Well, only confusing given that PAL runs slower than NTSC to start with. Otherwise, it appears that SP = standard speed, LP = half standard speed, EP = one third standard speed.
EP wasn't common on PAL models, possibly because they ran slower to begin with (despite the fact the total number of lines per second is almost identical to NTSC... huh?). But I did have a late model that included it.
The longest readily available tape was the T-120. [..] 10.5 hours per tape sounds like a security tape setting. "At 10.15 this morning, a grey blob entered the store, and subsequently pulled out a dark gray blob, and brandished it at the cashier."
Well, you'd be surprised; I got a watchable 12 hours from my most recent (circa 2004) VHS recorder.
To be fair, this was a PAL model, and PAL tapes ran slower for some reason (*). However, by the early-90s, E-180 and E-240 tapes (**) were already widely available and the most common.
So I had a few E-240 tapes and used them on EP (one-third speed) which was actually quite watchable on a portable set; slightly inferior to standard play speed, but not as much as you'd expect. (***) 'Course even then I knew that I'd end up with a DVR sooner rather than later, so it was a bit late to get a machine with that nice perk.
(*) Don't know why, as AFAICT the total number of lines per second works out almost identical.
(**) *Blank* tapes are identical and interchangeable between NTSC and PAL, but the different speed- and hence running time- means it makes more sense to have different systems, e.g. an E-180 tape would be a T-129 on an NTSC machine.
(***) Though that model had Hi-Fi stereo, which didn't suffer as much due to the decrease in speed. Mono non-HiFi models had linearly-recorded sound which was signficantly degraded even at LP (half-speed) because the linear speed of the tape was *very* slow.
$25,000? While hardly cheap, it's not extortionate either- even taking inflation into account, it'd be pretty low by modern standards. The fact that the opening would have been 15 seconds rather than 30, or a couple of minutes isn't really the issue- the fact that someone that famous was on the recording would likely pay them back.
You are definately a racist, according to th PC crowd.
Who exactly are this "PC crowd" who state that *all* black people (as opposed to American ones) are "African American"?
While there probably *are* some people who genuinely espouse the stereotypical "gone mad"-type political correctness, a lot of it appears to be strawman-type misrepresentation and assumption by those who disagree with it, or just assume that something is going to be the case.
Oh, interesting article here, by the way.
Anyone who has extra-dark skin, or is distantly related to someone who might have had such a condition, cannot be called Black, or any other term relating to their skin color, or their ancesters skin color. The only approved term is "African American".
Well, in the US perhaps.
Tutu has been reported to be African American in numerous magazine articles, so that should be considered official canon.
Why does that follow or make it "official"? It could simply mean that the article writers were simply over-sensitive to the *perceived* wishes of others (and desire not to be seen as causing offense).
Or it could be that they were simply stupid and/or lazy.
That's not really the point I was making. What I meant was that if the MiniDisc had been allowed to do what it would clearly have been capable of (had it not been hobbled), it would have permitted data transfer and usage more akin to what we associate with MP3, but the better part of a decade in advance.
Of course the hardware would inevitably have run into a dead end (as MD basically has done nowadays anyway), but it *could* have knocked spots off the competition in its day.
Anyway, Sony lost the portable market and they thoroughly deserved to as well.
Heh, a bit similar to audio - the execs and marketers hoping for their vision of the future (SACD, Minidisc, etc.) vs. what turned out to be the future (mp3,... you know the rest of the story)
Someone made the very astute point that hardware-wise, MiniDisc *could* have been something much closer to MP3 much sooner... *if* they hadn't deliberately hobbled it, rendering it into something not that much better than the cassette.
The fact that they forced people to copy via standard audio input at standard speeds, restricted recopying of material and generally stopped people from accessing what the hardware could really have been capable of (e.g. hard-drive like data access)... had they not done that it would have been a different story. I gather that they loosened some of these restrictions later, but too little, too late.
Found a complete X-Files box set for under $100 brand new [..] Same with a bunch of other movies I liked but never had the cash to blow $20-$30 to get on DVD. Dr. Strangelove [..] found it on the cheap given the advent of blu-ray.
I don't think the fall in DVD prices has as much to do with Blu-Ray as you think- they'd already fallen significantly by the mid-2000s. Box sets in particular were already massively cheaper than the equivalent material would have been on VHS.
I saw the Matrix 10-disc set selling for around UK £20 three or more years ago, before Blu-Ray was remotely affordable for the vast majority of people, and major films have been on sale in the under-£5 ( US $8?) price range for quite a number of years now.
You missed the point he was making. You have to wear annoying glasses to watch 3D- you don't have to do anything extra to enjoy the benefits of sound or of colour, so the two situations aren't comparable.
Ironic that you address me by name- or rather, by nick- since there's no proof that you're the original AC. It's possible- or even probable- that you're someone completely different trying to score points and/or simply trolling.
It is your response which I consider offensive and so biased as to be both obnoxious and cruel.
Really? Please explain why.
I made the basis of *my* accusations quite clear and didn't call anyone an "evil bastard", unlike "your" comment.
I'll be damned if the spirit of what is spoken is allowed to be detracted arbitrarily in the language which it is spoken.
As if people in China can really afford a real iphone to begin with, they just buy a knock off. Only the snobs in China care about buying a "real" iphone.
You might find this article of interest. It's a few years old, but the basic story is that Nikon sell a low-end, mediocre-quality camera made by Cosina under their own name to developing markets like China because people there want to own a leading brand like Nikon, regardless of the actual quality of the camera. (As the article states, the Centon camera- which was intended for expert to the West- was a higher quality device).
But hey, if you're an evil bastard yourself then I guess you're going to expect others to be the
same as you, and thereby miss the obvious truth of the matter.
You know, you might have had a fair point until that last paragraph where you threw away any legitimacy you had. Even if you disagree with the AC (and his comment came across as somewhat tongue-in-cheek), you're reading *way* more into his motives than any unbiased person would consider reasonable.
It says a lot more about you than it does about him that you ascribe to him the characteristic of "evil bastard". Actually, using your logic (expecting others to be the same as you), this would make you the "evil bastard", though in truth it's more likely that you're a rabid Apple fanboy displaying the typical mark of a zealot that you assume anyone who disagrees with your pet cause is evil and supports everything you stand against.
Or is it that UK movies have a shade too much Real Is Brown [tvtropes.org]?
Let me guess- you've only ever seen two British movies, and one of them was Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"? And the other was its follow-up, "Snatch"- right?
anyone who complains about missing features in general but fails to point this out
Well, that's the problem then. The vast majority do not fall into that category because contrary to what Iron Condor asserted
What is it that "professionals" do or need that the GIMP can not do or provide? I have never gotten an answer. Not once.
most seem well aware of CMYK, layer effects and the like.
So yeah, if Iron Condor wasn't blatantly talking rubbish when implying that no-one could explain what features PS had that GIMP didn't, then yeah- what you say would logically follow. But he *was* talking rubbish, so it's irrelevant.
Reading it after the text cited from Iron Condor's post should make my reasoning quite clear.
Yes, but as I said, Iron Condor was talking out of his arse.
You should still be able to point out why someone might need the articulated lorry instead of the car. Apparently most people who bash the Gimp are not able to do so.
Simply asserting that something is "apparent" doesn't make it more true.
The lack of proper native CMYK handling and layer effects *always* come up in any thread of more than trivial length, typically alongside a raft of other issues. They were particularly in evidence in this discussion, so I'm not sure what you were looking at if you missed it.
and/or they have never used the Gimp
Baseless speculation.
Please make a real effort to prove that my reasoning is incorrect.
On the contrary, there was no reasoning on your part to disprove. You made the accusation that "they have never used the Gimp" with no evidence to back it up.
The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it.
If this is all you can do, there's no need to take you seriously.
Again, quite the opposite. The onus is on you to demonstrate that your argument warranted taking seriously or spending time on in the first place.
My two-word dismissal was intentionally terse as you'd provided no evidence that your accusation was anything more than "baseless speculation".
For me this means that _most_ people who complain about those missing features have actually never used them
No, from what I've seen, most such "complaints" are pointing out that GIMP lacks certain high-end features that professionals may need, and that there *is* a legitimate reason for such people to prefer Photoshop. It doesn't mean that the person pointing it out is one of them- I can tell you why someone may require an articulated lorry instead of a car, even if I'd be fine with a car myself.
Well, what you're saying is broadly correct (even if you exaggerate the percentages slightly), but it misses the point. Yes, the vast majority of non-professionals will neither want nor need the extra power- nor complexity- of Photoshop over GIMP.
But it was professional use were were discussing (in response to Iron Condor's ill-informed rant implying that any complaints about high-end features lacking in GIMP were merely point-scoring). Fact is that if you're doing high-end work, GIMP *does* have some serious deficiencies.
Slashdot Mirror
despite the fact the total number of lines per second is almost identical to NTSC... huh?
The PAL standard is defined as 25 fps, while NTSC was defined as 29.xx fps (forget exactly what).
Read what I said again- I said the total number of *lines* per second was equal. Already replied to someone about that; see this post.
BTW, Commodore64Love gave the apparent answer to this issue in a reply to the above post.
The reason is 50 Hz frame rate for PAL and 60 Hz for NTSC.
Yes, I'm aware of the different frame rates, but you forgot also that PAL has more lines than NTSC. I was doing the following rough calculation:-
50 fields/sec x 625 lines x 0.5 = 15,625 lines/sec (PAL)
60 fields/sec x 525 lines x 0.5 = 15,750 lines/sec (NTSC)
Negligible difference... so anyone know why PAL VHS tapes ran significantly slower (and longer)?
Well, only confusing given that PAL runs slower than NTSC to start with. Otherwise, it appears that SP = standard speed, LP = half standard speed, EP = one third standard speed.
EP wasn't common on PAL models, possibly because they ran slower to begin with (despite the fact the total number of lines per second is almost identical to NTSC... huh?). But I did have a late model that included it.
The longest readily available tape was the T-120. [..] 10.5 hours per tape sounds like a security tape setting. "At 10.15 this morning, a grey blob entered the store, and subsequently pulled out a dark gray blob, and brandished it at the cashier."
Well, you'd be surprised; I got a watchable 12 hours from my most recent (circa 2004) VHS recorder.
To be fair, this was a PAL model, and PAL tapes ran slower for some reason (*). However, by the early-90s, E-180 and E-240 tapes (**) were already widely available and the most common.
So I had a few E-240 tapes and used them on EP (one-third speed) which was actually quite watchable on a portable set; slightly inferior to standard play speed, but not as much as you'd expect. (***) 'Course even then I knew that I'd end up with a DVR sooner rather than later, so it was a bit late to get a machine with that nice perk.
(*) Don't know why, as AFAICT the total number of lines per second works out almost identical.
(**) *Blank* tapes are identical and interchangeable between NTSC and PAL, but the different speed- and hence running time- means it makes more sense to have different systems, e.g. an E-180 tape would be a T-129 on an NTSC machine.
(***) Though that model had Hi-Fi stereo, which didn't suffer as much due to the decrease in speed. Mono non-HiFi models had linearly-recorded sound which was signficantly degraded even at LP (half-speed) because the linear speed of the tape was *very* slow.
You can always put music onto a cassette. Never hear the term "Mix Tape"?
No, no, *please* don't do that! As the campaign from the Walkman's glory days informed us....
;'-(
Home Taping is Killing Music... and it's Illegal.
I still feel guilty about how copying some of my parents' LPs had caused the end of the music industry by 1988.
*cough*
Robots vs. Corpse Bride
$25,000? While hardly cheap, it's not extortionate either- even taking inflation into account, it'd be pretty low by modern standards. The fact that the opening would have been 15 seconds rather than 30, or a couple of minutes isn't really the issue- the fact that someone that famous was on the recording would likely pay them back.
You are definately a racist, according to th PC crowd.
Who exactly are this "PC crowd" who state that *all* black people (as opposed to American ones) are "African American"?
While there probably *are* some people who genuinely espouse the stereotypical "gone mad"-type political correctness, a lot of it appears to be strawman-type misrepresentation and assumption by those who disagree with it, or just assume that something is going to be the case. Oh, interesting article here, by the way.
Anyone who has extra-dark skin, or is distantly related to someone who might have had such a condition, cannot be called Black, or any other term relating to their skin color, or their ancesters skin color. The only approved term is "African American".
Well, in the US perhaps.
Tutu has been reported to be African American in numerous magazine articles, so that should be considered official canon.
Why does that follow or make it "official"? It could simply mean that the article writers were simply over-sensitive to the *perceived* wishes of others (and desire not to be seen as causing offense).
:-)
Or it could be that they were simply stupid and/or lazy.
Or all of the above.
Imagine going through this crap. [..] Mary in New York needs to borrow some fertilizer.
Ship the big pile of crap to Mary. Problem solved!
That's not really the point I was making. What I meant was that if the MiniDisc had been allowed to do what it would clearly have been capable of (had it not been hobbled), it would have permitted data transfer and usage more akin to what we associate with MP3, but the better part of a decade in advance.
Of course the hardware would inevitably have run into a dead end (as MD basically has done nowadays anyway), but it *could* have knocked spots off the competition in its day.
Anyway, Sony lost the portable market and they thoroughly deserved to as well.
Heh, a bit similar to audio - the execs and marketers hoping for their vision of the future (SACD, Minidisc, etc.) vs. what turned out to be the future (mp3, ... you know the rest of the story)
Someone made the very astute point that hardware-wise, MiniDisc *could* have been something much closer to MP3 much sooner... *if* they hadn't deliberately hobbled it, rendering it into something not that much better than the cassette.
The fact that they forced people to copy via standard audio input at standard speeds, restricted recopying of material and generally stopped people from accessing what the hardware could really have been capable of (e.g. hard-drive like data access)... had they not done that it would have been a different story. I gather that they loosened some of these restrictions later, but too little, too late.
Found a complete X-Files box set for under $100 brand new [..] Same with a bunch of other movies I liked but never had the cash to blow $20-$30 to get on DVD. Dr. Strangelove [..] found it on the cheap given the advent of blu-ray.
I don't think the fall in DVD prices has as much to do with Blu-Ray as you think- they'd already fallen significantly by the mid-2000s. Box sets in particular were already massively cheaper than the equivalent material would have been on VHS.
I saw the Matrix 10-disc set selling for around UK £20 three or more years ago, before Blu-Ray was remotely affordable for the vast majority of people, and major films have been on sale in the under-£5 ( US $8?) price range for quite a number of years now.
You missed the point he was making. You have to wear annoying glasses to watch 3D- you don't have to do anything extra to enjoy the benefits of sound or of colour, so the two situations aren't comparable.
The success of Android means a potential 'licensing fee' from every Android install.
What licensing fee are you talking about?
Android is based on Linux- you obviously forgot that they'll have to pay SCO a $699 licensing fee, you.... er, cocksmoking teabagger. ;-)
More like the (+1 "it's a trap!") mod, you mean.
Obligatory bash.org quote (^_^)
You are overly optimistic if you think Aunt Marge and Uncle Joe will have ever even seen or heard of "the little black box with the white letters" :)
They'd think you were talking about the keyboard (beige hasn't been the standard for years now). Or, as they'd call it, "the computer".
Slashdot is starting to become a news aggregator.
Oh my! Really?! Someone warn the neighbours!!!
It'd be a real shame if Slashdot moved away from its original purpose of being a database of rye bread recipes...
Seriously, just what did you think it was meant to be in the first place?
Actually Dogtanian
Ironic that you address me by name- or rather, by nick- since there's no proof that you're the original AC. It's possible- or even probable- that you're someone completely different trying to score points and/or simply trolling.
It is your response which I consider offensive and so biased as to be both obnoxious and cruel.
Really? Please explain why.
I made the basis of *my* accusations quite clear and didn't call anyone an "evil bastard", unlike "your" comment.
I'll be damned if the spirit of what is spoken is allowed to be detracted arbitrarily in the language which it is spoken.
Could you please repeat that in plain English?
As if people in China can really afford a real iphone to begin with, they just buy a knock off. Only the snobs in China care about buying a "real" iphone.
You might find this article of interest. It's a few years old, but the basic story is that Nikon sell a low-end, mediocre-quality camera made by Cosina under their own name to developing markets like China because people there want to own a leading brand like Nikon, regardless of the actual quality of the camera. (As the article states, the Centon camera- which was intended for expert to the West- was a higher quality device).
But hey, if you're an evil bastard yourself then I guess you're going to expect others to be the same as you, and thereby miss the obvious truth of the matter.
You know, you might have had a fair point until that last paragraph where you threw away any legitimacy you had. Even if you disagree with the AC (and his comment came across as somewhat tongue-in-cheek), you're reading *way* more into his motives than any unbiased person would consider reasonable.
It says a lot more about you than it does about him that you ascribe to him the characteristic of "evil bastard". Actually, using your logic (expecting others to be the same as you), this would make you the "evil bastard", though in truth it's more likely that you're a rabid Apple fanboy displaying the typical mark of a zealot that you assume anyone who disagrees with your pet cause is evil and supports everything you stand against.
Or is it that UK movies have a shade too much Real Is Brown [tvtropes.org]?
Let me guess- you've only ever seen two British movies, and one of them was Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"? And the other was its follow-up, "Snatch"- right?
They're not all like that, you know.
anyone who complains about missing features in general but fails to point this out
Well, that's the problem then. The vast majority do not fall into that category because contrary to what Iron Condor asserted
What is it that "professionals" do or need that the GIMP can not do or provide? I have never gotten an answer. Not once.
most seem well aware of CMYK, layer effects and the like.
So yeah, if Iron Condor wasn't blatantly talking rubbish when implying that no-one could explain what features PS had that GIMP didn't, then yeah- what you say would logically follow. But he *was* talking rubbish, so it's irrelevant.
Reading it after the text cited from Iron Condor's post should make my reasoning quite clear.
Yes, but as I said, Iron Condor was talking out of his arse.
You should still be able to point out why someone might need the articulated lorry instead of the car. Apparently most people who bash the Gimp are not able to do so.
Simply asserting that something is "apparent" doesn't make it more true.
The lack of proper native CMYK handling and layer effects *always* come up in any thread of more than trivial length, typically alongside a raft of other issues. They were particularly in evidence in this discussion, so I'm not sure what you were looking at if you missed it.
and/or they have never used the Gimp
Baseless speculation.
Please make a real effort to prove that my reasoning is incorrect.
On the contrary, there was no reasoning on your part to disprove. You made the accusation that "they have never used the Gimp" with no evidence to back it up.
The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it.
If this is all you can do, there's no need to take you seriously.
Again, quite the opposite. The onus is on you to demonstrate that your argument warranted taking seriously or spending time on in the first place.
My two-word dismissal was intentionally terse as you'd provided no evidence that your accusation was anything more than "baseless speculation".
For me this means that _most_ people who complain about those missing features have actually never used them
No, from what I've seen, most such "complaints" are pointing out that GIMP lacks certain high-end features that professionals may need, and that there *is* a legitimate reason for such people to prefer Photoshop. It doesn't mean that the person pointing it out is one of them- I can tell you why someone may require an articulated lorry instead of a car, even if I'd be fine with a car myself.
and/or they have never used the Gimp
Baseless speculation.
Well, what you're saying is broadly correct (even if you exaggerate the percentages slightly), but it misses the point. Yes, the vast majority of non-professionals will neither want nor need the extra power- nor complexity- of Photoshop over GIMP.
But it was professional use were were discussing (in response to Iron Condor's ill-informed rant implying that any complaints about high-end features lacking in GIMP were merely point-scoring). Fact is that if you're doing high-end work, GIMP *does* have some serious deficiencies.