Actually I started doing that crap back in 94 on an AST 486 with a 250MB hard drive and the only removable media being a floppy disk drive. I got so sick of the crap that started going on around the time that Napster came out that I just did away with all of it. It's bull now... you spend a day downloading a few CDs full of info and all of the RAR files are corrupt. I'd rather spend $50 and go out and buy the damn CD. Hell spending $200 on Windows XP is worth a service pack that lets you strip it down as far as possible from everything that makes it suck.
1.) Do you think you would have still been cought had the warez scene been like it was back in the early 90's before all the "kiddies" and "leeches" came on the scene and started making it "popular" and raising the red flag to much unwanted attention?
2.) How do you feel about the scene now as opposed to back in the early 90's? I'm not going to ask "better or worse" because I know it's worse (maybe with the exception of broadband), but what do you feel is wrong with it now that wasn't back then?
3.) How do you feel about the quality of material and music and movies that are circulated on the scene? Personally I was sick back when Napster started getting popular, when someone in school walked up to me and asked me if I'd ever heard of an MP3 before, when they'd been around for 4 of 5 years before Napster was even someone's wet dream. I knew then that the quality of the music we were able to get was going to degrade QUICKLY, and now it's to the point where I'll sooner go out and get the CD to avoid something that someone's "MP3'ed" off TRL with microphone. Have you ever had any experiences like this?
"It still takes more than running Word to expose the contents of your hard drive though."
He's right. You don't need to run Word to expose the contents of your hard drive... that feature is already built into Windows.:)
My point exactly... Photoshop is a professional tool. Mods for games are hack togethers. Even if you get the source codes or the SDKs for games, you still need to use the same tools that the PROFESSIONALS use in order to manipulate the source/graphics/etc.
I downloaded the SDK for Half-Life when it first came out and I was using Borland C++ 5 at the time. I had to find an educational version of Visual C++ 6 in order to compile the DLLs for the game. They're nice enough to supply the foundation, but you've gotta be willing to supply the tools if you want to work on code/graphics that are at THEIR level, and those tools usually include expensive compilers and paint programs like VC++ and Adobe Photoshop. Their professionals that create a superior product, they're going to use professional tools that have a superior set of features.
To answer your question, there probably isn't anything out there that will do the things that Photoshop is able to do when it comes to the art for Quake III. To make a 32-bit alpha channel you don't need Photoshop's alpha channel support anyway, just save the TARGA file as a 32-bit TGA image and your semi-transparent layers can still be manipulated with code provided you can program for the file type (or use a set of pre-built APIs, as is the case with the QIII SDK).
Straight up: No, there probably isn't another edit that you could have used, but Carmack and his clan made that game, and they could probably care less what people playing around with level editors and SDKs use, because they only use the best, and that's what matters to them. They don't have to provide support for the SDKs and the level editors... notice even the ones that come with soem games, like UnrealEd aren't supported... let alone ones that are released as a 3rd party editor.
I understand where you're coming from, as I used to do a lot of mod development, but them's the bricks when you step up to some of those programmers' leagues.
There is a "home" version available for $99 called Photoshop Elements. Adobe created this for people like you. It's quite obvious that you know very VERY little about what Photoshop can really do if you don't think it's worth $600. Anyone who puts it to use often and know it's full potential power know that it's a priceless comodity. For peopel who like to "tinker," but aren't really epxerienced in the field, Elements was created. Elements has the same look and feel as the full fledged Photoshop 7.0, but comes without the features that less experienced Photoshop users don't know how to use, and probably will never know how to use anyway... like alpha channels, import/export between Illustrator in real time, many of the layer options, etc.
This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about... you can't compare the SNES to the Genesis, because Nintendo had several YEARS to improve on the technology. Comparing the Genesis to the SNES is like comparing a Pentium II 350Mhz PC to a Pentium III 700Mhz machine that was released a few years later... ofcourse the PIII is going to be superior... 3 years is a LONG time to improve on technology.
Sega always cought a bum rap... I hope the author of this book didn't confuse the timing of the Dreamcast like it implies in this article. The Dreamcast wasn't pitted up against the N64 and the PlayStation, it was released WAY after that.... Most people get Sega's timing WAY wrong because they were so far ahead of the game.
People compare the Sega Genesis to the Super NES. The Genesis was released WAY before the SNES was, and was pitted against the NES for sales, not the SNES. Sega had 16-bit first, and fastest.
The SATURN was set to battle against the PSX and the N64, not the Dreamcast! They were all released about the same time (with the exception of the N64, because we all know how Nintendo likes to promise things on a certain date and deliver them a couple years later...) The Saturn failed miserably against the other two because for one, it was $399 at launch, and two it was so hard to program for. The only good games for Saturn came from AM2... Sega's in-house developer... with titles like Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally Champoinship, and Daytona USA 2.
The Dreamcast was released years after the PSX and N64, and was the first 128-bit console on the market.... WAY before PS2 or GameCube. The Dreamcast was an innovative console and graphics- and sound- wise obviously ate the PSX and the N64. If the Dreamcast would have been released at the same time as the N64 and the PSX, Sony's PSX would have flopped worse at the time than XBOX is right now.
Sega had always been my favorite, and always had the most amazing stuff out first... but let's forget the massive amount of failures that they also released besides the Saturn... namely Sega CD (although it was one of the first CD systems), Sega CDX, Mars 32X, and the Master System II.:)
As for description of the G4 $3000 overpriced and underpowered, you can get a 1Ghz Dual G4 PowerMac for $2700. Find me a comparable PC deal.
I could build a dual Athlon MP 2000+ system with a GeForce 4 Ti4600 on a Gigabyte board with two 80GB drives in RAID 0, a gig of PC333 DDR-RAM, an Audigy Platinum for sound, and a 19" CRT for less than that.
Also, if User A has a Old97s CD and legit MP3 copies of the disc on his machine and I also own the same Old97s CD and download his copies (instead of burning my own) did either of us break a law?
Isn't that like the old warez groups saying "Well we'll upload this and put it on our servers but if you don't have the real CD you can't download it... Download only for backup purposes!!" That didn't stop the authories from going after those people... most of them are in jail right now.
Well then why, if the only thing OSX is good for is using Linux/UNIX software, would I spend $3 grand on an overpriced and underpowered G4 system when I could just install Mandrake on my PC for free with my existing PS/2 3-button wheel mouse and get the same benefits?
By more apps I meant more independent apps. Why is it that whenever someone who owns a PC starts talking about how they have "more apps" to a person that owns a Mac, the Mac person always brings up office-related stuff. I'm not talking about word processors or any of that. I don't even use that garbage. For as much document creating as I do, as far as word processing goes, Wordpad lets me do as much as I need.
I'm talking about apps that aren't mainstream... I like to be able to rip DVDs and MP3s with software that's free. I also like to go to the store if I want a utility (or game) and be able to have a ton of options to choose from.... not just one or two. I also like more than one button on my mouse.
Who cares about the threat of legal pressure against hacking the stupid DRM chip anyway? I've got my PlayStation modded... that's illegal and I'm not in jail. I've also got my Dreamcast and my XBOX modded. If they do go through with this, which will only happen if the IT community lets it happen, there are going to be so many people that hack that chip, and it's going to happen so fast, that there's no way that they'll be able to hammer everyone who does it.
If I buy something, it's mine. I don't care about the legalities of it. They're not going to do anything, because they can't. If they threw everyone in jail who has ever copied a computer game or a CD that they bought for a friend, or used a Shareware for more than the 30 days or whatever that it's allowed, 99% of the people on/. would be in prison.
If you'll notice, MS is starting to sound EXACTLY LIKE APPLE with this whole thing! They're turning into Apple!
Take a look at what MS wants to do... proprietary "certified" hardware, and certain software (namely the OS) that will only run on that hardware.
Isnt' that what Apple has been doing for the past 25 or so years? They've never been a part of the open platform that PCs have. The Mac has been a closed box for a long time... now MS is shoving PCs into that light and your "Mac'esque blind pride" is blinding you from that fact?
Even if the PC archetecture does become closed like this, I'd still rather use it. Atleast I'd have a lot more sofwtare to use and better games to play.
Now if they make an operating system that is very secure, and has all kinds of fancy features. But it will not function properly depending on what I want to do with it, or it will not allow me to do what I want with it, even though it's mine. Isn't that equally illegal?
With the cost of the Walkpad unit itself, plus the price to import one, I think I'd rather have a Zaurus. The Zaurus has a higher resolution (not to mention COLOR) screen, and looks a little more polished. Albeit a bit larger.
In a few months you'll probably be able to pick up a Zaurus on Ebay for a couple hundred bucks. Personally, I'd rather have a Zaurus than one of these, although it's nice to see embedded Linux popping it's head up in all these different places.:)
You think 640x480 is an NVIDIA card's strong suite either? Not by far. Bench a game at 640x480, then 800x600, then 1024, etc etc. On my Ti4200, games actually go faster as the resolution gets higher up until about the peak performance/res point of 1280x1024x32.
Even be GeForce 2 Pro performed better at 1024x768 tahn 640x480. High resolutions are where NVIDIA cards shine, so I'm not sure your argument was very valid.
You can't blame NVIDIA for not including "features in it's cards" because NVIDIA doesn't make video cards, they only make the chips for the cards. It's up to third party vendors to add features to cards, NOT NVIDIA. If a company like Gainward adds video in/out to a GeForce 4, which they do, then that's fine. Someone who doesn't need that capability, or doesn't want to pay for it, shouldn't have to. There are enough Geforce-4 based cards out now that you are able to get what you want at any range... from a $89 GeForce 4 MX to a $200 GeForce 4 Ti-4200 w/ TV OUT to a GF4 Ti4600 w/ dual head, video in, and video out.
Don't blame NVIDIA for not packing "features" in with their cards... it's the third party vendors' decisions what goes on the cards, not NVIDIA's. NVIDIA is just a chip foundry, unlike ATI and Matrox, who oversee the entire card production from chip-manufacturing to packaging and boxing.
You know what point he was trying to make - if you don't, you don't belong out in public.
They phased out cassette tapes in favor of CDs just like they're doing to VHS now in favor of DVDs - that's the point he was trying to make: "We've seen it before."
Most of the "non commercial free" stations aren't as bad as you think. Stations like that play nowhere near the number of commercials that a broadcast radio station plays. I haven't listened to broadcast radio in over 3 years because I can't stand it. When I lived 10 miles away from work I could drive all the way home and listen to commercials the whole trip. That's terrible. MTV on XM, for example, is a commercial station, but the only commercials they ever play are for their own stuff. I don't care about being reminded of the air time of the MTV Movie Awards every hour or so... that's no where near as bad as hearing 20 minutes of TERRIBLE commercials on broadcast.
The quality of XM is really good. For those of you who are screaming "MP3" why not do both... The Pioneer DEH-P7400MP unit does MP3s and is XM ready. You can use Pioneer's XM unit ($99 after the $50 mail-in that XM has right now) with it and it sounds great! It's wired, so you get that advantage over an FM modulated receiver. If you're keeping the stock speakers in the car, you won't hear a huge difference in sound quality with a wired unit vs a FM modulated one. If you do have aftermarket equipment though, wired is definetly the way to go.
XM has a ton of stations... unlike radio. News, world music, metal, rock, r&b, country (god forbid), rap, etc. You'll never get a selection on FM like you can on XM. Even with MP3s... you get sick of hearing the same songs over and over again... even if you put 200 on a disc and turn the "Random" option on, you'll still get sick of them. With XM stations like "top 20 on 20" you'll always have the latest music right there. The sound quality of XM is above the quality of a 128K MP3 for sure. Anyone who tells you different wasn't listening to it on a nice stereo.
I've had my XM receiver for a month now and I've never had a problem with outages. If you're constantly driving between huge buildings in New York or Chicago or something it might be a problem, but driving through a neighborhood with the trees grown up, or through a small town with fairly large buildings (4 or 5 stories) has never posed a problem for me. You won't pick up an FM signal in a parking garage, obviously, but you also don't need to be in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of land with no trees either. I've been happy with the strength of the XM antenna in what I would think to be pretty questionable circumstances.
I've had the unit for a while and I'm very happy with it. I'd definetly recommend it... especially with the $50 mail in right now... you can go to Circuit City and get a Pioneer DEH-P7400MP head unit (cheaper online) with XM and MP3/CD capability, and an XM unit w/ $50 off and have them installed free. The XM unit is $149 before the rebate, and you can get the DEH-P7400MP online for around $250 if you want to install it yourself (CC will charge you to install a deck you didn't buy from them).
Hope this has helped -- good luck.:)
You're right... considering moving the mouse is the most exercise any of us ever get, why would you want to do that any more? We might actually burn some calories in our arms and shed some of those much wanted pounds. After all, ladies love a man who is as lazy as possible.:)
I'm 19... I don't have any kids. Don't plan to either.:)
My car is all about SQ. I don't want to stray off topic here, so I'll driect you to my page on SoundDomain.com.:) Believe it or not some people actually have nicer stereos in their car than 99% of the American population have in their houses.
They've driven this copy protection scheme thing into the ground. They're wasting too much money on thinking of ways around the problem though. They're not solving anything, they're just putting a band-aid on the problem and hoping that it'll somehow magically go away -- some more than others::cough::Sony::cough::.
They're only going to anger people by changing standards on the fly like this. "Ok, everyone is alright with CDs now, better make a new form of media." First DVD audio... all well and good. Tons of people have DVD players now and there's nothing wrong with 5.1ch audio! But SACD? Come on. No matter how secure it is, it's just another box to buy. Worse yet, if Sony keeps it closed it'll die anyway. Look what happened to Mini-Discs.
Worse yet, I just bought a new car stereo that does XM and MP3... now it's going to be obsolete soon because SACD will be all the rage and everything else will just kinda be "there." What's next for car audio decks... an "AM/FM/CD/MP3/WMA/OGG/XM/DVD/DVD-A/SACD/MD/CF/SM/M emory Stick" deck? Come on!
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I don't think they want to decipher what I'm thinking when I'm watching those stupid Old Navy commercials that always come on around Christmas.
Actually I started doing that crap back in 94 on an AST 486 with a 250MB hard drive and the only removable media being a floppy disk drive. I got so sick of the crap that started going on around the time that Napster came out that I just did away with all of it. It's bull now... you spend a day downloading a few CDs full of info and all of the RAR files are corrupt. I'd rather spend $50 and go out and buy the damn CD. Hell spending $200 on Windows XP is worth a service pack that lets you strip it down as far as possible from everything that makes it suck.
1.) Do you think you would have still been cought had the warez scene been like it was back in the early 90's before all the "kiddies" and "leeches" came on the scene and started making it "popular" and raising the red flag to much unwanted attention? 2.) How do you feel about the scene now as opposed to back in the early 90's? I'm not going to ask "better or worse" because I know it's worse (maybe with the exception of broadband), but what do you feel is wrong with it now that wasn't back then? 3.) How do you feel about the quality of material and music and movies that are circulated on the scene? Personally I was sick back when Napster started getting popular, when someone in school walked up to me and asked me if I'd ever heard of an MP3 before, when they'd been around for 4 of 5 years before Napster was even someone's wet dream. I knew then that the quality of the music we were able to get was going to degrade QUICKLY, and now it's to the point where I'll sooner go out and get the CD to avoid something that someone's "MP3'ed" off TRL with microphone. Have you ever had any experiences like this?
"It still takes more than running Word to expose the contents of your hard drive though." He's right. You don't need to run Word to expose the contents of your hard drive... that feature is already built into Windows. :)
My point exactly... Photoshop is a professional tool. Mods for games are hack togethers. Even if you get the source codes or the SDKs for games, you still need to use the same tools that the PROFESSIONALS use in order to manipulate the source/graphics/etc.
I downloaded the SDK for Half-Life when it first came out and I was using Borland C++ 5 at the time. I had to find an educational version of Visual C++ 6 in order to compile the DLLs for the game. They're nice enough to supply the foundation, but you've gotta be willing to supply the tools if you want to work on code/graphics that are at THEIR level, and those tools usually include expensive compilers and paint programs like VC++ and Adobe Photoshop. Their professionals that create a superior product, they're going to use professional tools that have a superior set of features.
To answer your question, there probably isn't anything out there that will do the things that Photoshop is able to do when it comes to the art for Quake III. To make a 32-bit alpha channel you don't need Photoshop's alpha channel support anyway, just save the TARGA file as a 32-bit TGA image and your semi-transparent layers can still be manipulated with code provided you can program for the file type (or use a set of pre-built APIs, as is the case with the QIII SDK).
Straight up: No, there probably isn't another edit that you could have used, but Carmack and his clan made that game, and they could probably care less what people playing around with level editors and SDKs use, because they only use the best, and that's what matters to them. They don't have to provide support for the SDKs and the level editors... notice even the ones that come with soem games, like UnrealEd aren't supported... let alone ones that are released as a 3rd party editor.
I understand where you're coming from, as I used to do a lot of mod development, but them's the bricks when you step up to some of those programmers' leagues.
There is a "home" version available for $99 called Photoshop Elements. Adobe created this for people like you. It's quite obvious that you know very VERY little about what Photoshop can really do if you don't think it's worth $600. Anyone who puts it to use often and know it's full potential power know that it's a priceless comodity. For peopel who like to "tinker," but aren't really epxerienced in the field, Elements was created. Elements has the same look and feel as the full fledged Photoshop 7.0, but comes without the features that less experienced Photoshop users don't know how to use, and probably will never know how to use anyway... like alpha channels, import/export between Illustrator in real time, many of the layer options, etc.
This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about... you can't compare the SNES to the Genesis, because Nintendo had several YEARS to improve on the technology. Comparing the Genesis to the SNES is like comparing a Pentium II 350Mhz PC to a Pentium III 700Mhz machine that was released a few years later... ofcourse the PIII is going to be superior... 3 years is a LONG time to improve on technology.
Apples and oranges.
Sega always cought a bum rap... I hope the author of this book didn't confuse the timing of the Dreamcast like it implies in this article. The Dreamcast wasn't pitted up against the N64 and the PlayStation, it was released WAY after that.... Most people get Sega's timing WAY wrong because they were so far ahead of the game.
:)
People compare the Sega Genesis to the Super NES. The Genesis was released WAY before the SNES was, and was pitted against the NES for sales, not the SNES. Sega had 16-bit first, and fastest.
The SATURN was set to battle against the PSX and the N64, not the Dreamcast! They were all released about the same time (with the exception of the N64, because we all know how Nintendo likes to promise things on a certain date and deliver them a couple years later...) The Saturn failed miserably against the other two because for one, it was $399 at launch, and two it was so hard to program for. The only good games for Saturn came from AM2... Sega's in-house developer... with titles like Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally Champoinship, and Daytona USA 2.
The Dreamcast was released years after the PSX and N64, and was the first 128-bit console on the market.... WAY before PS2 or GameCube. The Dreamcast was an innovative console and graphics- and sound- wise obviously ate the PSX and the N64. If the Dreamcast would have been released at the same time as the N64 and the PSX, Sony's PSX would have flopped worse at the time than XBOX is right now.
Sega had always been my favorite, and always had the most amazing stuff out first... but let's forget the massive amount of failures that they also released besides the Saturn... namely Sega CD (although it was one of the first CD systems), Sega CDX, Mars 32X, and the Master System II.
As for description of the G4 $3000 overpriced and underpowered, you can get a 1Ghz Dual G4 PowerMac for $2700. Find me a comparable PC deal. I could build a dual Athlon MP 2000+ system with a GeForce 4 Ti4600 on a Gigabyte board with two 80GB drives in RAID 0, a gig of PC333 DDR-RAM, an Audigy Platinum for sound, and a 19" CRT for less than that.
Also, if User A has a Old97s CD and legit MP3 copies of the disc on his machine and I also own the same Old97s CD and download his copies (instead of burning my own) did either of us break a law?
Isn't that like the old warez groups saying "Well we'll upload this and put it on our servers but if you don't have the real CD you can't download it... Download only for backup purposes!!" That didn't stop the authories from going after those people... most of them are in jail right now.
Well then why, if the only thing OSX is good for is using Linux/UNIX software, would I spend $3 grand on an overpriced and underpowered G4 system when I could just install Mandrake on my PC for free with my existing PS/2 3-button wheel mouse and get the same benefits?
Yeah that would be *real* funny. It's peopel who do stupid things like that, that are going to make us all look bad.
By more apps I meant more independent apps. Why is it that whenever someone who owns a PC starts talking about how they have "more apps" to a person that owns a Mac, the Mac person always brings up office-related stuff. I'm not talking about word processors or any of that. I don't even use that garbage. For as much document creating as I do, as far as word processing goes, Wordpad lets me do as much as I need. I'm talking about apps that aren't mainstream... I like to be able to rip DVDs and MP3s with software that's free. I also like to go to the store if I want a utility (or game) and be able to have a ton of options to choose from.... not just one or two. I also like more than one button on my mouse. Who cares about the threat of legal pressure against hacking the stupid DRM chip anyway? I've got my PlayStation modded... that's illegal and I'm not in jail. I've also got my Dreamcast and my XBOX modded. If they do go through with this, which will only happen if the IT community lets it happen, there are going to be so many people that hack that chip, and it's going to happen so fast, that there's no way that they'll be able to hammer everyone who does it. If I buy something, it's mine. I don't care about the legalities of it. They're not going to do anything, because they can't. If they threw everyone in jail who has ever copied a computer game or a CD that they bought for a friend, or used a Shareware for more than the 30 days or whatever that it's allowed, 99% of the people on /. would be in prison.
If you'll notice, MS is starting to sound EXACTLY LIKE APPLE with this whole thing! They're turning into Apple! Take a look at what MS wants to do... proprietary "certified" hardware, and certain software (namely the OS) that will only run on that hardware. Isnt' that what Apple has been doing for the past 25 or so years? They've never been a part of the open platform that PCs have. The Mac has been a closed box for a long time... now MS is shoving PCs into that light and your "Mac'esque blind pride" is blinding you from that fact? Even if the PC archetecture does become closed like this, I'd still rather use it. Atleast I'd have a lot more sofwtare to use and better games to play.
Now if they make an operating system that is very secure, and has all kinds of fancy features. But it will not function properly depending on what I want to do with it, or it will not allow me to do what I want with it, even though it's mine. Isn't that equally illegal?
:)
Didn't they already come out with OSX?
You might as well just strap on a shirt that says "I'll never get laid!"
With the cost of the Walkpad unit itself, plus the price to import one, I think I'd rather have a Zaurus. The Zaurus has a higher resolution (not to mention COLOR) screen, and looks a little more polished. Albeit a bit larger. In a few months you'll probably be able to pick up a Zaurus on Ebay for a couple hundred bucks. Personally, I'd rather have a Zaurus than one of these, although it's nice to see embedded Linux popping it's head up in all these different places. :)
You think 640x480 is an NVIDIA card's strong suite either? Not by far. Bench a game at 640x480, then 800x600, then 1024, etc etc. On my Ti4200, games actually go faster as the resolution gets higher up until about the peak performance/res point of 1280x1024x32. Even be GeForce 2 Pro performed better at 1024x768 tahn 640x480. High resolutions are where NVIDIA cards shine, so I'm not sure your argument was very valid.
You can't blame NVIDIA for not including "features in it's cards" because NVIDIA doesn't make video cards, they only make the chips for the cards. It's up to third party vendors to add features to cards, NOT NVIDIA. If a company like Gainward adds video in/out to a GeForce 4, which they do, then that's fine. Someone who doesn't need that capability, or doesn't want to pay for it, shouldn't have to. There are enough Geforce-4 based cards out now that you are able to get what you want at any range... from a $89 GeForce 4 MX to a $200 GeForce 4 Ti-4200 w/ TV OUT to a GF4 Ti4600 w/ dual head, video in, and video out.
Don't blame NVIDIA for not packing "features" in with their cards... it's the third party vendors' decisions what goes on the cards, not NVIDIA's. NVIDIA is just a chip foundry, unlike ATI and Matrox, who oversee the entire card production from chip-manufacturing to packaging and boxing.
You know what point he was trying to make - if you don't, you don't belong out in public. They phased out cassette tapes in favor of CDs just like they're doing to VHS now in favor of DVDs - that's the point he was trying to make: "We've seen it before."
Most of the "non commercial free" stations aren't as bad as you think. Stations like that play nowhere near the number of commercials that a broadcast radio station plays. I haven't listened to broadcast radio in over 3 years because I can't stand it. When I lived 10 miles away from work I could drive all the way home and listen to commercials the whole trip. That's terrible. MTV on XM, for example, is a commercial station, but the only commercials they ever play are for their own stuff. I don't care about being reminded of the air time of the MTV Movie Awards every hour or so... that's no where near as bad as hearing 20 minutes of TERRIBLE commercials on broadcast. The quality of XM is really good. For those of you who are screaming "MP3" why not do both... The Pioneer DEH-P7400MP unit does MP3s and is XM ready. You can use Pioneer's XM unit ($99 after the $50 mail-in that XM has right now) with it and it sounds great! It's wired, so you get that advantage over an FM modulated receiver. If you're keeping the stock speakers in the car, you won't hear a huge difference in sound quality with a wired unit vs a FM modulated one. If you do have aftermarket equipment though, wired is definetly the way to go. XM has a ton of stations... unlike radio. News, world music, metal, rock, r&b, country (god forbid), rap, etc. You'll never get a selection on FM like you can on XM. Even with MP3s... you get sick of hearing the same songs over and over again... even if you put 200 on a disc and turn the "Random" option on, you'll still get sick of them. With XM stations like "top 20 on 20" you'll always have the latest music right there. The sound quality of XM is above the quality of a 128K MP3 for sure. Anyone who tells you different wasn't listening to it on a nice stereo. I've had my XM receiver for a month now and I've never had a problem with outages. If you're constantly driving between huge buildings in New York or Chicago or something it might be a problem, but driving through a neighborhood with the trees grown up, or through a small town with fairly large buildings (4 or 5 stories) has never posed a problem for me. You won't pick up an FM signal in a parking garage, obviously, but you also don't need to be in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of land with no trees either. I've been happy with the strength of the XM antenna in what I would think to be pretty questionable circumstances. I've had the unit for a while and I'm very happy with it. I'd definetly recommend it... especially with the $50 mail in right now... you can go to Circuit City and get a Pioneer DEH-P7400MP head unit (cheaper online) with XM and MP3/CD capability, and an XM unit w/ $50 off and have them installed free. The XM unit is $149 before the rebate, and you can get the DEH-P7400MP online for around $250 if you want to install it yourself (CC will charge you to install a deck you didn't buy from them). Hope this has helped -- good luck. :)
I fe3l alot stoopider aftr reeding that....
You're right... considering moving the mouse is the most exercise any of us ever get, why would you want to do that any more? We might actually burn some calories in our arms and shed some of those much wanted pounds. After all, ladies love a man who is as lazy as possible. :)
I'm 19... I don't have any kids. Don't plan to either. :)
:) Believe it or not some people actually have nicer stereos in their car than 99% of the American population have in their houses.
My car is all about SQ. I don't want to stray off topic here, so I'll driect you to my page on SoundDomain.com.
http://members.sounddomain.com/i64x97gt
They've driven this copy protection scheme thing into the ground. They're wasting too much money on thinking of ways around the problem though. They're not solving anything, they're just putting a band-aid on the problem and hoping that it'll somehow magically go away -- some more than others ::cough::Sony::cough::.
M emory Stick" deck? Come on!
They're only going to anger people by changing standards on the fly like this. "Ok, everyone is alright with CDs now, better make a new form of media." First DVD audio... all well and good. Tons of people have DVD players now and there's nothing wrong with 5.1ch audio! But SACD? Come on. No matter how secure it is, it's just another box to buy. Worse yet, if Sony keeps it closed it'll die anyway. Look what happened to Mini-Discs.
Worse yet, I just bought a new car stereo that does XM and MP3... now it's going to be obsolete soon because SACD will be all the rage and everything else will just kinda be "there." What's next for car audio decks... an "AM/FM/CD/MP3/WMA/OGG/XM/DVD/DVD-A/SACD/MD/CF/SM/