(1) will they ever make it to the US within a reasonable amount of time (1 year), or will they be held up forever by industry copyright concerns?
(2) Will these things really produce reasonable quality output? $30/disc will be a lot of money if you have to record in the 2hr mode to get something reasonable... I had a TiVo for a week and took it back because it just didn't produce a high enough quality picture in any mode that could record more than a days worth of programs.
Ignore the 3D specs, we know they'll be lower than the hype; this thing has Hardware HDTV support!
The only way HDTV is ever going to catch on in the US in the next few years is if we start using the only tubes currently in households that can handle even 50% of the resolution -- Your computer monitor.
The one important thing to note is the hard disk in the TiVo -- It's a Quantum QuickView disk, which has TWO sets of heads - One for reading, one for writing, so it can watch one program while recording another. With hard disks getting faster and faster, it might be possible to do this on a machine with a fast disk and a lot of RAM, but I don't think the tech. is there yet to guarantee that you won't be dropping frames.
Actually, there WAS an NT 3.1 -- "Windows NT Workstation 3.1" and "Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1"; both of which most people (and MS) would like to forget. This was quickly replaced by "Windows NT Workstation 3.5" and "Windows NT Advanced Server 3.5", which were again fairly quickly replaced with "Windows NT Workstation 3.51" and "Windows NT Server 3.51" (Notice that the "Advanced" on the server was dropped here -- Did they realize how badly *NIX folk were making fun of them?:)
In either event, it takes many attempts to search MS's site for any evidence either of these ever existed; They were very good at this for a while, I recall three days after IE4 came out I was trying to search their support site for info on a glitch under IE3.01, and there was NO TRACE OF IE 3 AS HAVING EVER EXISTED. They seem to be better about that now, as it is still possible to find support for Win95 and IE4, but I always found it amusing the think about a group of "version Nazis" running throughout the MS organization, slashing and burning any evidence of previous releases...
...Come to think of it, wasn't that their defense in the DR DOS case?!
The best answer to this question I can think of is "How is your disclaimer phrased?"
Diamond warns their customers that the Rio product is intended to be used for legimate uses only, therefore they are not responsible for their customers violating copyright law.
McDonald's did not have anything more specific than "Caution: Hot" on their coffee cups, therefore they were responsible for some woman ordering coffee at a drive-thru and scalding herself with it. They never mentioned that pouring the coffee on yourself was not an intended use, therefore they were liable for her injuries.
We live in an age of Just-in-time manufacturing. It's the only way a hardware company can survive anymore.
Hardware is expensive; it's just not practical to stockpile inventories and then release, because if you don't sell your product, you'll be spending lots of money on warehouse space for an inventory that you may or may not sell all of, with tons of operating capital tied up in that equipment. If you can't make the release date, most of your customers will wait the extra few weeks for you to ship before ordering a new product, especially if they've been waiting months already for this product to be released.
Also, look at what happens when there are flaws discovered after production has commenced. The G4 flaw has a very simple fix in the short term, just lower the clock speed. It could've been more serious, like the Intel 820 chipset problem -- There are thousands of motherboards that will probably need to be destroyed because they stockpiled before release. While both Moto and Intel can be seen at fault for insufficient testing, the basic fact remains that while you can almost always patch software, hardware bugs are very difficult (and hence expensive) to work around. Regardless of whether or not any of the public knew these problems ever existed, they would still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix; By hyping it before your production is ramped up, you have an estimate of demand for your product and have still prevented your target consumers from purchasing the an inferior (but already released) product; so, you will not waste money on warehousing the product, and will not have any more defective parts to replace than you will actually sell on the release date.
I will agree though that Apple has a bad habit of hyping products very early without sufficient production, especially recently (iBook, AirPort, etc). The G4 is a product that needs the hype though, and here's why: In order for Apple to remain healthy, they need the high margins of their powerful computers to keep profits up (they can NOT live on iMacs alone, there just isn't enough profit to feed R&D). Hyping the G4 early keeps people from buying lower priced G3 based systems, bringing up the most fundamental point with Apple's marketing: In their "workstation-class" machines (read: non-iMac/iBook), they are only in direct competition with themselves. The people being targeted with the G4 were 90% of the time going to buy a Mac anyhow. They have prevented a number of G3 orders from happening with the promise of the G4 -- and therefore will increase their average profit when all of the G4's are finally shipped. To have NOT hyped the G4 would have been just as poor a marketing decision.
All of this, of course, is offtopic. The issue here is not should they have hyped the G4 without sufficient units produced, it is should they have cancelled all existing orders and cut performance ratings without cutting prices, and then waffle on the issue until nobody had any idea what was going on.
...And let's not forget that even if MacOS can't keep the processor buried now, when MacOS X comes out next year with MACH's cousin under the hood, problems like this can (and I'm sure will) become quite nasty.
Tom's Hardware has a full preview, although he's not allowed to print the performance results. This isn't SLI or PGC -- ATI is actually having the CPU's draw full alternate frames, so the image quality will be high yet the speed will be doubled. It's even buffered so if CPU0 is taking a long time drawing frame 0, CPU1 can keep drawing 1,2,3,... until CPU0 is done. What I like best about this is that the MAXX architecture will allow them to drop their latest chips in as they are developed, so even if their CPU architectures remain a little behind, they'll be able to keep competitive. I like ATI cards because of all of the MPEG and TV toys they build into them; the only other company that even comes close to offering those kind of toys is Matrox, but they're just too damn expensive for the full-featured cards.
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My largest concerns with DVD-Recorders are:
(1) will they ever make it to the US within a reasonable amount of time (1 year), or will they be held up forever by industry copyright concerns?
(2) Will these things really produce reasonable quality output? $30/disc will be a lot of money if you have to record in the 2hr mode to get something reasonable... I had a TiVo for a week and took it back because it just didn't produce a high enough quality picture in any mode that could record more than a days worth of programs.
Ignore the 3D specs, we know they'll be lower than the hype; this thing has Hardware HDTV support!
The only way HDTV is ever going to catch on in the US in the next few years is if we start using the only tubes currently in households that can handle even 50% of the resolution -- Your computer monitor.
The one important thing to note is the hard disk in the TiVo -- It's a Quantum QuickView disk, which has TWO sets of heads - One for reading, one for writing, so it can watch one program while recording another.
With hard disks getting faster and faster, it might be possible to do this on a machine with a fast disk and a lot of RAM, but I don't think the tech. is there yet to guarantee that you won't be dropping frames.
Actually, there WAS an NT 3.1 -- :)
"Windows NT Workstation 3.1" and "Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1"; both of which most people (and MS) would like to forget.
This was quickly replaced by "Windows NT Workstation 3.5" and "Windows NT Advanced Server 3.5", which were again fairly quickly replaced with "Windows NT Workstation 3.51" and "Windows NT Server 3.51"
(Notice that the "Advanced" on the server was dropped here -- Did they realize how badly *NIX folk were making fun of them?
In either event, it takes many attempts to search MS's site for any evidence either of these ever existed; They were very good at this for a while, I recall three days after IE4 came out I was trying to search their support site for info on a glitch under IE3.01, and there was NO TRACE OF IE 3 AS HAVING EVER EXISTED. They seem to be better about that now, as it is still possible to find support for Win95 and IE4, but I always found it amusing the think about a group of "version Nazis" running throughout the MS organization, slashing and burning any evidence of previous releases...
...Come to think of it, wasn't that their defense in the DR DOS case?!
The best answer to this question I can think of is "How is your disclaimer phrased?"
Diamond warns their customers that the Rio product is intended to be used for legimate uses only, therefore they are not responsible for their customers violating copyright law.
McDonald's did not have anything more specific than "Caution: Hot" on their coffee cups, therefore they were responsible for some woman ordering coffee at a drive-thru and scalding herself with it. They never mentioned that pouring the coffee on yourself was not an intended use, therefore they were liable for her injuries.
We live in an age of Just-in-time manufacturing.
It's the only way a hardware company can survive anymore.
Hardware is expensive; it's just not practical to stockpile inventories and then release, because if you don't sell your product, you'll be spending lots of money on warehouse space for an inventory that you may or may not sell all of, with tons of operating capital tied up in that equipment. If you can't make the release date, most of your customers will wait the extra few weeks for you to ship before ordering a new product, especially if they've been waiting months already for this product to be released.
Also, look at what happens when there are flaws discovered after production has commenced. The G4 flaw has a very simple fix in the short term, just lower the clock speed. It could've been more serious, like the Intel 820 chipset problem -- There are thousands of motherboards that will probably need to be destroyed because they stockpiled before release. While both Moto and Intel can be seen at fault for insufficient testing, the basic fact remains that while you can almost always patch software, hardware bugs are very difficult (and hence expensive) to work around. Regardless of whether or not any of the public knew these problems ever existed, they would still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix; By hyping it before your production is ramped up, you have an estimate of demand for your product and have still prevented your target consumers from purchasing the an inferior (but already released) product; so, you will not waste money on warehousing the product, and will not have any more defective parts to replace than you will actually sell on the release date.
I will agree though that Apple has a bad habit of hyping products very early without sufficient production, especially recently (iBook, AirPort, etc). The G4 is a product that needs the hype though, and here's why:
In order for Apple to remain healthy, they need the high margins of their powerful computers to keep profits up (they can NOT live on iMacs alone, there just isn't enough profit to feed R&D). Hyping the G4 early keeps people from buying lower priced G3 based systems, bringing up the most fundamental point with Apple's marketing: In their "workstation-class" machines (read: non-iMac/iBook), they are only in direct competition with themselves. The people being targeted with the G4 were 90% of the time going to buy a Mac anyhow. They have prevented a number of G3 orders from happening with the promise of the G4 -- and therefore will increase their average profit when all of the G4's are finally shipped. To have NOT hyped the G4 would have been just as poor a marketing decision.
All of this, of course, is offtopic. The issue here is not should they have hyped the G4 without sufficient units produced, it is should they have cancelled all existing orders and cut performance ratings without cutting prices, and then waffle on the issue until nobody had any idea what was going on.
...And let's not forget that even if MacOS can't keep the processor buried now, when MacOS X comes out next year with MACH's cousin under the hood, problems like this can (and I'm sure will) become quite nasty.
Tom's Hardware has a full preview, although he's not allowed to print the performance results. This isn't SLI or PGC -- ATI is actually having the CPU's draw full alternate frames, so the image quality will be high yet the speed will be doubled. It's even buffered so if CPU0 is taking a long time drawing frame 0, CPU1 can keep drawing 1,2,3,... until CPU0 is done. What I like best about this is that the MAXX architecture will allow them to drop their latest chips in as they are developed, so even if their CPU architectures remain a little behind, they'll be able to keep competitive. I like ATI cards because of all of the MPEG and TV toys they build into them; the only other company that even comes close to offering those kind of toys is Matrox, but they're just too damn expensive for the full-featured cards.
I first read this 3 years ago, I hadn't been able to find the site again until today...
Of course, back in '96 they were reporting that it would be out "late 1997 or Q1 1998"...