Cartoon Network would have been better off to contract for something set in the New Jedi Order period, where everything has fallen apart, the New Republic has basically collapsed, the Star Wars galaxy is being invaded by a seemingly unstoppable new alien race, major characters in the Star Wars universe are killed, etc., etc.
Of course, that would be adult anime, not childrens' cartoons which are better suited to the new pre-episode IV world of pablum.
Hmmm, when Circuit City introduced DivX, it's major selling point for consumers was that you never had to return the disc you rented. If you wanted to watch it later, you just paid another fee without ever having to go back to the store. If you knew you'd never watch it again, you just threw it away. No hassle, low drag.
If something as convenient as that didn't fly, I don't see how an 8 hour disc will be any more attractive.
"Everyone was in the way that: Dolby is now the audio standard for dvds, so there has to be a DD track on there."
This is incorrect. Have you even read the DVD Forum specs?
DVD's must have EITHER an uncompressed PCM track OR a Dolby Digital track in order to be a licensed DVD product. No DVD is required to have a DD track EXCEPT in the absence of a PCM track.
Dolby was accused of similar tactics during the time the DVD spec was being defined and ratified. That's allegedly why DTS (a better codec than DD) was locked out of being a primary alternate to PCM tracks on DVDs.
I've seen people in the theatrical sound industry rakishly refer to Dolby as the "Microsoft of film audio".
The original Scrapheap Challenge teams (British) seemed genuinely likeable and didn't resort to theatrics or pointless posturing, concentrating more on what they were doing and the end result.
Once the American episodes began to be produced, the teams really seemed terribly obnoxious and offputting. The "Young Guns" teams is of particular note in this regard. In fact, the team behaviors began to become so bad that my freinds and I simply stopped watching.
Was there any pressure from the American side to introduce more conflict into the show, or was the change simply the nature of the American teams?
Hmmm, this site is an obvious proponent of the DVD+ formats, since they make a point of calling the DVD- formats "DVD minus", rather than the correct "DVD dash".
Also, who cares about the speed of CD-R/RW burns on a DVD burner? If my major interest were burning CD-R/RW, I wouldn't be buying a DVD burner.
Frankly, everyone I know who has a DVD burner also has a CD burner.
I used to work for CompuServe and many of us began asking years ago, "what is the value of CompuServe in light of the Internet? Frankly, if virtually the same content is available via the web/ftp/usenet/gopher who's going to use CompuServe?"
CompuServe (and AOL) both had an opportunity to become a major web presence as data catalogers and frontends. The problem with the net today is the same problem it has always had, the complete anarchy of resources. Had either CompuServe or AOL dedicated themselves to becoming the collective front-end for web access (offering web-based services like the Executive News Service, etc.) I think their long-term outlook would be much better than it is.
Unfortunately, both desparately wanted to preserve their dial traffic revenue to the exclusion of all else.
Note that the beta release is for Darwin, which means you need an X server running on OS X to use it. This really isn't worth much to OS X users until the Aqua part comes along.
I thought the same thing. The SPARC architecture is a published open standard and the royalty free license can be purchased by anyone for (US)$99. The tech specs are available for free from their website, and the SPARC instruction set is published as IEEE Standard 1754-1994.
If someone wanted to manufacture their own CPU, this makes it pretty easy. SPARC V9 is the 64-bit version.
"Let me tell you, Los Angeles probably looked pretty goddamn different from Paris or London or New York in 1871, both technologically and culturally."
You know, you must be right. I've seen so many paintings and photographs of trebuchets, pikemen, and armored knights in the American west. I mean, using your logic they should have been four hundred years behind New York.
"The way people work on this show is the way people work. Just like Whedon's other creations."
Creations? Plural? The only thing I can think of that he's done is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". And that's not much in the "great shakes" world for me. Oh, I forgot, he also worked on the lamentable "Alien 4". So he's got three strikes now for me.
I can't even list everything wrong with this show
on
Firefly Premieres Tonight
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This has to have been one of the worst sci-fi (not even science fiction) shows I've ever seen.
Inconsistent, pointless, and juvenile.
Random observations:
Let's see, in four hundred years they haven't invented anything better than 20th century shotguns and four wheelers (powered by internal combustion engines no less).
Stetsons and dusters?
Train robberies?
Frankly, as far as "retro" science fiction, "Earth 2" did a better job of presenting a "frontier" ambience.
Shouldn't this have been titled "the ultimate optical recording drive", since it burns DVDs (DVD-R and DVD-RW), non-DVD high density optical discs (DVD+R and DVD+RW), as well as "low density" CD-R and CD-RW.
I'm tired of people whining and moaning about how there is no standard for writeable DVDs when it is in fact documented on the DVD Format and Logo Licensing site (http://www.dvdfllc.co.jp) - the standard formats are DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM. That's it. Nothing else. There is no other DVD writeable format available. Anything else (DVD+R, DVD+RW) is simply similar to DVDs, though not properly DVDs.
And you installed this from a retail copy of Jaguar? Not some type of restore disc (which includes the OS 9 system folder)?
I can say with a high level of confidence that no one who installs Jaguar on a formatted system using the retail install will be able to run Classic. The OS 9 system folder simply doesn;t exist and if yougo to the Classic control panel it will tell you that it was unable to find a valid system folder.
Correct. The problem being that Apple is going to turn off the ability to boot OS 9. The question becomes, are they disabling OS 9 booting altogether (which means your installation CD will NOT work), or are they simply removing the option to select which system folder boots. If the latter, then we're OK. If the former, then we're out of luck.
The strange thing is that in the Apple releases, they keep talking about the bundled Classic environment. I hardly call it bundled if you have to install the underlying OS 9 to make it work.
Unlike WinOS/2 in the OS/2 world, OS X does not include an installation of the bits of OS 9 necessary for Classic mode.
You MUST install OS 9 before installing OS X, otherwise you have no Classic mode.
If they disable booting OS 9 (which is exactly how one starts an OS 9 install), I'm not sure how one would go about installing OS 9 before installing OS X.
I suppose it's possible that Apple could follow IBM's lead and include the necessary parts of OS 9 as part of the OS X install. That would most likely be the simplest solution.
" the spec for SETTOP players
must(!) play AC-3 to be a DVD player.. No other audio capability is required."
Actually, maybe you're simply confused (easy enough when you use the DVD Demystified site as your source) by the requirements.
In the absence of an LPCM track and the presence of a DD track, they player must be able to downconvert the DD track to a two-channel mix on the analog outputs. Onboard multichannel decoding is not required of players.
And any way you cut it, the player is still required to support the playback of both LPCM and the downconversion of DD at the minimum.
"the spec for SETTOP players
must(!) play AC-3 to be a DVD player.. No other audio capability is required."
WRONG!!!!
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about DVDs.
According to the spec, the disc must include (audio-wise) EITHER an LPCM track or a DD track. DD tracks are NOT required for DVDs. You can just as easily create a DVD with LPCM tracks (preferable for 2-channel music) and NO Dolby Digital track at all.
Did you bother to check this before you posted?
Actually, the spec for DVD-Audio does provide for standard video DVD, albeit in a space limited manner.
And the DVD-Audio spec is not "given" at the DVD Demystified site, it is simply regurgitated in a simpler (sometimes incorrect) form. The specs are available for $5000 from the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation.
"Most players in the US add MPEG audio to the features"
What are you talking about?!?! MPEG2 is an optional encoding method in the US but I'm unaware of any domestic (US) consumer receivers that include MPEGII decoders that would be required to play the tracks. What would the point be of releasing a DVD with an MPEG2 audio track when there's very little chance (I would say virtually no chance) that anyone could play it? Please name a commercially available US release of a DVD-Video with MPEG2 audio.
"still fewer machines handle PCM audio on your movie."
Now you're just being silly. Keep in mind that any disc that doesn't have a DD track must have an LPCM track and all DVD players must play it. For the first two or three years, nearly all DVDs were released only with LPCM tracks. I have many of them and they've played fine on every settop that both myself and my friends own, from the cheapest $50 Apex machine to the most expensive Macintosh transport.
What does AC-3 have to do with DVD-Audio? DVD-Audio uses Meridian Lossless Packing, not Dolby Digital. The DVD-Audio disc may also have an AC-3 or (preferably) DTS track for backward compatibility, but the main mode is MLP.
Removing the ASCII interface to the forums when they moved to NISA was one of the biggest marketing failures ever at CIS. It would have been very simple to continue the ASCII interface even with the contemptible NT-based NISA platform, but the decision was made by marketing that we didn't need the 100K+ users that accessed regularly via ASCII, even though this represented about 10% of our users at the time. Same decision was make re: OS/2 users. A version of CIM for OS/2 was ready for beta testing, but pressure from various quarters caused the marketing group to cancel the project and announce that there was still "months of work to be done on the code". Hmmm, I was on the development team and it was ready to role. In fact, it was in far better shape than the Windows version which had already been out for a couple of years.
TapCIS was pretty good, though I generally used Steve Sneed's OzCIS. Boy, those were the days.
Ummm, business problems can be directly attributed to the management (particularly marketing) of CompuServe, not to the developers.
Many great developers were wasted on projects like WOW!, NISA, WinPad, etc. Even worse, management could not be convinced that the Internet was a danger, nor did they think Microsoft would ever be interested in the online business. They also didn't want to give everyone in the family a pseudo-account so that we could pad our membership numbers just like everyone else. Not a lot of great thinking in those parts of the company.
P.S. Don't forget GIF came out of CompuServe as well and CIS employees made significant contributions to PNG.
Frankly, without some type of testing you're relying on perception. Any information you get from the candidate is biased, as is any information from previous/current employers (maybe they're saying the candidate is great just so that they can get rid of him/her without the hassle of firing).
CompuServe used to administer a test for anyone applying for a programming position. It was called the CompuServe Programmers Aptitude Battery and you had to get at least 80% to be hired for most programming positions. The test was similar to an ACT and covered logic, math, etc.
It actually worked pretty well, though of course it didn't handle personality issues. That's what the actual interviews should be for.
That's correct, but as presented in "The Savage Curtain", this Kahless was most likely representative of the less-than-honorable Klingons of the original series (best illustrated by John Colicos in Star Trek, not John Colicos in TNG/DS9), not the super honorable Klingons of TNG and its ilk.
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Cartoon Network would have been better off to contract for something set in the New Jedi Order period, where everything has fallen apart, the New Republic has basically collapsed, the Star Wars galaxy is being invaded by a seemingly unstoppable new alien race, major characters in the Star Wars universe are killed, etc., etc.
Of course, that would be adult anime, not childrens' cartoons which are better suited to the new pre-episode IV world of pablum.
Well, you're right and wrong.
The DVD Forum just selected the NEC/Toshiba blue laser system, so we should be seeing 15GiB DVD in two-three years.
Hmmm, when Circuit City introduced DivX, it's major selling point for consumers was that you never had to return the disc you rented. If you wanted to watch it later, you just paid another fee without ever having to go back to the store. If you knew you'd never watch it again, you just threw it away. No hassle, low drag.
If something as convenient as that didn't fly, I don't see how an 8 hour disc will be any more attractive.
This is incorrect. Have you even read the DVD Forum specs?
DVD's must have EITHER an uncompressed PCM track OR a Dolby Digital track in order to be a licensed DVD product. No DVD is required to have a DD track EXCEPT in the absence of a PCM track.
I've seen people in the theatrical sound industry rakishly refer to Dolby as the "Microsoft of film audio".
10.2 runs perfectly fine on this machine, though it's ATI Rage128 Pro doesn't take advantage of the new OpenGL rendering engine.
I compile applications (both standard *nix ports and Aqua apps I've written myself), encode MP3's and MP4's, all without a performance problem.
Note that the current iMacs have significantly more "umph" than my G4, so they work even better.
The original Scrapheap Challenge teams (British) seemed genuinely likeable and didn't resort to theatrics or pointless posturing, concentrating more on what they were doing and the end result.
Once the American episodes began to be produced, the teams really seemed terribly obnoxious and offputting. The "Young Guns" teams is of particular note in this regard. In fact, the team behaviors began to become so bad that my freinds and I simply stopped watching.
Was there any pressure from the American side to introduce more conflict into the show, or was the change simply the nature of the American teams?
Hmmm, this site is an obvious proponent of the DVD+ formats, since they make a point of calling the DVD- formats "DVD minus", rather than the correct "DVD dash".
Also, who cares about the speed of CD-R/RW burns on a DVD burner? If my major interest were burning CD-R/RW, I wouldn't be buying a DVD burner.
Frankly, everyone I know who has a DVD burner also has a CD burner.
I used to work for CompuServe and many of us began asking years ago, "what is the value of CompuServe in light of the Internet? Frankly, if virtually the same content is available via the web/ftp/usenet/gopher who's going to use CompuServe?"
CompuServe (and AOL) both had an opportunity to become a major web presence as data catalogers and frontends. The problem with the net today is the same problem it has always had, the complete anarchy of resources. Had either CompuServe or AOL dedicated themselves to becoming the collective front-end for web access (offering web-based services like the Executive News Service, etc.) I think their long-term outlook would be much better than it is.
Unfortunately, both desparately wanted to preserve their dial traffic revenue to the exclusion of all else.
Note that the beta release is for Darwin, which means you need an X server running on OS X to use it. This really isn't worth much to OS X users until the Aqua part comes along.
If someone wanted to manufacture their own CPU, this makes it pretty easy. SPARC V9 is the 64-bit version.
"Let me tell you, Los Angeles probably looked pretty goddamn different from Paris or London or New York in 1871, both technologically and culturally."
You know, you must be right. I've seen so many paintings and photographs of trebuchets, pikemen, and armored knights in the American west. I mean, using your logic they should have been four hundred years behind New York.
"The way people work on this show is the way people work. Just like Whedon's other creations."
Creations? Plural? The only thing I can think of that he's done is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". And that's not much in the "great shakes" world for me. Oh, I forgot, he also worked on the lamentable "Alien 4". So he's got three strikes now for me.
This has to have been one of the worst sci-fi (not even science fiction) shows I've ever seen.
Inconsistent, pointless, and juvenile.
Random observations:
Let's see, in four hundred years they haven't invented anything better than 20th century shotguns and four wheelers (powered by internal combustion engines no less).
Stetsons and dusters?
Train robberies?
Frankly, as far as "retro" science fiction, "Earth 2" did a better job of presenting a "frontier" ambience.
Final score... Ugh!
Shouldn't this have been titled "the ultimate optical recording drive", since it burns DVDs (DVD-R and DVD-RW), non-DVD high density optical discs (DVD+R and DVD+RW), as well as "low density" CD-R and CD-RW.
I'm tired of people whining and moaning about how there is no standard for writeable DVDs when it is in fact documented on the DVD Format and Logo Licensing site (http://www.dvdfllc.co.jp) - the standard formats are DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM. That's it. Nothing else. There is no other DVD writeable format available. Anything else (DVD+R, DVD+RW) is simply similar to DVDs, though not properly DVDs.
And you installed this from a retail copy of Jaguar? Not some type of restore disc (which includes the OS 9 system folder)?
I can say with a high level of confidence that no one who installs Jaguar on a formatted system using the retail install will be able to run Classic. The OS 9 system folder simply doesn;t exist and if yougo to the Classic control panel it will tell you that it was unable to find a valid system folder.
Correct. The problem being that Apple is going to turn off the ability to boot OS 9. The question becomes, are they disabling OS 9 booting altogether (which means your installation CD will NOT work), or are they simply removing the option to select which system folder boots. If the latter, then we're OK. If the former, then we're out of luck.
The strange thing is that in the Apple releases, they keep talking about the bundled Classic environment. I hardly call it bundled if you have to install the underlying OS 9 to make it work.
Unlike WinOS/2 in the OS/2 world, OS X does not include an installation of the bits of OS 9 necessary for Classic mode.
You MUST install OS 9 before installing OS X, otherwise you have no Classic mode.
If they disable booting OS 9 (which is exactly how one starts an OS 9 install), I'm not sure how one would go about installing OS 9 before installing OS X.
I suppose it's possible that Apple could follow IBM's lead and include the necessary parts of OS 9 as part of the OS X install. That would most likely be the simplest solution.
Begin Title Roll
End Title Roll
|begin snip|
|advance 2 hours|
|end snip|
Begin End Credits
Actually, maybe you're simply confused (easy enough when you use the DVD Demystified site as your source) by the requirements.
In the absence of an LPCM track and the presence of a DD track, they player must be able to downconvert the DD track to a two-channel mix on the analog outputs. Onboard multichannel decoding is not required of players.
And any way you cut it, the player is still required to support the playback of both LPCM and the downconversion of DD at the minimum.
WRONG!!!!
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about DVDs.
According to the spec, the disc must include (audio-wise) EITHER an LPCM track or a DD track. DD tracks are NOT required for DVDs. You can just as easily create a DVD with LPCM tracks (preferable for 2-channel music) and NO Dolby Digital track at all.
Did you bother to check this before you posted?
Actually, the spec for DVD-Audio does provide for standard video DVD, albeit in a space limited manner.
And the DVD-Audio spec is not "given" at the DVD Demystified site, it is simply regurgitated in a simpler (sometimes incorrect) form. The specs are available for $5000 from the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation.
"Most players in the US add MPEG audio to the features"
What are you talking about?!?! MPEG2 is an optional encoding method in the US but I'm unaware of any domestic (US) consumer receivers that include MPEGII decoders that would be required to play the tracks. What would the point be of releasing a DVD with an MPEG2 audio track when there's very little chance (I would say virtually no chance) that anyone could play it? Please name a commercially available US release of a DVD-Video with MPEG2 audio.
"still fewer machines handle PCM audio on your movie."
Now you're just being silly. Keep in mind that any disc that doesn't have a DD track must have an LPCM track and all DVD players must play it. For the first two or three years, nearly all DVDs were released only with LPCM tracks. I have many of them and they've played fine on every settop that both myself and my friends own, from the cheapest $50 Apex machine to the most expensive Macintosh transport.
What does AC-3 have to do with DVD-Audio? DVD-Audio uses Meridian Lossless Packing, not Dolby Digital. The DVD-Audio disc may also have an AC-3 or (preferably) DTS track for backward compatibility, but the main mode is MLP.
TapCIS was pretty good, though I generally used Steve Sneed's OzCIS. Boy, those were the days.
Many great developers were wasted on projects like WOW!, NISA, WinPad, etc. Even worse, management could not be convinced that the Internet was a danger, nor did they think Microsoft would ever be interested in the online business. They also didn't want to give everyone in the family a pseudo-account so that we could pad our membership numbers just like everyone else. Not a lot of great thinking in those parts of the company.
P.S. Don't forget GIF came out of CompuServe as well and CIS employees made significant contributions to PNG.
CompuServe used to administer a test for anyone applying for a programming position. It was called the CompuServe Programmers Aptitude Battery and you had to get at least 80% to be hired for most programming positions. The test was similar to an ACT and covered logic, math, etc.
It actually worked pretty well, though of course it didn't handle personality issues. That's what the actual interviews should be for.
That's correct, but as presented in "The Savage Curtain", this Kahless was most likely representative of the less-than-honorable Klingons of the original series (best illustrated by John Colicos in Star Trek, not John Colicos in TNG/DS9), not the super honorable Klingons of TNG and its ilk.