"The Thought Gang" has the highest ranking at this point but it doesn't meet the criteria of being 10% better than CineMatch's results. It looks likes anything better than.9474 goes into the progress category while any result better than.9419 will go into the grand prize category. This article submission is bit disappointing, especially with the title misleading one to believe the contest has been wrong.
This is informative?? Some people just have a need to be rude. Of course one could visit a medical store but it's obvious the inquirer is looking for better ideas or opinions. Should we now just respond to all desktop related questions with, "Go visit Best Buy"...... They sell a lot of software, computers, and electronics, they'll know best correct?
Future-proofing. In a galaxy far away they sold HDTVs without DVI and HDMI. I own a plasma that only takes components but I can add HDMI etc. by inserting a terminal board. My receiver only takes component inputs as well. In the near future I'll be buying another HDTV as well as a receiver which will have HDMI so when I buy the PS3 this is something I will consider.
While I agree that most components that produce signals come WITH cables, that's quite different from including ALL of the cables for each type of connection supported. A DVD player might include composit as well as S-Video cables and neither is good enough.
There are many differences between a $20 Walmart Goldstar DVD player and a $199 Sony. There are certainly noticeable difference between a $199 Sony and a $2900 Denon. Are the majority of consumers going to spend the money to gain that advantage? No, but that doesn't negate the disparity between budget-level and high-end home theater gear.
Do you guys use the same logic when you're putting together your ultra gaming systems? What, you mean the $19 generic video card doesn't perform as well as a $450 GeForce 7900??? Why didn't you spend $30 less on your power supply, they were both rated at 400 watts, they're both good enough right???????????
Sony isn't investing in the consumer who would ever buy a $20 DVD player. If they sell a few units to this type of consumer then that's actually a win for Sony. Besides kids and loyal fans of Sony, they're banking on consumers like me who have a desire to test the Blu-Ray waters. To be truthful, I've had a PS2 since it's launch which hasn't gotten much use at all. I think it's great but I just never get around to playing it...... I couldn't really justify to myself or my wife buying the PS3. I do get around to tinkering with my home theater and watching movies, so I'll be getting a PS3 when they're available.
1. I have yet to see an LCD greater than 42 inches which doesn't show motion artifacts while displaying sporting events.
2. LCD black level and contrast level is not as good as plasma.
Two points that have a lot to do with overall image quality.
I would expect LCD sales to be higher....... LCD comes in much smaller screen sizes which makes it more afordable to the average buyer. I can see more people in the market to spend $1700 or less for a smaller LCD rather than doubling that for a 50 inch plasma.
I'm tired of hearing the complaint about burn-in and the life of the plasma screen. Burn-in can happen on ANY television if used imporperly and the life span of the screens have increased greatly by the plasma manufacturers, companies like Panasonic are on the 9th generation + of the technology and I believe the 40K hour quote the article gives should be more like 60k. Even if it was 40k hours, when you do the math that is ~ 14 years of watching television for 8 hours of day, 365 days a year. I'm thinking the majority of us buying either technology at this point aren't thinking these will be our main viewing sets in 14 years.
At times this article is just inaccurate. As far as the rest of it goes, all it says to me is that there are different consumers with different needs, but non of it spells the end for plasma.
I don't really care that they decided to ban Google's pay service for now. As it's been stated, this isn't different from all of the stores that don't take American Express. What I do have a problem with is EBay hiding behind the facade that they're doing so becuase the service is imature, implying that they are trying to protect users. If they really want to protect users they should stop practices such as "private feedback" where users are not allowed to see comments made about a particular seller or buyer. Sure EBay doesn't allow gross fraud, but a good portion of their businness is based on guys selling fake Lacoste shirts as authetic..... they turn there back to an abundance of little white lies that screw they're users everyday but now I am supposed to believe that they've got my best interests at heart by banning Google??????
Home theater enthusiast care about quality and that is why it is actually a GOOD option to have. High end HDTV sets are selling with the slots right now because it allows the owner to bypass the set-top box which is usually NOT as capable as the scalars, decoder, etc. within the television. Not to mention taking one more piece of equipment out of the loop makes for a stronger, better signal. All this is highly noticeable when viewing SD analog content.
If I spend thousands of dollars for my television why do I want to leave things like scaling to a set-top box from TimeWarner that costs less than 3 of the cables I purchased to connect my system????
The admissions office will give you some credit for work in the field etc., it does count for something.
Most of the students I have been in courses with were teaching assistants for undergrad courses, the others on scholarships with a few dollars from summer internships.
Since it appears you can do it without working full-time I think you have gone the best route. I am 29, working full-time, and only taking one class each semester towards an MS in CompSci. I have to say it is a challenge keeping up. It is hard competing against students fresh out of undergrad that aren't so focused on paying a mortgage and all of the other things usually done in life after college.
Bottom line is, the amount of time you've spent out of school isn't the problem, (I've found I actually study more efficiently than I did years ago when I was earning my BS in CompSci). The problem is everything you aquire IN those years before going back (Mortgage, Wife, not having to budget, etc....) It is just a different lifestyle that takes a lot of adjustment. Good luck!
The sites I use don't allow you to chose your table. Yeah, there is still a slight chance you could still end up at the same table as your buddy but it's better than nohing.
All of those "draconian" mesures you mentioned are HIGHLY needed on a college campus. I don't want to imagine +20,000 students moving in and having free reign on the network. Why should we open port x or facilitate you like an ISP would.
Universities are in the business of providing education not internet access. It'd make much more sense to attend a school that will give you the best education no matter what and seek the other amenities like liberal net access elsewhere.
Our department recently had to implement a purge policy for email because students leave all of their junk in the inbox. I've heard bitching about people losing important things? WTF, if it was important why didn't you download it, move it from the inbox to a folder, or send it to an account from a provider in the business of providing you with email..... You had 120 days to do it! People don't maintain their systems like they should, they spam, spread viruses, you name it. I've seen some ridiculous things happening because of kids sitting in a dorm room who think they know everything.
The MORE liberal the policy, the worse things will be. It'd be nice to rely on common sense etc. but it doesn't work!
As an employee at a large University this is something on my mind constantly. What I've noticed is that students have come to expect things that they shouldn't. If email goes down for 10 minutes 30,000 kids freaks out saying they couldn't get an important assignment from their professor (I am positive this translates to, I didn't get to see if my boyfriend/girlfriend wrote me this second or I had a cool forward I couldn't send out). They complain that they couldn't eat their pizza in a lab even though they weren't near the computers. My favorite is the second year computer nerd who wants to know why we didn't develop a certain system in PHP or some other great open source tool. It wasn't that long ago that I graduated myself so I understand the facilitation technology brings to campus, and the annoyance when it doesn't function as it should. I do think kids are spoiled with technology so much that they forget that Universities are in the business of providing an education not the services of an ISP etc.
Thanks for clarrifying. It is SPDIF. I saw "optional" on the order form. Whenever I see this word it instantly leads me to believe more $$.
I like expandability and tinkering myself but the amount of that provided by this deviceisn't worth $800 (for me). I can see people buying into it but I think there are much better options and devices currently available. If I didn't like any of those I'd build my own before paying $800 for this.
At first I thought it didn't have one but i read more and found out it's optional. How in the hell do you have digital audio out as an "Option", especially when the thing costs $800?
I know these units serve more purpose than Tivo but the Cable/Sat industry wins here if you can rent from them. I pay $7 a month for PVR/DVR. Let's say they upgrade the boxes every 2 years. It would take 11 years for the cost of renting to equal the cost of buying this thing. I will have traded for updated boxes 5 times by then, while I'd be stuck with 11 year old technology if I had bought this $800 toilet, I mean PVR. Optional digital out, WTF?
It's the distribution of it. Even though all of us Canon 300D owners have a copy on our camera it is still illegal distibution. I know it is all semantics... but if someone told me how to hack my firmware and I did it fine, but hacking the code and redistributing it without the owner's permission is NOT legal.
The idea of HDTV is NOT to catch up with the resolution of the PC. They are two seperate industries that can combine uses.... and while they'll continue to break into each other's territory there are plenty of people who will still only want to surf the internet on their PC, and only watch DVD's and Everybody Loves Raymond on their 27 inch television.
....not because you think the FCC is going to implement "Plan A" or "Plan B" by 2006. Fact is, that in May of 2002, approx. 74% of the televisions missed another FCC deadline requiring them to carry at least "some" tranmission in HD. (According to Home Theater Magazine and various other Home Audio/Video resources). For now, those of us who are audio/videophiles enough to want HD buy it and pay a larger sum.... those more patient who don't think its as important will wait and get a better deal for possibly a better set. For me, I am one of those have to have it now people, but thats not right for everone. Get it if it makes you salivate and you can afford it, wait if its at the bottom of your list of must haves, either way, don't worry about the FCC for now.
This article isn't horrible but I feel it is somewhat useless. It states the obvious about the HDTV market which only echos the trends in most newer technologies. Does it really provide good information of helping someone decide whether to go HD now or not??? NO. And furthermore if they really wanted to give people some useful information the last thing they should have done is interview someone at BestBuy.
The samething happened to me with a cell phone I left on a dugout bench during a softball game. When we were leaving the field I saw that my phone was surrounded by ants and coming in an out of every whole he damn phone had. I could never figure it out because I didn't see anys anywhere else in the dugout. I wonder if they were attracted to the signal the phone was emmitting????
I think alot of it depends on the type of project and tools you are considering using to work with. As an example, my company has been getting into Java for server side processing. Rather than jump straight in and spend 100K+ on something like Websphere or Weblogic, I find it more useful to start with something OpenSource but reputable like JBOSS. Once we become proficient and decide if Servlets/EJB are even the way to go.... we can then worry about if JBOSS will be enough or if we need to step up to the IBM's and BEA's out there.
It hasn't replaced it so to speak but if you walk into BlockBuster, you'll find 60 copies of LOTR on DVD and 25 on VHS. When I bought my first DVD player 5 years ago, they only had one shelf with about 25 movies on DVD total (and many of them were disney titles). Now adays they're constantly rearranging the stores, taking space away from VHS and adding more to DVD. Like you said, its only a matter of time.
If any of you heard the difference of a well sampled DVD-Audio or SACD track you would probably understand that this isn't all about copy-protection. Go to a local home theater shop and take a listen and you'll understand where the hype about multichannel music is coming from.
Yes its true that CD quality audio is great and is more than enough for some but wasn't there at time when the same was said about previous media?? These formats are not just about replacing the CD, its not a minidisc, its not DAT. Its not just a different media its a whole new process all the way back to how the original recording is mastered.
Yes, eventually the protection schemes will be broken but this isn't much of a benefit in my head... its not just about ripping music, everything will have to be layed in a way the player can decode the info and give true multichannel music which is one of the major purposes of the new formats. Furthermore, at least SACD discs can contain the normal CD layer, making it also playable in regualr CD players that exist today.
Is it for everybody, NO, will it eventually be? Only time will tell. HDTV isn't a neccesity but its a damn good thing to have if you can afford it!
I don't know why there's this abundance of bashing, just because people might not be able to steal music as easily. Hey I download MP3's just like the next guy but I can't blame the recording industry for introducing technology that makes it harder for me to do so... as long as it doesn't degrade the audio data (ie watermarking). If they can get past the format war between the two, I am all for better sound!
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Typo: "Won" not "Wrong"
"The Thought Gang" has the highest ranking at this point but it doesn't meet the criteria of being 10% better than CineMatch's results. It looks likes anything better than .9474 goes into the progress category while any result better than .9419 will go into the grand prize category. This article submission is bit disappointing, especially with the title misleading one to believe the contest has been wrong.
This is informative?? Some people just have a need to be rude. Of course one could visit a medical store but it's obvious the inquirer is looking for better ideas or opinions. Should we now just respond to all desktop related questions with, "Go visit Best Buy"...... They sell a lot of software, computers, and electronics, they'll know best correct?
Future-proofing. In a galaxy far away they sold HDTVs without DVI and HDMI. I own a plasma that only takes components but I can add HDMI etc. by inserting a terminal board. My receiver only takes component inputs as well. In the near future I'll be buying another HDTV as well as a receiver which will have HDMI so when I buy the PS3 this is something I will consider.
While I agree that most components that produce signals come WITH cables, that's quite different from including ALL of the cables for each type of connection supported. A DVD player might include composit as well as S-Video cables and neither is good enough.
There are many differences between a $20 Walmart Goldstar DVD player and a $199 Sony. There are certainly noticeable difference between a $199 Sony and a $2900 Denon. Are the majority of consumers going to spend the money to gain that advantage? No, but that doesn't negate the disparity between budget-level and high-end home theater gear. Do you guys use the same logic when you're putting together your ultra gaming systems? What, you mean the $19 generic video card doesn't perform as well as a $450 GeForce 7900??? Why didn't you spend $30 less on your power supply, they were both rated at 400 watts, they're both good enough right???????????
Sony isn't investing in the consumer who would ever buy a $20 DVD player. If they sell a few units to this type of consumer then that's actually a win for Sony. Besides kids and loyal fans of Sony, they're banking on consumers like me who have a desire to test the Blu-Ray waters. To be truthful, I've had a PS2 since it's launch which hasn't gotten much use at all. I think it's great but I just never get around to playing it...... I couldn't really justify to myself or my wife buying the PS3. I do get around to tinkering with my home theater and watching movies, so I'll be getting a PS3 when they're available.
1. I have yet to see an LCD greater than 42 inches which doesn't show motion artifacts while displaying sporting events. 2. LCD black level and contrast level is not as good as plasma. Two points that have a lot to do with overall image quality. I would expect LCD sales to be higher....... LCD comes in much smaller screen sizes which makes it more afordable to the average buyer. I can see more people in the market to spend $1700 or less for a smaller LCD rather than doubling that for a 50 inch plasma. I'm tired of hearing the complaint about burn-in and the life of the plasma screen. Burn-in can happen on ANY television if used imporperly and the life span of the screens have increased greatly by the plasma manufacturers, companies like Panasonic are on the 9th generation + of the technology and I believe the 40K hour quote the article gives should be more like 60k. Even if it was 40k hours, when you do the math that is ~ 14 years of watching television for 8 hours of day, 365 days a year. I'm thinking the majority of us buying either technology at this point aren't thinking these will be our main viewing sets in 14 years. At times this article is just inaccurate. As far as the rest of it goes, all it says to me is that there are different consumers with different needs, but non of it spells the end for plasma.
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:-)
'A month before delivery, you don't have SPRs,' Azmi said. 'You're making things pretty. . . . You're changing colors.'"
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If it's a month before delivery and you don't have ANY bugs to fix then you didn't implement enough features or you over scheduled your milestones
I don't really care that they decided to ban Google's pay service for now. As it's been stated, this isn't different from all of the stores that don't take American Express. What I do have a problem with is EBay hiding behind the facade that they're doing so becuase the service is imature, implying that they are trying to protect users. If they really want to protect users they should stop practices such as "private feedback" where users are not allowed to see comments made about a particular seller or buyer. Sure EBay doesn't allow gross fraud, but a good portion of their businness is based on guys selling fake Lacoste shirts as authetic..... they turn there back to an abundance of little white lies that screw they're users everyday but now I am supposed to believe that they've got my best interests at heart by banning Google??????
Home theater enthusiast care about quality and that is why it is actually a GOOD option to have. High end HDTV sets are selling with the slots right now because it allows the owner to bypass the set-top box which is usually NOT as capable as the scalars, decoder, etc. within the television. Not to mention taking one more piece of equipment out of the loop makes for a stronger, better signal. All this is highly noticeable when viewing SD analog content. If I spend thousands of dollars for my television why do I want to leave things like scaling to a set-top box from TimeWarner that costs less than 3 of the cables I purchased to connect my system????
The admissions office will give you some credit for work in the field etc., it does count for something. Most of the students I have been in courses with were teaching assistants for undergrad courses, the others on scholarships with a few dollars from summer internships. Since it appears you can do it without working full-time I think you have gone the best route. I am 29, working full-time, and only taking one class each semester towards an MS in CompSci. I have to say it is a challenge keeping up. It is hard competing against students fresh out of undergrad that aren't so focused on paying a mortgage and all of the other things usually done in life after college. Bottom line is, the amount of time you've spent out of school isn't the problem, (I've found I actually study more efficiently than I did years ago when I was earning my BS in CompSci). The problem is everything you aquire IN those years before going back (Mortgage, Wife, not having to budget, etc....) It is just a different lifestyle that takes a lot of adjustment. Good luck!
Any other year I'd say this is true but looks like Bush will win, The RedSox fouled up everything this year.
The sites I use don't allow you to chose your table. Yeah, there is still a slight chance you could still end up at the same table as your buddy but it's better than nohing.
All of those "draconian" mesures you mentioned are HIGHLY needed on a college campus. I don't want to imagine +20,000 students moving in and having free reign on the network. Why should we open port x or facilitate you like an ISP would. Universities are in the business of providing education not internet access. It'd make much more sense to attend a school that will give you the best education no matter what and seek the other amenities like liberal net access elsewhere.
Our department recently had to implement a purge policy for email because students leave all of their junk in the inbox. I've heard bitching about people losing important things? WTF, if it was important why didn't you download it, move it from the inbox to a folder, or send it to an account from a provider in the business of providing you with email..... You had 120 days to do it! People don't maintain their systems like they should, they spam, spread viruses, you name it. I've seen some ridiculous things happening because of kids sitting in a dorm room who think they know everything.
The MORE liberal the policy, the worse things will be. It'd be nice to rely on common sense etc. but it doesn't work!
As an employee at a large University this is something on my mind constantly. What I've noticed is that students have come to expect things that they shouldn't. If email goes down for 10 minutes 30,000 kids freaks out saying they couldn't get an important assignment from their professor (I am positive this translates to, I didn't get to see if my boyfriend/girlfriend wrote me this second or I had a cool forward I couldn't send out). They complain that they couldn't eat their pizza in a lab even though they weren't near the computers. My favorite is the second year computer nerd who wants to know why we didn't develop a certain system in PHP or some other great open source tool. It wasn't that long ago that I graduated myself so I understand the facilitation technology brings to campus, and the annoyance when it doesn't function as it should. I do think kids are spoiled with technology so much that they forget that Universities are in the business of providing an education not the services of an ISP etc.
Thanks for clarrifying. It is SPDIF. I saw "optional" on the order form. Whenever I see this word it instantly leads me to believe more $$. I like expandability and tinkering myself but the amount of that provided by this deviceisn't worth $800 (for me). I can see people buying into it but I think there are much better options and devices currently available. If I didn't like any of those I'd build my own before paying $800 for this.
At first I thought it didn't have one but i read more and found out it's optional. How in the hell do you have digital audio out as an "Option", especially when the thing costs $800? I know these units serve more purpose than Tivo but the Cable/Sat industry wins here if you can rent from them. I pay $7 a month for PVR/DVR. Let's say they upgrade the boxes every 2 years. It would take 11 years for the cost of renting to equal the cost of buying this thing. I will have traded for updated boxes 5 times by then, while I'd be stuck with 11 year old technology if I had bought this $800 toilet, I mean PVR. Optional digital out, WTF?
It's the distribution of it. Even though all of us Canon 300D owners have a copy on our camera it is still illegal distibution. I know it is all semantics... but if someone told me how to hack my firmware and I did it fine, but hacking the code and redistributing it without the owner's permission is NOT legal.
The idea of HDTV is NOT to catch up with the resolution of the PC. They are two seperate industries that can combine uses.... and while they'll continue to break into each other's territory there are plenty of people who will still only want to surf the internet on their PC, and only watch DVD's and Everybody Loves Raymond on their 27 inch television.
....not because you think the FCC is going to implement "Plan A" or "Plan B" by 2006. Fact is, that in May of 2002, approx. 74% of the televisions missed another FCC deadline requiring them to carry at least "some" tranmission in HD. (According to Home Theater Magazine and various other Home Audio/Video resources). For now, those of us who are audio/videophiles enough to want HD buy it and pay a larger sum.... those more patient who don't think its as important will wait and get a better deal for possibly a better set. For me, I am one of those have to have it now people, but thats not right for everone. Get it if it makes you salivate and you can afford it, wait if its at the bottom of your list of must haves, either way, don't worry about the FCC for now.
This article isn't horrible but I feel it is somewhat useless. It states the obvious about the HDTV market which only echos the trends in most newer technologies. Does it really provide good information of helping someone decide whether to go HD now or not??? NO. And furthermore if they really wanted to give people some useful information the last thing they should have done is interview someone at BestBuy.
The samething happened to me with a cell phone I left on a dugout bench during a softball game. When we were leaving the field I saw that my phone was surrounded by ants and coming in an out of every whole he damn phone had. I could never figure it out because I didn't see anys anywhere else in the dugout. I wonder if they were attracted to the signal the phone was emmitting????
I think alot of it depends on the type of project and tools you are considering using to work with. As an example, my company has been getting into Java for server side processing. Rather than jump straight in and spend 100K+ on something like Websphere or Weblogic, I find it more useful to start with something OpenSource but reputable like JBOSS. Once we become proficient and decide if Servlets/EJB are even the way to go.... we can then worry about if JBOSS will be enough or if we need to step up to the IBM's and BEA's out there.
It hasn't replaced it so to speak but if you walk into BlockBuster, you'll find 60 copies of LOTR on DVD and 25 on VHS. When I bought my first DVD player 5 years ago, they only had one shelf with about 25 movies on DVD total (and many of them were disney titles). Now adays they're constantly rearranging the stores, taking space away from VHS and adding more to DVD. Like you said, its only a matter of time.
If any of you heard the difference of a well sampled DVD-Audio or SACD track you would probably understand that this isn't all about copy-protection. Go to a local home theater shop and take a listen and you'll understand where the hype about multichannel music is coming from.
Yes its true that CD quality audio is great and is more than enough for some but wasn't there at time when the same was said about previous media?? These formats are not just about replacing the CD, its not a minidisc, its not DAT. Its not just a different media its a whole new process all the way back to how the original recording is mastered.
Yes, eventually the protection schemes will be broken but this isn't much of a benefit in my head... its not just about ripping music, everything will have to be layed in a way the player can decode the info and give true multichannel music which is one of the major purposes of the new formats. Furthermore, at least SACD discs can contain the normal CD layer, making it also playable in regualr CD players that exist today.
Is it for everybody, NO, will it eventually be? Only time will tell. HDTV isn't a neccesity but its a damn good thing to have if you can afford it!
I don't know why there's this abundance of bashing, just because people might not be able to steal music as easily. Hey I download MP3's just like the next guy but I can't blame the recording industry for introducing technology that makes it harder for me to do so... as long as it doesn't degrade the audio data (ie watermarking). If they can get past the format war between the two, I am all for better sound!