It's not like your HD-DVD player is going to just turn into a pumpkin at midnight tonight and stop playing your HD-DVD's. I think that's because the HD-DVD players lack network connections.
I have it on good authority that Sony are going to send the "convert to pumpkin" firmware upgrade to all networked PS3s this coming Monday.
That's what I thought... unless you've shelled out for 100s of movies, wouldn't it be just more sensible (both financially and time-wise) to sell off your HD-DVD discs (and player) and rebuy them in Blu-Ray format? (The cost of the BR player doesn't count, as you'd have to buy one to watch transferred discs anyway).
Or better still, since their value is already gone, sit back and happily watch your worthless HD-DVD discs like you would have done anyway. Replace them in a couple of years time when the current Blu Ray releases have come down in price substantially.
Sounds better than shelling out for expensive blanks (and a burner, if you wouldn't have been buying one otherwise), especially when you're probably going to have to compress the film down to fit on a single-layer Blu Ray.
While I don't agree with the GP that the GIMP is a Photoshop replacement, I think you're being pretty harsh. It's a damn powerful piece of software, and the fact that it doesn't do _everything_ does NOT make it a toy. I think that the underlying point he was trying to make was probably quite legitimate, but the *unqualified* dismissal of GIMP as a "toy" did come across quite harshly.
I believe that he was basically saying that GIMP is missing features which would be considered essential by many professionals for medium and high-end graphics work. From their point-of-view, the fact that it lacks certain things like *proper* CMYK support and 16-bit colour are probably deal-killers, even if the rest of the package is good. (*)
OTOH, Photoshop CS is overfeatured for most people, and GIMP is still a powerful and economical tool that will meet their needs. It's certainly not a "toy" like MS Paint, but I can understand why a professional might see it that way.
(*) It reminds me of my film SLR camera. In a lot of respects, it was a good model for the money. However, IMHO the fact that it lacks depth-of-field preview or any form of remote shutter release (amongst other things) are serious omissions that can't be reasonably overcome, and count against it regardless of how nice the rest of the camera is. Stupid omissions that were rectified in the replacement model, but ones that rule this one out from being considered remotely "professional" or even "serious amateur". Not that I'm saying that GIMP is that hobbled (it's actually pretty good), but you see what I'm getting at.
It's the things that the GIMP doesn't do that relegates it to toy status. It's a shame that this legitimate- if somewhat harshly-phrased- criticism has been modded down by some kneejerk zealot. (Do these people actually believe that it's intentional flamebait, or are they just abusing the mod system to attack views they find unpalatable?)
Anyway....! From what I understand, it's a bit of a "holy war" issue, and I've refrained from asking it in other forums because I don't want to open a can of worms, but it strikes me as one of those omissions, so....
Can someone briefly explain in an unbiased manner the reasons that Gimp doesn't have 16-bit colour support, despite this having been an issue for years?
Yes, I know that Cinepaint- née FilmGimp- includes this, but that was forked well over five years ago, and AFAIK is developed specifically for the needs of the film industry. I believe that the lack of 16-bit support was a catalyst for the forking, although there's probably more than this separating them now. (IIRC Cinepaint's developers have pretty specific needs or desires that they're not interested in compromising on, and it's probably more hassle than it's worth to try to accommodate those in a mainstream package. So this isn't a Cinepaint/Gimp merge proposal... however, there are plenty of times mainstream users could use 16-bit colour as well).
Sure, but you'd express the weight of a car in tons. It's easy to convert stones into hundredweight (1/8) and hundredweight into tons (1/20). So 150 stone is ~1 ton. It only sounds wrong because there's a more appropriate unit for weights in that range. I didn't say that it was impossible or even unreasonable to express the weight of a car in stones. (IMHO, I'd still consider stones to be a reasonable measure for something in that weight range, since "150 stone" sounds okay to me).
What I said was that- for some reason of custom rather than practicality(?)- nowadays stones are only used for people's weights. You'd get strange looks from people in the UK if you talked about a "150 stone car", although that's probably because it wouldn't have *occurred* to most people to weigh a car in stones.
You obviously suck way too much dick. Answer 1) You're pretty objectionable yourself Ben, and my name's not Dick.
Alternate Answer 2) Whereas you suck just the right amount, right? Quit projecting neuroses about your sexual habits onto me, you weirdo.
Seriously, I really have no idea how the hell you relate the words Blue and Ray with any kind of sexual activity. Here's the extremely convoluted and difficult-to-understand wordplay that led me to this conclusion:-
"Blu-Ray" sounds like "Blew Ray".
Uh... that's it. Though it's probably still a little too complicated for you to understand.
Leaving aside that a CD is digital, as has been pointed out, I think what you're meaning is that there was no intermediate format between CD and mp3. There were two:
SACD
and
DVD-Audio. Actually, MP3 has been around since the early-1990s as part of the MPEG-1 standard (MP3="MPEG-1 Layer 3"), and IIRC standalone MP3s first appeared in the mid-90s. I don't know when SACD launched, but DVDA came out in 1999, by which time MP3 had already started to rise to prominence .
I'm not sure which analog camcorder format had the highest sales but both hi-8 and vhs-c were popular enough to be availible from places like argos (which is hardly a specialist supplier) for years. That pretty much sums it up. I couldn't have told you which was the better seller either, though if forced I'd probably have chosen Video-8/Hi-8 over VHS-C/SVHS-C.
Basically, neither format totally dominated the analogue camcorder market, and this duopoly seems to have persisted right up until both were simultaneously pushed out of the market by digital formats. (*) In a way, this shows that the camcorder market was not the same as domestic VCRs; the former could probably tolerate two formats in a way that the latter couldn't, since people didn't buy prerecorded material in either format, and also because they probably transferred most of their video to full-size VHS when editing anyway.
(*) I note that Argos- who 18 months or so ago still sold both Hi-8 and SVHS-C analogue models at the bottom of their range no longer seem to stock either. Using Argos as an indicator of mainstream acceptance, it seems fair to declare that the analogue camcorder market is all but dead.
But as long as they are driving 150 stone cars [snip!] Sorry to disappoint you, but although many years ago it was (apparently) used as a general-purpose measure, nowadays stones are only used for expressing peoples' weight. WP confirms this (albeit without a reference), and I can't think of any counter-example.
This didn't really occur to me until you brought up the wrong-sounding example of a "150 stone car"(!)
On topic: Sony obviously haven't learned that, since they had BetaMax" Which enjoyed better success in professional settings. Not true. BetaCam is the dominant professional video format, but is completely different from BetaMax. (My emphasis).
Not entirely true either- Betacam and Betamax *are* related to some extent. However, they're not identical or even playback-compatible, and I'm still fed up of seeing people repeat the "Betamax was a massive success in the professional market!" myth every time the format is discussed.
Blu-Ray is so much easier on the tongue than a mouthful of acronym(s). "Blu-Ray" sounds like a reference to fellatio. So some might argue that it's still not so "easy on the tongue", and quite a "mouthful" in a very different sense:-O
As I describe here, while it is quite possible to argue that a tracker on its own has legitimate uses, when you take into account TPB's self-declared position (which they are totally open about), this makes things different.
Oh, and I'm willing to bet that the "indy book" you linked to (vanity-published, to use the traditional terminology) was banned from Amazon for being yet another vanity-published conspiracy title, and "banned" from Wikipedia when the guy tried to give it its own page, posted long diatribes in Articles for Deletion explaining why it was important information, despite the fact that WP probably gave it no worse treatment than any other non-proven notability vanity published book, and the author took this to be another part of the conspiracy. Just a guess.
So the guy's contacted ABBA in an attempt to get them to join, there's no record of them even having replied as of yet- let alone agreed, and you're still calling them corporate sell-outs on the basis of this?
Anyway, ABBA were always a very commercial band. Sp to me, ABBA selling out would be them producing shitty music- and unlike bands like The Rolling Stones, ABBA stopped recording when they came to a natural end, haven't been back together since, and turned down a reported $1 billion to tour again.
(Self reply)
Eh, you do realise that ABBA was made up of two pairs of couples? Euh... I just realised that this doesn't necessarily contradict what the troll was saying. Time for some clarification:-
Eh, you do realise that ABBA was made up of two pairs of mixed-sex couples? That's what I meant:)
Mind you, I realise that the possibility of kinky inter-band shenanigans crossed the minds of some people. I'm not convinced that Benny-on-Bjorn action was high in many people's fantasy stakes, but Agnetha and Frida were probably a different kettle of fish(!)
Why only Web Sheriff? Why not Web Indian and Web Construction Worker, too? They should have had a pirate in the Village People too! Actually, on second thoughts...
No, it's more like being a manufacturer of map tools ( The Pirate Bay ) You're implying that TPB are simply the innocent (or at least uninvolved) party creating generic tools that *just happen* to be used by some people for certain purposes. That's nonsense; regardless of the legalities and the moral rights and wrongs of the matter (on both sides), TPB know full well and are open about what they're doing, and what their site is intended to be used for. Even the name gives a slight clue to this!
As I said, this is not intended to pass judgement about either the legality or morality of what TPB are doing (in any jurisdiction). But I can't stand to hear BS pseudo-legalistic rationalisations trying to pretend that they're an uninvolved third party. If we were just discussing the torrent search engine itself, it could plausibly be looked at that way (there are plenty of legitimate (*) uses for BT). But as I said, that's not the case.
Oh noes, the Pirate Bay is getting sued by the gheyz! Eh, you do realise that ABBA was made up of two pairs of couples (who were either engaged, married or divorced at the time the group was active)?
Anyway, it should be noted that this guy has *tried* to involve ABBA in this. I don't see anything indicating that they have even responded yet, let alone confirmed their agreement with him. I suspect that he wins either way (even if they don't get involved, having their name connected still gets him more attention).
Potential basis of ABBA legal action against the Pirate Bay: "I've been cheated by you since I don't know when" (thrown out due to vagueness surrounding the dates of the alleged infringments).
*puts on Official "Playing Devil's(?) Advocate" horns*
Suing a torrent site for copyright infringement is something akin to suing a map-maker because a thief used the information to find a bank that was robbed (and yes, I know that with copyright infringement nothing is physically stolen), or suing a telephone company because two criminals used the network to plan a heist. No, it's more like suing a map-maker when they produce a map that was specifically designed for (or with the intention that) it would be used for bank-robbing and similar activities, and included details pertinent to that activity.
Things will improve in what, 10 years? 20 years? We're still dealing with ethernet speeds of MAYBE 100mbps from your content provider. Gigabit ethernet from your provider to your home is so far off it's not even worth contemplating. Yes, but how fast does the download speed *need* to be to be workable? Do you actually *need* Gigabit Ethernet to download a film- especially if it can start streaming before it's completely downloaded?
Until then you still have the same old 25 gigs to download over your 100mb line. Well, HD-DVD is 15GB and, as I said, it's quite feasible that they could do HD content in 4-6 GB and get Joe Public to buy it, even if anyone with two working eyes can see that it's compressed.
But let me give you a real-life example. People I work with are already downloading HD content via filesharing and newsgroups. Granted, they're probably prepared to put up with the inconvenience because it's "free" (if morally dubious), and it's probably compressed more highly than Blu-Ray.
I haven't seen it myself because I'm not really into films- its appearance could be the visual equivalent of a 64mbps MP3. But today's "doable for gadget freaks" (*) is tomorrows "convenient enough for Joe Public". So I think your assertions about gigabit Ethernet are a red herring.
There's no backup! I'd rather have the physical copy of the disk. I personally like having a backup too. Actually, I like shelling out for music CDs because it gives me a high-quality uncompressed copy I can make high-quality MP3s from (**).
BUT...
My point is that even if HD content gets to the downloadable stage, without reliable data backup I think a lot of people will see it as just a novelty in the beginning. (1) If you can't copy a BD disc, then in a sense that's also prone to damage with no way of backing it up.
(2) Consumers have shown that they'll go for DRM-enabled crap like iTunes (pre-iTunes-Plus) and similar that make it (at best) inconvenient to copy and transfer stuff and at worst impossible. Maybe (hopefully) this is changing as people realise that DRM is a PITA and stops them reasonably using their paid-for music (which illegal downloading doesn't- go figure), but I don't expect people to go anti-DRM overnight.
So, figure 5 years at least to upgrade the network, and 5 years to stabilize, you're looking at 10 years for agressive progress at least. As I said, I know people that are downloading HD content over today's networks at today's speeds. Granted, they ended up having to pay a bit more to get multimedia newsgroup access and larger download quotas. But in a few years' time, this'll be close to (if not completely) standard- and the companies selling downloads will bite the cost of running the movie server anyway.
(*) I won't call them nerds, because one of them, although he likes his "boys' toys" and all that techno-bullshit isn't *that* much more techno-literate than your average Windows user.
(**) And also because I don't like the feeling of wholesale ripping off albums without paying. Even though the music industry is- and always has been- so corrupt and full of coke-snorting leaches that I'm probably throwing most of my money away. Problem is that not paying the greedy and worthless gits their inflated price also results in the legitimate people in the chain (musicians, producers, distributors, etc.) not getting paid. But that's another issue.
Unfortunately I With respect, it's not about what you- or for that matter I- personally want. We can't assume that we're typical of the market, because we're probably not. It's what the market as a whole (i.e. millions of people) want.
I'm unfortunate enough to be using tiscalis "up to" 8meg on a line that can support 6 Although Tiscali are generally considered to be shit (you get what you pay for), I don't know that they're entirely to blame for poor line quality.
But regardless, even if the ISPs and/or the infrastructure in the UK continue to be shit, we can't be parochial here. Blu-Ray is a worldwide format, and the UK is only a small part of that. It's competing in numerous countries.
SACD certainly has been swamped by digital music and standard CD That sounds like CD overtook it- when, of course, CD was already the established format to beat.
you'll find they are popular with the more discerning audiophile and often found in abundance in the more specialised music stores and independents In other words, exactly what I said!
"There may be a very small (and very niche) specialist market amongst audiophiles, but from the point of view of the mass market it's virtually nonexistent."
Even if it was never going to take over from CD, I suspect that they still intended SACD to be more widespread and mainstream than it's turned out to be.
MiniDisc - whilst it has certainly lost it's appeal with the younger generation For which you can read *any* consumers, since they were likely the majority of non-professional people buying the format when it enjoyed its brief period in the sun.
portable MiniDisc player/recorders and hifi seperates can be found in any hifi store. They can? Are you referring to ones aimed at consumers? Because they certainly don't seem to be widely sold- if at all- in mainstream audio-visual and electronics stores any more. And that's a strong indication that it's near-dead as a consumer format.
If you say that MiniDisc is "doing well", people are going to assume that you mean as a the mainstream format it was primarily sold as, not a niche product.
No, on the contrary, my theory (or theories) took into account compression; exploiting the fact that on a moving object, compression artifacts would be in a different position (relative to the moving object) from frame to frame, whereas detail wouldn't, so they wouldn't stand out.
MPEG-2 (IIRC) only exploits identical information that is in the same or similar position between subsequent frames (I assume that if the object was moving, it would treat it as different- whereas MPEG-4/H264 I think is smarter, and can "shift" the reused bits to the object's new position if it's moving).
Unless I'm living in Korea or Tokyo, I don't want to be downloading 25-200gb over a period of days just to watch a film. Let's go with the more plausible (i.e. comparable to current Blu-Ray discs) 25GB figure instead of the 200GB which is pie-in-the-sky at present (and not actually *necessary* for a single movie in decent HD resolution).
Yes, that's still a lot to download by today's standards- but you're not looking very far into the future. Things will improve - bandwidth and capacity, and if Blu Ray sticks to its high price for 2-3 years, it could be hit by the unseen threat.
Besides which, although the quality may not be quite as good as Blu Ray, I'm pretty sure that they could manage "good enough" HD downloads in 4-6GB using the latest codecs. Afficionados would notice the difference, but Joe Public might not, and even if they could, they might not be bothered enough to fork out the money for Blu Ray's greater quality. Particularly if they got a download box subsidised (possibly free) from their ISP/cable-TV company/etc.
As for SACD, it's still doing well, in the UK at least Speaking as someone who also lives in the UK, I disagree with your assertion. If SACD is "doing well", you could have fooled me.
It's been around for years, and the discs are still rarely seen in most shops that sell tons of ordinary CDs. Even in mainstream music retailers like HMV and Virgin (err, "Zavvi"!) their line-up of hi-def audio discs is sparse, to put it mildly.
There may be a very small (and very niche) specialist market amongst audiophiles, but from the point of view of the mass market it's virtually nonexistent.
it's still doing well, in the UK at least, as is MD MiniDisc? Again, you could have fooled me.
I agree that it enjoyed a brief surge in UK popularity during the late-1990s/early-2000s. (Odd, given that the format had been around since the early-90s, yet didn't take off here back then). But that was 8 or so years ago now, and you rarely see it nowadays. IMHO the explanation is obvious- most people used MiniDisc as a more portable, recordable and convenient alternative to CD, and when high-capacity MP3 players became affordable they served this purpose much better.
Yes, the discs (and possibly players) are still on sale, but you don't hear much about them. It was never as big as cassette/vinyl/MP3 here, and didn't really become established in the same way. Nowdays, Sony promote their MP3 players, not MiniDisc, and the likes of Argos don't stock the players or discs any more.
As far as the UK is concerned, MiniDisc's time is long past.
I wouldn't buy one because I'm not an audiophile. But given todays "need" for 1bps MP3 played through a mobile/cellphone - it's nice to have a bit of quality now and then. I didn't say that it wasn't a nice idea. I said that it was a commercial failure- or rather *they* were, since it's likely that the rival formats damaged both their prospects.
Slashdot Mirror
I have it on good authority that Sony are going to send the "convert to pumpkin" firmware upgrade to all networked PS3s this coming Monday.
That's what I thought... unless you've shelled out for 100s of movies, wouldn't it be just more sensible (both financially and time-wise) to sell off your HD-DVD discs (and player) and rebuy them in Blu-Ray format? (The cost of the BR player doesn't count, as you'd have to buy one to watch transferred discs anyway).
Or better still, since their value is already gone, sit back and happily watch your worthless HD-DVD discs like you would have done anyway. Replace them in a couple of years time when the current Blu Ray releases have come down in price substantially.
Sounds better than shelling out for expensive blanks (and a burner, if you wouldn't have been buying one otherwise), especially when you're probably going to have to compress the film down to fit on a single-layer Blu Ray.
I've only one thing to say.... I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
I believe that he was basically saying that GIMP is missing features which would be considered essential by many professionals for medium and high-end graphics work. From their point-of-view, the fact that it lacks certain things like *proper* CMYK support and 16-bit colour are probably deal-killers, even if the rest of the package is good. (*)
OTOH, Photoshop CS is overfeatured for most people, and GIMP is still a powerful and economical tool that will meet their needs. It's certainly not a "toy" like MS Paint, but I can understand why a professional might see it that way.
(*) It reminds me of my film SLR camera. In a lot of respects, it was a good model for the money. However, IMHO the fact that it lacks depth-of-field preview or any form of remote shutter release (amongst other things) are serious omissions that can't be reasonably overcome, and count against it regardless of how nice the rest of the camera is. Stupid omissions that were rectified in the replacement model, but ones that rule this one out from being considered remotely "professional" or even "serious amateur". Not that I'm saying that GIMP is that hobbled (it's actually pretty good), but you see what I'm getting at.
Anyway....! From what I understand, it's a bit of a "holy war" issue, and I've refrained from asking it in other forums because I don't want to open a can of worms, but it strikes me as one of those omissions, so....
Can someone briefly explain in an unbiased manner the reasons that Gimp doesn't have 16-bit colour support, despite this having been an issue for years?
Yes, I know that Cinepaint- née FilmGimp- includes this, but that was forked well over five years ago, and AFAIK is developed specifically for the needs of the film industry. I believe that the lack of 16-bit support was a catalyst for the forking, although there's probably more than this separating them now. (IIRC Cinepaint's developers have pretty specific needs or desires that they're not interested in compromising on, and it's probably more hassle than it's worth to try to accommodate those in a mainstream package. So this isn't a Cinepaint/Gimp merge proposal... however, there are plenty of times mainstream users could use 16-bit colour as well).
What I said was that- for some reason of custom rather than practicality(?)- nowadays stones are only used for people's weights. You'd get strange looks from people in the UK if you talked about a "150 stone car", although that's probably because it wouldn't have *occurred* to most people to weigh a car in stones.
Alternate Answer 2) Whereas you suck just the right amount, right? Quit projecting neuroses about your sexual habits onto me, you weirdo. Seriously, I really have no idea how the hell you relate the words Blue and Ray with any kind of sexual activity. Here's the extremely convoluted and difficult-to-understand wordplay that led me to this conclusion:-
"Blu-Ray" sounds like "Blew Ray".
Uh... that's it. Though it's probably still a little too complicated for you to understand.
Basically, neither format totally dominated the analogue camcorder market, and this duopoly seems to have persisted right up until both were simultaneously pushed out of the market by digital formats. (*) In a way, this shows that the camcorder market was not the same as domestic VCRs; the former could probably tolerate two formats in a way that the latter couldn't, since people didn't buy prerecorded material in either format, and also because they probably transferred most of their video to full-size VHS when editing anyway.
(*) I note that Argos- who 18 months or so ago still sold both Hi-8 and SVHS-C analogue models at the bottom of their range no longer seem to stock either. Using Argos as an indicator of mainstream acceptance, it seems fair to declare that the analogue camcorder market is all but dead.
This didn't really occur to me until you brought up the wrong-sounding example of a "150 stone car"(!)
And that makes their "driving on the left" actually "driving upside-down on the right", so it's probably best not to mention them at all!
Not entirely true either- Betacam and Betamax *are* related to some extent. However, they're not identical or even playback-compatible, and I'm still fed up of seeing people repeat the "Betamax was a massive success in the professional market!" myth every time the format is discussed.
Summary of the differences between (professional) Betacam and (domestic) Betamax.
Written by some highly-intelligent guy, apparently!
As I describe here, while it is quite possible to argue that a tracker on its own has legitimate uses, when you take into account TPB's self-declared position (which they are totally open about), this makes things different.
Oh, and I'm willing to bet that the "indy book" you linked to (vanity-published, to use the traditional terminology) was banned from Amazon for being yet another vanity-published conspiracy title, and "banned" from Wikipedia when the guy tried to give it its own page, posted long diatribes in Articles for Deletion explaining why it was important information, despite the fact that WP probably gave it no worse treatment than any other non-proven notability vanity published book, and the author took this to be another part of the conspiracy. Just a guess.
So the guy's contacted ABBA in an attempt to get them to join, there's no record of them even having replied as of yet- let alone agreed, and you're still calling them corporate sell-outs on the basis of this?
Anyway, ABBA were always a very commercial band. Sp to me, ABBA selling out would be them producing shitty music- and unlike bands like The Rolling Stones, ABBA stopped recording when they came to a natural end, haven't been back together since, and turned down a reported $1 billion to tour again.
Mind you, I realise that the possibility of kinky inter-band shenanigans crossed the minds of some people. I'm not convinced that Benny-on-Bjorn action was high in many people's fantasy stakes, but Agnetha and Frida were probably a different kettle of fish(!)
As I said, this is not intended to pass judgement about either the legality or morality of what TPB are doing (in any jurisdiction). But I can't stand to hear BS pseudo-legalistic rationalisations trying to pretend that they're an uninvolved third party. If we were just discussing the torrent search engine itself, it could plausibly be looked at that way (there are plenty of legitimate (*) uses for BT). But as I said, that's not the case.
Anyway, it should be noted that this guy has *tried* to involve ABBA in this. I don't see anything indicating that they have even responded yet, let alone confirmed their agreement with him. I suspect that he wins either way (even if they don't get involved, having their name connected still gets him more attention).
Potential basis of ABBA legal action against the Pirate Bay: "I've been cheated by you since I don't know when" (thrown out due to vagueness surrounding the dates of the alleged infringments).
But let me give you a real-life example. People I work with are already downloading HD content via filesharing and newsgroups. Granted, they're probably prepared to put up with the inconvenience because it's "free" (if morally dubious), and it's probably compressed more highly than Blu-Ray.
I haven't seen it myself because I'm not really into films- its appearance could be the visual equivalent of a 64mbps MP3. But today's "doable for gadget freaks" (*) is tomorrows "convenient enough for Joe Public". So I think your assertions about gigabit Ethernet are a red herring. There's no backup! I'd rather have the physical copy of the disk. I personally like having a backup too. Actually, I like shelling out for music CDs because it gives me a high-quality uncompressed copy I can make high-quality MP3s from (**).
BUT... My point is that even if HD content gets to the downloadable stage, without reliable data backup I think a lot of people will see it as just a novelty in the beginning. (1) If you can't copy a BD disc, then in a sense that's also prone to damage with no way of backing it up.
(2) Consumers have shown that they'll go for DRM-enabled crap like iTunes (pre-iTunes-Plus) and similar that make it (at best) inconvenient to copy and transfer stuff and at worst impossible. Maybe (hopefully) this is changing as people realise that DRM is a PITA and stops them reasonably using their paid-for music (which illegal downloading doesn't- go figure), but I don't expect people to go anti-DRM overnight. So, figure 5 years at least to upgrade the network, and 5 years to stabilize, you're looking at 10 years for agressive progress at least. As I said, I know people that are downloading HD content over today's networks at today's speeds. Granted, they ended up having to pay a bit more to get multimedia newsgroup access and larger download quotas. But in a few years' time, this'll be close to (if not completely) standard- and the companies selling downloads will bite the cost of running the movie server anyway.
(*) I won't call them nerds, because one of them, although he likes his "boys' toys" and all that techno-bullshit isn't *that* much more techno-literate than your average Windows user.
(**) And also because I don't like the feeling of wholesale ripping off albums without paying. Even though the music industry is- and always has been- so corrupt and full of coke-snorting leaches that I'm probably throwing most of my money away. Problem is that not paying the greedy and worthless gits their inflated price also results in the legitimate people in the chain (musicians, producers, distributors, etc.) not getting paid. But that's another issue.
But regardless, even if the ISPs and/or the infrastructure in the UK continue to be shit, we can't be parochial here. Blu-Ray is a worldwide format, and the UK is only a small part of that. It's competing in numerous countries. SACD certainly has been swamped by digital music and standard CD That sounds like CD overtook it- when, of course, CD was already the established format to beat. you'll find they are popular with the more discerning audiophile and often found in abundance in the more specialised music stores and independents In other words, exactly what I said!
"There may be a very small (and very niche) specialist market amongst audiophiles, but from the point of view of the mass market it's virtually nonexistent."
Even if it was never going to take over from CD, I suspect that they still intended SACD to be more widespread and mainstream than it's turned out to be. MiniDisc - whilst it has certainly lost it's appeal with the younger generation For which you can read *any* consumers, since they were likely the majority of non-professional people buying the format when it enjoyed its brief period in the sun. portable MiniDisc player/recorders and hifi seperates can be found in any hifi store. They can? Are you referring to ones aimed at consumers? Because they certainly don't seem to be widely sold- if at all- in mainstream audio-visual and electronics stores any more. And that's a strong indication that it's near-dead as a consumer format.
If you say that MiniDisc is "doing well", people are going to assume that you mean as a the mainstream format it was primarily sold as, not a niche product.
No, on the contrary, my theory (or theories) took into account compression; exploiting the fact that on a moving object, compression artifacts would be in a different position (relative to the moving object) from frame to frame, whereas detail wouldn't, so they wouldn't stand out.
MPEG-2 (IIRC) only exploits identical information that is in the same or similar position between subsequent frames (I assume that if the object was moving, it would treat it as different- whereas MPEG-4/H264 I think is smarter, and can "shift" the reused bits to the object's new position if it's moving).
Yes, that's still a lot to download by today's standards- but you're not looking very far into the future. Things will improve - bandwidth and capacity, and if Blu Ray sticks to its high price for 2-3 years, it could be hit by the unseen threat.
Besides which, although the quality may not be quite as good as Blu Ray, I'm pretty sure that they could manage "good enough" HD downloads in 4-6GB using the latest codecs. Afficionados would notice the difference, but Joe Public might not, and even if they could, they might not be bothered enough to fork out the money for Blu Ray's greater quality. Particularly if they got a download box subsidised (possibly free) from their ISP/cable-TV company/etc. As for SACD, it's still doing well, in the UK at least Speaking as someone who also lives in the UK, I disagree with your assertion. If SACD is "doing well", you could have fooled me.
It's been around for years, and the discs are still rarely seen in most shops that sell tons of ordinary CDs. Even in mainstream music retailers like HMV and Virgin (err, "Zavvi"!) their line-up of hi-def audio discs is sparse, to put it mildly.
There may be a very small (and very niche) specialist market amongst audiophiles, but from the point of view of the mass market it's virtually nonexistent. it's still doing well, in the UK at least, as is MD MiniDisc? Again, you could have fooled me.
I agree that it enjoyed a brief surge in UK popularity during the late-1990s/early-2000s. (Odd, given that the format had been around since the early-90s, yet didn't take off here back then). But that was 8 or so years ago now, and you rarely see it nowadays. IMHO the explanation is obvious- most people used MiniDisc as a more portable, recordable and convenient alternative to CD, and when high-capacity MP3 players became affordable they served this purpose much better.
Yes, the discs (and possibly players) are still on sale, but you don't hear much about them. It was never as big as cassette/vinyl/MP3 here, and didn't really become established in the same way. Nowdays, Sony promote their MP3 players, not MiniDisc, and the likes of Argos don't stock the players or discs any more.
As far as the UK is concerned, MiniDisc's time is long past. I wouldn't buy one because I'm not an audiophile. But given todays "need" for 1bps MP3 played through a mobile/cellphone - it's nice to have a bit of quality now and then. I didn't say that it wasn't a nice idea. I said that it was a commercial failure- or rather *they* were, since it's likely that the rival formats damaged both their prospects.