The interpolation software used to generate the extra frames is bad - it introduces bad digital artifacting and makes the whole picture a mess. Speak to any TV professional and they'll tell you that 100hz technology is an abomination designed only to get people to buy new TV's when they already had a perfectly decent one.
The easiest way to stop someone taping a movie with their camcorder is to use an infra-red lightsource. Camcorders pick up IR - just try pointing your TV zapper at the lens and recording it!
Perhaps you could place LEDs in the projection screen in the pattern - "Don't Copy Movies" or some other message....
You've never written renderman shaders, have you?? I do so on a daily business, and if I wasn't reading Slashdot while waiting for a render to come back, that's exactly what I am doing.
Procedural shaders are equally for surface detail (displacement) as they are for surface appearance. I certainly write shaders for screw threads, fuzzy fur, corrugations etc.
Pure proceduralism is as rarely used as pure texture mapping. Almost everyone uses a good combination of the two, using maps to modulate the proceduralism. Procedural shaders generate any level of detail you need, but are hard to control - textures are the reverse, so using both together works great.
Not moving over till January 2003 - wow - we moved our entire company over fully soon after 10.1 came out, and quite easily too. We still have to use classic apps, but restarting classic is quicker than re-booting a machine when it crashes.
There have been some companies that have been very poor at making OS X versions of their software and they needed the swift kick in the backside that Apple have just given them.
I know all that - but there are still the odd file, perhaps corrupt, that I can't prod OS X into deleting. No matter how I set permissions on that file it won't go away.
I live in OS X now - or linux. I only use a couple of "Classic" apps.
The only big problem I can see if that sometimes to fix a problem with OS X, it's easier to do it in classic - especially if you have files that never want to delete!
It only took one person in your class to type out a sheet with numbers instead of colours, and then you could photocopy that to your hearts content.
And as for lenslock - I had a pretty good score rate for guessing that just by squinting!
Best of all was the dongle on a game for the Dragon 32. It plugged into the joystick port while loading, but all you had to do was plug in a joystick and waggle it in the right pattern while the game loaded and it would work.
This current trend for copy protection reminds me of the home computer boom of the 80s, when everyone jumped on the copy protection bandwagon producing new and improved ways to "stop the pirates". Eventually all the schemes were cracked, and the companies stopped protecting the software because it cost too much and it was too much hassle. Rember "lenslock" anyone?
Then it was 3.5" discs, but if you copied your Amiga game on a PC, or a Mac, or an Acorn (remember them?) it might work. So they gave up...
And then it was dongles. I see a lot less of them these days.
History shows that these anti-copy schemes get cracked and then they get forgotten. When will they ever learn....
So if music has a. say, five year copyright, but you release a book of that tune in musical notation that has a 30 year copyright, and someone else releases a new recording after the 5 years but before the 30 years, is that a breech of copyright. Information is information, no matter what format it exists in, which is why differing lengths of copyright for different media is plain silly.
You can't prove non-existance of prior art, so you're effectively saying no to all patents. Good!
As for varying amounts of copyright extension, that's going to cause all manner of problems. All copyrights should last for 25 years from creation - period. No extensions. Never. No.
>>I have a very good record player that doesn't rumble, wow or flutter
>That's also impossible. All turntables suffer from some rumble, wow and flutter, and no vinyl disc is geometrically perfect.
I should have said "doesn't audibly rumble, wow or flutter". I don't hear these while listening to music (or even test discs), so they don't impinge on my musical enjoyment.
The digital reconstruction filters on CD's have the problem where you get both pre and post ringing, which is not something that the RIAA curve filters in record replay can achieve. Some people have experimented commercially with CD players that either don't have a filter, or have filters that don't exhibit pre-ringing, or have it reduced to a much greater degree than others.
If there is any benefit to DVD-A and SACD, it's that the mastering equipment has to be a much higher standard than CD, and that there's a lot more headroom in the format to cope with the problems of mixing, recording and mastering. They leave more room for errors, whereas the CD format didn't leave much room at all. Because of the higher sampling frequency, you can shove the filters up to a frequency where you can't hear them, and any pre-ringing is reduced in time. These can only be good things.
Not all "audiophiles" listen to vinyl because it is "technically superior".
Music used to be mastered, with the engineer knowing that it was going to be played on a record player. The engineer would "compensate" for the problems of vinyl in his mix, and the LP would be the definitive statement of what they wanted the music to sound like. Playing it back on any other media may be more "accurate", but it's not what was intended.
I play vinyl because I refuse to re-buy everything on CD. I have a very good record player that doesn't rumble, wow or flutter and a valve (tube) and horn system that makes music fun to listen to. Who cares about accuracy when you're enjoying what you're listening to. Hell - it can even make bad CD's sound a little better than an "accurate" system.
Does SACD make music more fun, more enjoyable? No. It sounds pretty much the same as CD - I don't think anyone could tell them apart in a blind test. And a 1 bit system is a complete waste of disc space. DVD-A stores a lot more audio information than SACD, but even that is redundant because you can't hear it. Both formats move any filters well away from the audio range, which are the real cause of "digitalitis" - bad digital sound.
Music and Audio is about enjoying music, not matter what the genre or vintage. Any media that enhances enjoyment is good - and copy protection and watermarking spoil that enjoyment wether in an audio sense or a philosophical one.
Rendering tests using 3delight showed a 7 times speed improvement over a Linux Total Impact Briq. The Xserve was dual 1ghz processors over a Briq which is single 500mhz. It's very stable - I really tried to crash it with renders way too big for it (the test model only had 512 ram) and the remote management software is excellent.
Video production companies, broadcasters etc use BetaCam, BetaCamSP, DigitalBetaCam, BetaCamSX etc. They are only related to BetaMax in 3 ways: 1) They're made by Sony
2) They can use the same size cassette shell
3) They have Beta in their name
They are all professional formats and are not the same as BetaMax, BetaMax II and EDBeta of old....
Maxivision 48 is just going to compound the problem. The staff in cinemas can't even cope with the current film standard. I see a lot of film previews - the prints are bad even then, with splices and dirt. Even when the print is clean it's often out of focus. The current cost of digital is high, and the resolution os lower than HDTV, but all this will change. The cost will drop dramatically, and the resolution will first improve to full HD, and then beyond as HD also improves. The cost of making a movie on HD is dramatically less than film. If they're doing SFX with CGI, then HD makes this cheaper. Even when CGI is added to a film movie, the resolution used is no greater than HD.
Is "fair use" an inalienable right? No. Is "copyright" an inalienable right? No. If fair use is removed from copyright, then copyright will no longer work in the way it was intended - to promote science, research etc. The best solution is to severely limit what can be copyrighted, remove patents entirely, and limit the amount of time that something can be copyrighted for to, say 25 years.
This book seems to miss out almost completely on the global perspective. Computer games didn't just happen in the USA. Many very important titles came out of Europe in the 80's, especially the UK - none of which seem to be mentioned. What about such classics as Manic Miner, Uridium, Jet Pac, Monty Mole, Paradroid etc.
It wasn/'t allright - not even good. It's not even good television, never mind good Dr Who.
The problem with making new DW, is that the majority of people who want to do it are "sad fans" who want to put their own ideas and imprint into a show that they love from childhood. They want to extend the continuity into their own ideas to put themselves inside the myth. There are one or two people who are fans, but are TV professionals in their own right who would do it properly, hire proper writers - not fan writers and make it good, but they are in the minority.
I still think it's best that it is left dead as a monument to the BBC's stupidity.
I've done some work with Panavision on Hi Def and in the process got to see some very nice uncompressed HD footage shot at Panavision's studios. The quality of raw HD is very nice, an practically no different in resolution than all the CGI rendered for adding effects into traditionally shot movies.
Unfortunately, there's nobody showing AotC in town in Digital, but I did see the film version, and it was a bit iffy. I saw some evidence of aliassing, but it was slight, and some shots were grainy. Other shots in similar lighting situations were not, so I'm not quite sure what was causing that.
I also went to a SMPTE conference where they showed HD v Film under the same shooting and viewing conditions, and HD held it's own in that test. HD has much better low light results than film, but equally, looses a little to film in the bright areas.
The main problem with using HD for movies is that projectors cannot do 1920 x 1080, which is the resolution of HD. Watching HD on an HD monitor, especially the new Sony 24p ones is quite something.
HD is certainly the future for movies, but first the projectors need to get up to the right standard, and then HD needs about twice as many pixels, IMHO.
Copyrights and patents
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 1
Patents no longer seem to be necessary at all, so they'd all go straight to the bin.
Copyrights are harder to just throw away. I'd like to see recognition that it's individuals that hold copyrights and that they last no longer than their creator.
It's harder still to deal with companies that own copyrights. Perhaps some sort of licencing agreement that makes sure that individual creators don't get ripped off by companies/universities etc that claim all rights to their work.
It's much more logical to simply look for "How did God create the universe" or "why did God create the universe this way?"
has implied assumptions that there is a God, and that that God is a creator God, that the universe was created. None of these assumptions have any proof.
Looking at the universe, it doesn't look created in any more sense that a mandelbrot is created by that one line of mathematic code itterated.
There is no god. Face it.
Slashdot Mirror
Substitute Aqsis for 3delight and you're getting somewhere. Aqsis is slow and buggy - 3delight is fast and mature.
A USB to Serial converter works great in Linux, but I've yet had the chance to use it with OS X.
The interpolation software used to generate the extra frames is bad - it introduces bad digital artifacting and makes the whole picture a mess. Speak to any TV professional and they'll tell you that 100hz technology is an abomination designed only to get people to buy new TV's when they already had a perfectly decent one.
The easiest way to stop someone taping a movie with their camcorder is to use an infra-red lightsource. Camcorders pick up IR - just try pointing your TV zapper at the lens and recording it!
Perhaps you could place LEDs in the projection screen in the pattern - "Don't Copy Movies" or some other message....
You've never written renderman shaders, have you?? I do so on a daily business, and if I wasn't reading Slashdot while waiting for a render to come back, that's exactly what I am doing.
Procedural shaders are equally for surface detail (displacement) as they are for surface appearance. I certainly write shaders for screw threads, fuzzy fur, corrugations etc.
Pure proceduralism is as rarely used as pure texture mapping. Almost everyone uses a good combination of the two, using maps to modulate the proceduralism. Procedural shaders generate any level of detail you need, but are hard to control - textures are the reverse, so using both together works great.
You can do all that: What you can't do is have temporarily have su privalidges in the finder - you've got to go to the terminal to do that.
Not moving over till January 2003 - wow - we moved our entire company over fully soon after 10.1 came out, and quite easily too. We still have to use classic apps, but restarting classic is quicker than re-booting a machine when it crashes.
There have been some companies that have been very poor at making OS X versions of their software and they needed the swift kick in the backside that Apple have just given them.
I know all that - but there are still the odd file, perhaps corrupt, that I can't prod OS X into deleting. No matter how I set permissions on that file it won't go away.
I live in OS X now - or linux. I only use a couple of "Classic" apps.
The only big problem I can see if that sometimes to fix a problem with OS X, it's easier to do it in classic - especially if you have files that never want to delete!
It only took one person in your class to type out a sheet with numbers instead of colours, and then you could photocopy that to your hearts content.
And as for lenslock - I had a pretty good score rate for guessing that just by squinting!
Best of all was the dongle on a game for the Dragon 32. It plugged into the joystick port while loading, but all you had to do was plug in a joystick and waggle it in the right pattern while the game loaded and it would work.
This current trend for copy protection reminds me of the home computer boom of the 80s, when everyone jumped on the copy protection bandwagon producing new and improved ways to "stop the pirates". Eventually all the schemes were cracked, and the companies stopped protecting the software because it cost too much and it was too much hassle. Rember "lenslock" anyone?
Then it was 3.5" discs, but if you copied your Amiga game on a PC, or a Mac, or an Acorn (remember them?) it might work. So they gave up...
And then it was dongles. I see a lot less of them these days.
History shows that these anti-copy schemes get cracked and then they get forgotten. When will they ever learn....
So if music has a. say, five year copyright, but you release a book of that tune in musical notation that has a 30 year copyright, and someone else releases a new recording after the 5 years but before the 30 years, is that a breech of copyright. Information is information, no matter what format it exists in, which is why differing lengths of copyright for different media is plain silly.
You can't prove non-existance of prior art, so you're effectively saying no to all patents. Good!
As for varying amounts of copyright extension, that's going to cause all manner of problems. All copyrights should last for 25 years from creation - period. No extensions. Never. No.
>>I have a very good record player that doesn't rumble, wow or flutter
>That's also impossible. All turntables suffer from some rumble, wow and flutter, and no vinyl disc is geometrically perfect.
I should have said "doesn't audibly rumble, wow or flutter". I don't hear these while listening to music (or even test discs), so they don't impinge on my musical enjoyment.
The digital reconstruction filters on CD's have the problem where you get both pre and post ringing, which is not something that the RIAA curve filters in record replay can achieve. Some people have experimented commercially with CD players that either don't have a filter, or have filters that don't exhibit pre-ringing, or have it reduced to a much greater degree than others.
If there is any benefit to DVD-A and SACD, it's that the mastering equipment has to be a much higher standard than CD, and that there's a lot more headroom in the format to cope with the problems of mixing, recording and mastering. They leave more room for errors, whereas the CD format didn't leave much room at all. Because of the higher sampling frequency, you can shove the filters up to a frequency where you can't hear them, and any pre-ringing is reduced in time. These can only be good things.
Not all "audiophiles" listen to vinyl because it is "technically superior".
Music used to be mastered, with the engineer knowing that it was going to be played on a record player. The engineer would "compensate" for the problems of vinyl in his mix, and the LP would be the definitive statement of what they wanted the music to sound like. Playing it back on any other media may be more "accurate", but it's not what was intended.
I play vinyl because I refuse to re-buy everything on CD. I have a very good record player that doesn't rumble, wow or flutter and a valve (tube) and horn system that makes music fun to listen to. Who cares about accuracy when you're enjoying what you're listening to. Hell - it can even make bad CD's sound a little better than an "accurate" system.
Does SACD make music more fun, more enjoyable? No. It sounds pretty much the same as CD - I don't think anyone could tell them apart in a blind test. And a 1 bit system is a complete waste of disc space. DVD-A stores a lot more audio information than SACD, but even that is redundant because you can't hear it. Both formats move any filters well away from the audio range, which are the real cause of "digitalitis" - bad digital sound.
Music and Audio is about enjoying music, not matter what the genre or vintage. Any media that enhances enjoyment is good - and copy protection and watermarking spoil that enjoyment wether in an audio sense or a philosophical one.
You've not used one, have you?
Rendering tests using 3delight showed a 7 times speed improvement over a Linux Total Impact Briq. The Xserve was dual 1ghz processors over a Briq which is single 500mhz. It's very stable - I really tried to crash it with renders way too big for it (the test model only had 512 ram) and the remote management software is excellent.
1) They're made by Sony 2) They can use the same size cassette shell 3) They have Beta in their name
They are all professional formats and are not the same as BetaMax, BetaMax II and EDBeta of old....
Maxivision 48 is just going to compound the problem. The staff in cinemas can't even cope with the current film standard. I see a lot of film previews - the prints are bad even then, with splices and dirt. Even when the print is clean it's often out of focus.
The current cost of digital is high, and the resolution os lower than HDTV, but all this will change. The cost will drop dramatically, and the resolution will first improve to full HD, and then beyond as HD also improves.
The cost of making a movie on HD is dramatically less than film. If they're doing SFX with CGI, then HD makes this cheaper. Even when CGI is added to a film movie, the resolution used is no greater than HD.
Is "fair use" an inalienable right? No. Is "copyright" an inalienable right? No.
If fair use is removed from copyright, then copyright will no longer work in the way it was intended - to promote science, research etc.
The best solution is to severely limit what can be copyrighted, remove patents entirely, and limit the amount of time that something can be copyrighted for to, say 25 years.
QED
This book seems to miss out almost completely on the global perspective. Computer games didn't just happen in the USA. Many very important titles came out of Europe in the 80's, especially the UK - none of which seem to be mentioned. What about such classics as Manic Miner, Uridium, Jet Pac, Monty Mole, Paradroid etc.
It wasn/'t allright - not even good. It's not even good television, never mind good Dr Who. The problem with making new DW, is that the majority of people who want to do it are "sad fans" who want to put their own ideas and imprint into a show that they love from childhood. They want to extend the continuity into their own ideas to put themselves inside the myth. There are one or two people who are fans, but are TV professionals in their own right who would do it properly, hire proper writers - not fan writers and make it good, but they are in the minority. I still think it's best that it is left dead as a monument to the BBC's stupidity.
I've done some work with Panavision on Hi Def and in the process got to see some very nice uncompressed HD footage shot at Panavision's studios. The quality of raw HD is very nice, an practically no different in resolution than all the CGI rendered for adding effects into traditionally shot movies.
Unfortunately, there's nobody showing AotC in town in Digital, but I did see the film version, and it was a bit iffy. I saw some evidence of aliassing, but it was slight, and some shots were grainy. Other shots in similar lighting situations were not, so I'm not quite sure what was causing that.
I also went to a SMPTE conference where they showed HD v Film under the same shooting and viewing conditions, and HD held it's own in that test. HD has much better low light results than film, but equally, looses a little to film in the bright areas.
The main problem with using HD for movies is that projectors cannot do 1920 x 1080, which is the resolution of HD. Watching HD on an HD monitor, especially the new Sony 24p ones is quite something.
HD is certainly the future for movies, but first the projectors need to get up to the right standard, and then HD needs about twice as many pixels, IMHO.
Patents no longer seem to be necessary at all, so they'd all go straight to the bin.
Copyrights are harder to just throw away. I'd like to see recognition that it's individuals that hold copyrights and that they last no longer than their creator.
It's harder still to deal with companies that own copyrights. Perhaps some sort of licencing agreement that makes sure that individual creators don't get ripped off by companies/universities etc that claim all rights to their work.
It's much more logical to simply look for "How did God create the universe" or "why did God create the universe this way?" has implied assumptions that there is a God, and that that God is a creator God, that the universe was created. None of these assumptions have any proof. Looking at the universe, it doesn't look created in any more sense that a mandelbrot is created by that one line of mathematic code itterated. There is no god. Face it.