generally deliver a signal in the 15Mb/s range. Assuming you get good local UHF reception, you're often better off relying on your local broadcasts when available.
As for this comment:
"DVHS is buggy and expensive"
What are you talking about? D-VHS decks can be had for well under $500, can record 4 hours of FULL HD content, or 24 hours of standard def on a single tape. Newer decks even keep track of what's been recorded on each tape to make things easy to find. Name another currently available consumer friendly HD recorder that you can purchase for under $500 right now.
D-VHS has been around for years and I'm unaware of any problems in the underlying technology. Are you sure you're not referring to a specific issue (ie. JVC's problems with their D-Theatre 30K unit)?
The other benefit of the D-VHS platform is that, for the foreseeable future, it is the only way to purchase pre-recorded HD movies. In fact, most of the D-Theatre titles currently available actually run at the same data rate as the studio masters, 28.2Mb/s. This is a significantly higher MPEG2 datarate than the 19.36 used by HD, nearly half again as fast.
The other cool part of A/V connection using Firewire is when they add HAVi on top of it. This basiaclly allows units to identify each other over the FW connection. Then, a HAVi enabled TV can actually control a HAVi enabled device (receiver, Digital VHS deck, etc.)
"Generally speaking, you want DVI on the set because it's uncompressed and allows the set to be a little more dumb. However, you absolutely want firewire on a recorder because it is compressed, removing the requirement for a real-time HDTV MPEG-2 compressor on the recorder."
That makes sense, but the "dumb" part will only hold true until (I think) 2007, when all TVs above a certain side have to include an ATSC tuner (which means they'll also have the MPEG2 decoder onboard).
I work part time at a major electronics chain and can tell you that people would be much happier with the ease of use features that come with Firewire (and addons like HAVi). Most of the people we sell VCRs to think VCR+ is too hard use!
Simply plug a Mitsubishi D-VHS deck into a Mitsubishi TV (all via Firewire) for an example. The TV automagically adds the VCR to its menus and you actually control the VCR through the TV menus.
When I read the original agreement last week (or maybe the week before), the connector agreed upon was Firewire, not DVI. Let's all hope that the article mentioned here is wrong, since DVI is definitely the lowest common denominator connectivity for HD.
We've been using a Roomba for some time now and are getting ready to add two more to the house (one for each floor).
When I leave in the morning, I just set it in the middle of the kitchen, hit the L[arge] button and go to work. The Roomba then does its thing and vacuums the kitchen, living room, and dining room. It sweeps under all the furniture and with one exception (detailed below) doesn't get "trapped" or caught.
I do pick up one small rug with a fringe that the Roomba doesn't get along with, but other than that it works well.
I could understand their actions if they didn't also specifically target the PPC porting. I have no probelm with their stand against linking to APSL modules. Why is the PPC work being halted, but not the x86 if not as a petty swipe at Apple user (not Apple itself)?
Maybe this will help in the Firewire v. DVI realm. I would prefer to have HAVi enabled Firewire I/O on all of my components, and I'm guessing the big cable companies will want DVI since the big studios are pushing it. I'd love to be able to replace my DVI-based TimeWarner box with a HAVi enabled component.
The home theatre version of DTS uses a similar mechanism, allowing DTS to continue to add discreet channels and additional features while remaining compatible with older DTS decoders. Basically, the decoder ignores any information in the stream header that it doesn't understand.
That's how DTS was able to add a discrete surround channel (DTS ES) without causing problems with older receivers. Dolby can't change their header without breaking backward compatibility, which is why their extra surround channel (DD EX) is matrix encoded.
In the past, some of the other cast members of the original Star Trek series have lambasted you pretty badly. In your books, you come across as very self-effacing and have apologized for any hurt that you might have caused the others. In fact, you seem to go to pains in your non-fiction books to patch things up. Your plea to James Doohan is particularly poignant in light of DeForest Kelley's death. Has there been any progress in reducing the animosity that the other cast members appear to hold for you?
On another subject... Since you did two Columbo's ("Fade in to Murder" and "Butterfly in Shades of Grey"), what were your impressions of working on the show? Any noticeable difference since 20 years had passed from one Columbo to the next?
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Several people have claimed that you need an external digital tuner with this box, but it in fact INCLUDES a built in ATSC tuner. Which means that you don't need anything else other than the monitor and a pair of good rabit ears to get local digital TV transmissions on the monitor. These could include high def transmissions as well (DTV != HDTV).
Most external Digital Receivers cost in the area of $400 and up, so the cost off this unit is actually pretty reasonable. A perfect match for my 24" 16:10 Sony Trinitron monitor.
-David
Also, they recommend a $1000 dollar "edit" VCR or a standalone time base corrector. You could just as easily buy a digital VHS deck with a built in time base corrector and built in digital noise correction for $800. I use this deck to stream VHS tapes to my Mac via a Firewire bridge for transfer to DVD. The built-in TBC makes a noticeable difference. In any case, maybe it's time for me to add something to my Faq-O-Matic about transferring VHS for all systems.
Now that MSFT has been let off virtually penalty free by the Bush administration, why bother to keep propping up a "competitor". Microsoft was desparate during the trial to insure that none of the competition dropped off the face of the earth, which would have added additional fuel to the penalty phase of the trial.
Now that they don't have to worry about being punished, why continue shoring up companies like Corel? I wouldn't be surprised if they also drop their support of Apple (via Office X) for the same reason. They no longer have to prove that they're "good partners".
Frankly, after the previous round of government litigation in the mid-nineties, the same thing happened. Once they were out from under close scrutiny the loosed the dogs of war.
-David
Why do people constantly talk about n-DVD-hours worth of data? Particularly since they are generally referring to DVD-Video, not DVD data.
Comparing the transfer capacity to some number of hours of DVD video material is pointless, since the bitrate is not the same from one title to the next.
For example, 6.7 gigabytes of data is actually only 6.23 gibibytes. A video stream would have to be encoded at around 3.5 mebibits/second to fit four hours of material in 6.23GiB. I wouldn't call that a quality video stream. And that's WITHOUT an audio sub-stream! You're not far away from Super VCD world at this bit rate.
Now, using a more reasonable average bitrate of, say, at least 4.5 mebibits would mean that the 6.23 gibibytes of data would only hold about 3 hours of "DVD-Video quality material".
Which brings us back to my point. Using DVD Video as a measure of data capacity is pointless, since there is no single data rate used for DVD Video.
I thought that was weird as well. It looks as though each capture is 1.4 times too wide for the height of the capture. Eg. if you resize the 1001x309 captures to 709x399 (or 1001x565), then you get the correct aspect ratio of 1.77 as the capture looks correct.
It's odd that the captures are this odd aspect reatio. Is this just a problem with the GNU Radio package, or with the way they captured in GIMP?
-David
Too bad this wasn't a call for contestant on Scrap Heap. The American installments of Junkyard Wars have been generally awful, with pparticipants who act no better than your average (American) football fan. Ugh! The British teams always seemed as if they were actually having fun, but the American teams spend most of their time posturing and sniping at one another. The Young Guns were the worst.
Umm, had he actually been on-screen I would say sure. But (and this is a big but), he didn't! Too bad, so sad. He had nothing more to do with the performance than many other actors who have provided voices for animated characters.
Frequently in Disney's classics, the voice talent actually performed the scenes on film so that the animators could use their mannerisms in the feature. Why wouldn't Robert Patrick also qualify, since he walked around in a Speedo while painted with dots ONSITE for T2?
Also, had Golum actually looked like something other than a CG character I might understand people's motivation on this issue, but it didn't look any better than any other CG character I've seen. I just chalk this up to the JRR Tolkein/Stephen King style sycophantic fan base.
However, most consumers (maybe due to the stupifying effects that you've described) refer to any form of free glutamate as "MSG", which is incorrect.
For that reason, if you see a label on food that says "No MSG", or "No Added MSG", the FDA requires that it be free of all "free glutamate" additives, including MSG and hydrolized protiens.
Aspartame appears to have a far larger impact on the general populace and much of it's documented. As for MSG problems, a lot of it is anecdotal and clinical studies have not shown that it has any detrimental effect on brain or nervous funtion.
Being that the same salt occurs naturally in seaweed and is used frequently in both Chinese and Japanese cooking, I would expect that the Japanese and Chinese should be raving idiots after thousands of years of use if it were actually toxic.
While I don't doubt there are people including yourself who are sensitive to MSG and other additives (eg. aspartame), most people don't consume enough to even come close to toxic levels. You're just as likely to die from consuming honey, the perfect anaerobic environment for botulism.
I typically avoid any artificial sweetener, simply because I don't think they taste very good. For the occasional Diet Pepsi I have (8-20 ounces/week), I haven't noticed any health problems that weren't present when I've gone for months without any intake of artificial sweeteners.
Like all else, moderation is the key. The person that puts 5 packets of sacharine in his iced tea is the same as a smoker. We all haves choices and we make them daily. The consequences are ours to pay.
In general, MSG is safe for anyone but a small percentage of people, yet most people in the US avoid it like the plague, though most good Chinese and Japanese food includes it.
Well, I guess if cursing and juvenile antics are a sign of expertise, then you hope should be fulfilled. AICN is just about the most pointless, poorly designed website I've had occasion to visit.
Even the articles they do post are generally slavish, bootlicking odes to bad film.
Frankly, I don't see "convergence" happening in the living rooms of most Americans. How convenient would it really be for most? Not very. A single system unit might be of interest to a person who lives alone, but of what use is it for a normal family. Oh, it would be useful for generating screaming matches between Billy and Janey, because he wants to watch Gunsmoke (dates me, doesn't it ) and she wants to play Nintendo. There's only one screen, so convergence in this case (which would be VERY common) yields a benefit of ZERO.
Best Buy recently had the Mitsubishi D-VHS deck on sale for around $425. It's normally $499.
JVC's rolling an upgrade to the 30K in February, and another of the D-VHS licensees (Hughes, RCA, Phillips, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and Hitachi are all licensees, among others, that have produced D-VHS decks) is expected to announce a D-Theatre enabled deck at CES. The new JVC D-Theatre deck is reported to have an MSRP of $799, which is what the current model is currently marked down to (original MSRP was almost $1500 if I remember correctly).
"Hmm.. normal compressed streams from the networks come in at about 19Mb/sec. Even taking it down to 15 hurts the image."
That's one of the problems with most cable and satellite HD delivery. They generally deliver a signal in the 15Mb/s range. Assuming you get good local UHF reception, you're often better off relying on your local broadcasts when available.
As for this comment:
"DVHS is buggy and expensive"
What are you talking about? D-VHS decks can be had for well under $500, can record 4 hours of FULL HD content, or 24 hours of standard def on a single tape. Newer decks even keep track of what's been recorded on each tape to make things easy to find. Name another currently available consumer friendly HD recorder that you can purchase for under $500 right now.
D-VHS has been around for years and I'm unaware of any problems in the underlying technology. Are you sure you're not referring to a specific issue (ie. JVC's problems with their D-Theatre 30K unit)?
The other benefit of the D-VHS platform is that, for the foreseeable future, it is the only way to purchase pre-recorded HD movies. In fact, most of the D-Theatre titles currently available actually run at the same data rate as the studio masters, 28.2Mb/s. This is a significantly higher MPEG2 datarate than the 19.36 used by HD, nearly half again as fast.
The other cool part of A/V connection using Firewire is when they add HAVi on top of it. This basiaclly allows units to identify each other over the FW connection. Then, a HAVi enabled TV can actually control a HAVi enabled device (receiver, Digital VHS deck, etc.)
"Generally speaking, you want DVI on the set because it's uncompressed and allows the set to be a little more dumb. However, you absolutely want firewire on a recorder because it is compressed, removing the requirement for a real-time HDTV MPEG-2 compressor on the recorder."
That makes sense, but the "dumb" part will only hold true until (I think) 2007, when all TVs above a certain side have to include an ATSC tuner (which means they'll also have the MPEG2 decoder onboard).
I work part time at a major electronics chain and can tell you that people would be much happier with the ease of use features that come with Firewire (and addons like HAVi). Most of the people we sell VCRs to think VCR+ is too hard use!
Simply plug a Mitsubishi D-VHS deck into a Mitsubishi TV (all via Firewire) for an example. The TV automagically adds the VCR to its menus and you actually control the VCR through the TV menus.
-David
When I read the original agreement last week (or maybe the week before), the connector agreed upon was Firewire, not DVI. Let's all hope that the article mentioned here is wrong, since DVI is definitely the lowest common denominator connectivity for HD.
Yup. It should handle up to about a half inch rise.
Fringes can get caught in the Roomba. The best thing to do is simply fold the fringes under the rug.
We've been using a Roomba for some time now and are getting ready to add two more to the house (one for each floor).
When I leave in the morning, I just set it in the middle of the kitchen, hit the L[arge] button and go to work. The Roomba then does its thing and vacuums the kitchen, living room, and dining room. It sweeps under all the furniture and with one exception (detailed below) doesn't get "trapped" or caught.
I do pick up one small rug with a fringe that the Roomba doesn't get along with, but other than that it works well.
I could understand their actions if they didn't also specifically target the PPC porting. I have no probelm with their stand against linking to APSL modules. Why is the PPC work being halted, but not the x86 if not as a petty swipe at Apple user (not Apple itself)?
-David
You're right, I stand corrected.
-David
Maybe this will help in the Firewire v. DVI realm. I would prefer to have HAVi enabled Firewire I/O on all of my components, and I'm guessing the big cable companies will want DVI since the big studios are pushing it. I'd love to be able to replace my DVI-based TimeWarner box with a HAVi enabled component.
That's how DTS was able to add a discrete surround channel (DTS ES) without causing problems with older receivers. Dolby can't change their header without breaking backward compatibility, which is why their extra surround channel (DD EX) is matrix encoded.
"Firefly, one of the best science fiction shows to make it on to network television in recent years"
Hmmm, there must be another series called Firefly that I missed. The ones I saw were even less believable than Andromeda!
In the past, some of the other cast members of the original Star Trek series have lambasted you pretty badly. In your books, you come across as very self-effacing and have apologized for any hurt that you might have caused the others. In fact, you seem to go to pains in your non-fiction books to patch things up. Your plea to James Doohan is particularly poignant in light of DeForest Kelley's death. Has there been any progress in reducing the animosity that the other cast members appear to hold for you?
On another subject... Since you did two Columbo's ("Fade in to Murder" and "Butterfly in Shades of Grey"), what were your impressions of working on the show? Any noticeable difference since 20 years had passed from one Columbo to the next?