One really shouldn't use the words 'Big' and 'Delta' in the same headline unless it is about Delta Burke. I had to read a little ways in before I realized I had the wrong image in my mind.
It's not a matter of 'better'. It's a matter of ease of use. I'm not even trying to make a point that VB is superior in terms of capability or efficiency. What VB excels at is creating a quick app with a useful interface to do something simple.
"Visual basic - named so because you can SEE how stupid it is"
Actually VB is pretty cool. It's a pity that Windows doesn't come with it. If it did, then we'd have a handy, easy-to-use app generator. It's pretty cool that I can quickly write apps with useful interfaces to assist with my day to day chores.
"actually, Star Trek V, the one that Shatner wrote and directed, is by far the worst."
Shatner was not to blame for STV's failure. (entirely, anyway...)
STV was filmed during an actor's guild strike of some sorts. Not only did this affect the budget of the movie, but it also affected their ability to get some talent they needed. For example, ILM wasn't around to do the visual effects this time of round.
Lots of changes had to be made to the script in order to accomodate the lack of things (like some rock creatures) showing up in the movie. It became a hobbled mess.
Is it Shatner's fault that the movie sucked? Not really, no. If the movie didn't have those problems, would it have been good? Hard to say. Probably not, from what I've read. It's probable that the first movie would be considered the worst, though. (I think it is anyway, but what do I know?)
I think it was the book 'The Art of Star Trek' that explained what happened in 5, if anybody's curious. That book's seriously cool if you're interested in all the work they did to make those movies. You'd be surprised.
I shouldn't have to switch to OSX just to get a little respect. Especially true when I'm actually doing cool stuff with my computer as opposed to trying to make it play catch-up with Windows.
You are correct, Maya is on Linux. Lightwave will be able to render on Linux, but you still need Win/Mac in order to create animation on it.
The problem with Maya is that the renderer is quite inferior to Lightwave's. You'd haveta get Renderman. That puppy's expensive. $5,000 last I checked.
"What's funny to me is that a lot of the criticisms being levelled at the new films also frequently apply to the old. I think the audience has changed more than the George Lucas' approach the films."
I doubt it. I just watched the original 3. I had lots of fun watching those. I watched AOTC and about fell asleep.
"Meanwhile, SP3 for Windows 2000 [microsoft.com] is released, implementing the new "Set Program Access and Defaults" feature. Unsurprisingly, Slashdot is silent."
I'm not surprised. Slashdot seems blissfully unaware that not everybody can switch to Linux. I'm a 3D artist. I use Lightwave, Photoshop, and After Effects extensively. Despite the fact that Lightwave is responsible for a fair number of pixels on Star Trek, Babylon 5, and a whole slew of other shows that/.'ers like, I still get treated like a moron for preferring Windows 2000 over Linux. Never mind that it is reliable, gets the job done, plus I can play all my favorite games as well. No no no, you see MS is evil and doesn't do anything right.
I mentioned wanting to use VNC like a KVM the other day and somebody responded with "I do stuff like that all the time. It's called the X Windowing System. Oh, you're probably running MS Windoze, never mind.". Yeah, Linux'd really solve that problem there. Too bad my rendering times would suddenly become infinity.
While I'm busy doing my job with Windows, Slashdot is posting minor updates to the Linux kernel. I think it's silly.
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this post, but it felt good to let it out. I don't mind/. blasting MS when they do something wrong, but I do wish they'd pay attention to the brighter news from MS's camp. If the Linux community acts like it's solely out for blood when dealing with MS, nobody'll take their comments seriously despite being the most informed about them. "Oh, it's those stupid Slashdotters again. What are they blithering about?"
"A simple list of notable changes for the average kernel-compiling Linux user."
I think the biggest change that was made to the kernel update was the upgrade in version number. I wouldn't trivialize this update, it did earn it quite a bit of visibility on Slashdot!
"Hmm... you must have the finished script for episode III, so you're absolutely certain that what we view as "inconsistencies" are in fact that."
It's not necessary to read the script to arrive at that conclusion. At BEST Lucas might be able to fix some of it up. But let's be realistic: Watch Eps 4-6, then watch Ep 1. If R2D2 wasn't in it, you'd have little to no reason to know you were watching Star Wars.
Let's face facts, Lucas doesn't understand Star Wars' appeal. If he did, we'd have fun movies intead of padded demoonstrations of what ILM is capable of.
For some reason, NTSC doesn't get translated to RGB very well at all. I've never seen a capture card with tuner that looked good on PC. For some reason you need a much more expensive solution.
I never did fully understand that. TV studios have capture cards that do it wonderfully w/o tuner. I know those cost ridiculous amounts of money tho.
"'ve tried to do this a bit myself, and the basic problem I ran into was that my processor just wasn't fast enough to handle the demand."
It's not the processor, it's the codec. I built a PVR out of a 400 mhz Pentium 2 that captured at 640 by 480 @ 30 fps. Magic, eh? No. The MotionJPEG codec by PicVideo handles it just fine. As a matter of fact, it only used about 60% of my system resources.
The down side is that it is quite a video hog. I think it was 2 gigs an hour, but it might have been more than that. However, it did capture elegantly, and it played back smoothly.
I actually started speccing out a new PVR based system using this codec. I was going to have a 10 gig buffer (I think it was good for roughly 4 hours at good quality...), then on the shows I wanted to keep it'd run an extra background process to recompress that video into something like DivX or Windows Media or something.
I even wanted to go to the extra step to make it run at 60 fps. This *is* possible. I've managed to do it. However I ran into one major problem: I had to tell it whether it should start on the even fields or the odd fields. Choose the wrong one and the video looks like it has parkinson'.
I couldn't automate a way to automatically detect the field and process from that. DAMN!! Hopefully that problem will get resolved one day. When it does, my P2 400 will be a rather envious capture box. 60fps video on a PC looks sooOOOoo much better than 30.
"Personally, I'd take a PC PVR over Tivo anyday, (heck, i am an early adopter), but I wouldn't recommend it to my grandparents..."
Here's the conclusion I came to:
PC PVRs are ideal for: -Archiving everything you record -Watching an entire series -Dumping stuff to your laptop to watch on a trip. (I've done this a few times now, it's great!) -Watching TV Shows while you're browsing the web
TV-Based Tivo etc are ideal for: -Watching stuff on your TV (much better video quality) -Pausing/Skipping commercials -Catching a new show that you're curious about -Shows that aren't that important to watch after a week's gone by. (Archived shows eat up at the ol hard drive space...)... and so on.
What am I getting at? Well, frankly, I want both. I already have a PC-PVR I used to watch the entire run of Quantum Leap, in order. But now I want a Tivo to sample some of the other shows that I don't want to bother setting up the PVR to capture.
For everybody else, I'd recommend starting with a Tivo, and building a Tivo-like PC if you have larger needs with it. You do take quite a hit on visual quality when you go the PC route.
Slashdot Mirror
...until PDA's have a tactile interface. I'd love to smack my PocketPC in the middle of a meeting and have it go 'WaaaaAAAaaaa!'.
Your nickname's almost as good as mine. Heh.
"Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?"
One really shouldn't use the words 'Big' and 'Delta' in the same headline unless it is about Delta Burke. I had to read a little ways in before I realized I had the wrong image in my mind.
"Oh please...give me perl any day"
PHP is so much better than perl. I wouldn't use perl to write "Hello World".
It's not a matter of 'better'. It's a matter of ease of use. I'm not even trying to make a point that VB is superior in terms of capability or efficiency. What VB excels at is creating a quick app with a useful interface to do something simple.
"Visual basic - named so because you can SEE how stupid it is"
Actually VB is pretty cool. It's a pity that Windows doesn't come with it. If it did, then we'd have a handy, easy-to-use app generator. It's pretty cool that I can quickly write apps with useful interfaces to assist with my day to day chores.
"actually, Star Trek V, the one that Shatner wrote and directed, is by far the worst."
Shatner was not to blame for STV's failure. (entirely, anyway...)
STV was filmed during an actor's guild strike of some sorts. Not only did this affect the budget of the movie, but it also affected their ability to get some talent they needed. For example, ILM wasn't around to do the visual effects this time of round.
Lots of changes had to be made to the script in order to accomodate the lack of things (like some rock creatures) showing up in the movie. It became a hobbled mess.
Is it Shatner's fault that the movie sucked? Not really, no. If the movie didn't have those problems, would it have been good? Hard to say. Probably not, from what I've read. It's probable that the first movie would be considered the worst, though. (I think it is anyway, but what do I know?)
I think it was the book 'The Art of Star Trek' that explained what happened in 5, if anybody's curious. That book's seriously cool if you're interested in all the work they did to make those movies. You'd be surprised.
"wow, basic."
VISUAL Basic...
Hmm wasn't the Klingon off-shoot race was called the Dinghal Bah'rie?
I shouldn't have to switch to OSX just to get a little respect. Especially true when I'm actually doing cool stuff with my computer as opposed to trying to make it play catch-up with Windows.
"If that's "busy" I want your job."
I posted on a Saturday, numbnuts.
You are correct, Maya is on Linux. Lightwave will be able to render on Linux, but you still need Win/Mac in order to create animation on it.
The problem with Maya is that the renderer is quite inferior to Lightwave's. You'd haveta get Renderman. That puppy's expensive. $5,000 last I checked.
"What's funny to me is that a lot of the criticisms being levelled at the new films also frequently apply to the old. I think the audience has changed more than the George Lucas' approach the films."
I doubt it. I just watched the original 3. I had lots of fun watching those. I watched AOTC and about fell asleep.
"Meanwhile, SP3 for Windows 2000 [microsoft.com] is released, implementing the new "Set Program Access and Defaults" feature. Unsurprisingly, Slashdot is silent."
/.'ers like, I still get treated like a moron for preferring Windows 2000 over Linux. Never mind that it is reliable, gets the job done, plus I can play all my favorite games as well. No no no, you see MS is evil and doesn't do anything right.
/. blasting MS when they do something wrong, but I do wish they'd pay attention to the brighter news from MS's camp. If the Linux community acts like it's solely out for blood when dealing with MS, nobody'll take their comments seriously despite being the most informed about them. "Oh, it's those stupid Slashdotters again. What are they blithering about?"
I'm not surprised. Slashdot seems blissfully unaware that not everybody can switch to Linux. I'm a 3D artist. I use Lightwave, Photoshop, and After Effects extensively. Despite the fact that Lightwave is responsible for a fair number of pixels on Star Trek, Babylon 5, and a whole slew of other shows that
I mentioned wanting to use VNC like a KVM the other day and somebody responded with "I do stuff like that all the time. It's called the X Windowing System. Oh, you're probably running MS Windoze, never mind.". Yeah, Linux'd really solve that problem there. Too bad my rendering times would suddenly become infinity.
While I'm busy doing my job with Windows, Slashdot is posting minor updates to the Linux kernel. I think it's silly.
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this post, but it felt good to let it out. I don't mind
"A simple list of notable changes for the average kernel-compiling Linux user."
I think the biggest change that was made to the kernel update was the upgrade in version number. I wouldn't trivialize this update, it did earn it quite a bit of visibility on Slashdot!
*Hopes people have a sense of humor today.*
"Hmm... you must have the finished script for episode III, so you're absolutely certain that what we view as "inconsistencies" are in fact that."
It's not necessary to read the script to arrive at that conclusion. At BEST Lucas might be able to fix some of it up. But let's be realistic: Watch Eps 4-6, then watch Ep 1. If R2D2 wasn't in it, you'd have little to no reason to know you were watching Star Wars.
Let's face facts, Lucas doesn't understand Star Wars' appeal. If he did, we'd have fun movies intead of padded demoonstrations of what ILM is capable of.
LOL! I just bought the MST3k version of that a few days ago.
He's probably waiting until Episode 3 is done so that digitally correct the inconsistencies he's creating in 4-6.
Well.. he is putting the DVD's out in order. 1... 2... 3...
... if they'd make a version that's MST'd.
For some reason, NTSC doesn't get translated to RGB very well at all. I've never seen a capture card with tuner that looked good on PC. For some reason you need a much more expensive solution.
I never did fully understand that. TV studios have capture cards that do it wonderfully w/o tuner. I know those cost ridiculous amounts of money tho.
*hopes for Digital TV soon.*
Funny, my Pentium 2 400 captures at 640 by 480 at 30 fps and uses only about 60% of runtime to do it.
I'm using Motion JPEG by PicVideo. It's a kick ass codec. At decent quality, though, it does take about 2-gigs an hour. Wanna keep it? Recompress it.
"'ve tried to do this a bit myself, and the basic problem I ran into was that my processor just wasn't fast enough to handle the demand."
It's not the processor, it's the codec. I built a PVR out of a 400 mhz Pentium 2 that captured at 640 by 480 @ 30 fps. Magic, eh? No. The MotionJPEG codec by PicVideo handles it just fine. As a matter of fact, it only used about 60% of my system resources.
The down side is that it is quite a video hog. I think it was 2 gigs an hour, but it might have been more than that. However, it did capture elegantly, and it played back smoothly.
I actually started speccing out a new PVR based system using this codec. I was going to have a 10 gig buffer (I think it was good for roughly 4 hours at good quality...), then on the shows I wanted to keep it'd run an extra background process to recompress that video into something like DivX or Windows Media or something.
I even wanted to go to the extra step to make it run at 60 fps. This *is* possible. I've managed to do it. However I ran into one major problem: I had to tell it whether it should start on the even fields or the odd fields. Choose the wrong one and the video looks like it has parkinson'.
I couldn't automate a way to automatically detect the field and process from that. DAMN!! Hopefully that problem will get resolved one day. When it does, my P2 400 will be a rather envious capture box. 60fps video on a PC looks sooOOOoo much better than 30.
"Personally, I'd take a PC PVR over Tivo anyday, (heck, i am an early adopter), but I wouldn't recommend it to my grandparents..."
... and so on.
Here's the conclusion I came to:
PC PVRs are ideal for:
-Archiving everything you record
-Watching an entire series
-Dumping stuff to your laptop to watch on a trip. (I've done this a few times now, it's great!)
-Watching TV Shows while you're browsing the web
TV-Based Tivo etc are ideal for:
-Watching stuff on your TV (much better video quality)
-Pausing/Skipping commercials
-Catching a new show that you're curious about
-Shows that aren't that important to watch after a week's gone by. (Archived shows eat up at the ol hard drive space...)
What am I getting at? Well, frankly, I want both. I already have a PC-PVR I used to watch the entire run of Quantum Leap, in order. But now I want a Tivo to sample some of the other shows that I don't want to bother setting up the PVR to capture.
For everybody else, I'd recommend starting with a Tivo, and building a Tivo-like PC if you have larger needs with it. You do take quite a hit on visual quality when you go the PC route.
"I can only be impressed to a certain point if he's using Me for anything."
This is not a troll, there's actually a good point here. PVRs need to have really good uptime, something that nobody will claim with Windows ME.
Windows 2000 is a good PVR OS. The uptime on my PC-PVR was well over 2 months.