The things I see in your list that MythTV doesn't do is recording shows based on your viewing habits which is one of the things I find repulsive about TiVo, and Myth only supports a few codecs... see nuvexport/mencoder.
- Record two standard (...) Check... in fact, the recording devices can be on different machines. - Record standard TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-1, (...) OK, Myth's codecs are wrapped up in hybrid nupplevideo and require a touch of effort to convert. - Playback using Dscalar to deinterlace the video. Check, optional deinterlacing built it. - Play DVDs Check - Play DivX Check - Record shows as favorites (...) or based on my past viewing habits You can set up season-pass like sitations using the number of recording options and its priority system. I've already stated my opinion of guesswork recording - Do all of the above with an integrated schedule, which is free. Check - Play and manage my MP3 library Check - Stream video and audio to another PC over my LAN. Check... as well as my X-Box
In addition, you get MythWeather which supplies weather reports to your screen, MythGallery for photos, MythGame which integrates with a number of emulators including MAME and NES emulators, MythWeb to set up recording over the internet. And you can theme it, it's free and runs on a free OS, the developers are fairly responsive and development is constantly moving forward. Go ahead and list your favorite features of SageTV and wait for them to be integrated into MythTV.:)
All that said, Sage does look like the most complete package for Windows (I used ShowShifter back in the day).
So you're saying that the only "good" music is music that you like? This is why socialism fails: it addresses only the needs of the majority, and fails to realize the needs of the minority.
I have absolutely no idea where you came up with this... the whole point of my comment was getting more and varied music to people's ears instead of what record execs consider 'good'... and what they consider 'good' is what is 'profitable.' If boy-bands and Britney Spears-etts is your thing, more power to you but people should at least have exposure and choice.
"I refuse to drink Coke anymore because Coke subsidizes what I consider bad music"
And if the only soda in the machine were Coke products... you'd buy Coke products.
The average home Linux user probably downloaded RedHat ISOs and installed it without paying RedHat any support costs. Most RedHat users I know don't use up2date rather apt-get or just manage their own RPMs.
When security patches for Apache are released I'm sure someone is going to release RedHat 9 packages for it. When a new kernel is released I'm sure someone is going to release packages for it (or at least sources that compile in RedHat 9's environment). I image just about any popular software package will be released/packaged/tested on RedHat 9 until it's unpopular enough to forget. You may not be able to up2date them but that was probably a bad idea anyway. Apart from the set of RedHat-specific software (which, on the free version I can only think of the config tools and installer) what exactly is losing support?
The situation may be different for enterprise customers with support contracts which is why independent commercial support exists. And $5/mo/mac sound extremely reasonable for enterprise support.
I guess that's the cool thing about Linux. Just because RedHat says stop, noone has to listen... there really is no EOL until enough people quit using it that noone bothers to package or compile their software for it.
Since most people will promptly point you to the 'hardware requirements' which are often vague, I'll fill you in on my experiences.
I originally had MythTV running on my old PII-550 (256mb PC133, WD 120g) as a test box using a regular old BT8x8 based capture card. It was able to record in the default live TV mode (poorly compressed, not using the MPEG4 codec) with no hitches however playback while recording was slow. I popped it into an XP1400 (512 DDR, same 120gb, same BT8x8) and everything is smooth as silk using the MPEG4 codec constantly.
If you're going to be using MPEG2, you must be using a hardware assisted capture card (Hauppage PVR series?). Your 1ghz should easily be able to handle the load with the hardware assist. If you're not using a hardware assisted card (in which you could not record to MPEG2) then you should have no problem using the non-MPEG4 codec (the name escapes me) while playing and recording and you *should* be able to pull off MPEG4 as long as you don't go crazy with the resolution.
My current setup is a XP1400 backend/frontend (w/TV out on the main TV), an XP2200 as my main machine which occassionally runs the front end, and XBox frontend which moves from TV to TV as required, and a Duron 800 laptop that runs the frontend like ass due to the poorly supported ATI Mobility chipset. I have about 100 of the 120 gig dedicated to video recording.
Two important additions to your comments.
First, the reason supply was low was the record companies were atificially keeping it that way. There should have never been $18 CDs and the only reason they were was because the record company 'trusts' were the only game in town.
Secondly, the incentive for 'good' music was already destroyed by these companies. The goal shifted from 'good' music to 'profitable' music. As distribution costs go down, recording costs go down, and availability goes up I imagine (and hope) we'll see more diverse and artistic music than the cookie-cutter stuff that is only released because every 14 year old girl in the world demands a copy. The amount of 'good' music should go up.
Things aren't so different in the OS world which is possibly why this subject appeals to slashdotters so much.
I can see tomorrow's headline already: "SCO Sues Gartner"; claims ownership of 'letters and numbers and stuff' used to create the report citing similar reports produced by SCO in the past. It appears most of these allegations stem from similar comments strewn across the reports such as "we are so screwed" and "hurry up and sell that before it goes back down."
I don't know if you are being sarcastic however...
People can have homes (oft built by the player), they can lock the doors (using player built locking scripts), and if you're especially motivated you can probably find a way around the scripts.
However, objects in the world have permissions so that if the owner says noone can take an object, you cannot take it regardless of them leaving their door open.
As for defiling other avatars, that (along with most anything illegal in the real world) violates their terms of service. There have been instances of harassment leading to expulsion.
Killing on the other hand is possible in any damage-enabled area. It's not as satisfying as you'd think though. The avatar is simply teleported home. Also, obnoxiously annoying people in any way could probably be considered harassment and the authorities are pretty good at maintaining order. Not to mention the internal system... if you're a dick, you're rated down (and possibly banned from people's land). If you're rated down you don't get as much money. If you don't get as much money, you don't get to do as much stuff. The game becomes less fun for a-holes and idiots.
There are many other things that can exist outside of secondlife that are worth of IP protections. Many objects are scripted. These scripts should be protected no differently than any other code. There are things such as poetry and short story contests the contents of which should be protected. Art in the form of textures as you stated should be protected. The models themselves (although it seems possible to construe them as derivative works) need protection.
Acknowledging this encourages people to bring in more and better content making secondlife better for all of its participants.
As for the poor graphics, I'd suggest you look again. With the latest particle enhancements, bump mapping, improved lighting effects, etc. the graphics are quite good. That doesn't prevent people from creating things poorly however.
We use Ghost here and have few complaints. The new versions seem to work very well.
More to the point; you're already running Windows with one of the most insane-restrictive w3 p0wn5 j00 EULAs on the planet. Symantec's copy-protection, while evil in it's own right, should be the least of your worries.
GWB considers quitting presidency and working at Mickey D's
Nooo!!! Don't let GWB run McDs into the ground like his other corporate (and political) ventures! However, that's a blunder the US populace might actually call him on.
The fact that they are willing to give out information on a product which is years from being finished shows both courage and strategic integrity, if you ask me.
Although my exposure to ATITD is limited, 'SecondLife' (!!!) and 'There' are even higher up the gameplay innovation tree. Both offer free signup and client downloads as well.
I agree with you except the "or this % less expensive" line... I spend maybe $500-700 anually on upgrades. I haven't bought a new complete system in 6 or 8 years. The geeks I work with are the same way. I couldn't care less how these $3000+ systems perform. 'How well does the equipment I can jack into my PC for a few hundred bucks perform?' is the question I'm interested in. No doubt the Opteron will be in this range for me soon enough. Maybe for traditional Mac users the G5s will fall into this category (Macs are fairly easy to upgrade, right?)
And as for as the OS wars, bollocks to the fan boys. The OS should be transparent. It should be the least noticeable part of the machine. The only platform that fails this criteria, IMO of course, is Windows. And if ya'll are impressed at the bright lights and pretty colors of the task-menu-bar-tray-icon-movie type things of XP, OSX or KDE/Gnome then I disregard you. Start using your machine instead of gazing at all the pretty colors.
Of course you can't just take GPLed code and do whatever the hell you want with it! Just because it's GPL doesn't mean it's a free code bazaar. They're using the results of thousands of man-hours of work spread across hundreds of people. What did they think was going to happen?
The GPL isn't brain surgery and they should've known full well where this would lead. The code Broadcom spent time and money on belongs under the GPL just like the code they built it upon... the code others spent time and money on.
The GPL isn't designed to protect their business model, it's designed to protect the coders. That fosters innovation. Hiding away code may make you a lot of money but does everyone else no good at all.
Personally, I run Windows and Linux because each has their place. Linux runs web-server, SQL Server, business software, and mythtv. Windows runs games.
Why would I spend a lot of extra money on a machine that partially fills all of those roles but excels at none? I don't feel that either are difficult to navigate, it's only 2 or 3 clicks in either to launch a word processor or web browser or whatnot. Who are these mythical people that waste hours and hours of time and energy navigating the innards of their OSes?
Slashdot Mirror
Or MythTV and a network cable to your X-Box.
The things I see in your list that MythTV doesn't do is recording shows based on your viewing habits which is one of the things I find repulsive about TiVo, and Myth only supports a few codecs... see nuvexport/mencoder.
:)
- Record two standard (...) Check... in fact, the recording devices can be on different machines.
- Record standard TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-1, (...) OK, Myth's codecs are wrapped up in hybrid nupplevideo and require a touch of effort to convert.
- Playback using Dscalar to deinterlace the video. Check, optional deinterlacing built it.
- Play DVDs Check
- Play DivX Check
- Record shows as favorites (...) or based on my past viewing habits You can set up season-pass like sitations using the number of recording options and its priority system. I've already stated my opinion of guesswork recording
- Do all of the above with an integrated schedule, which is free. Check
- Play and manage my MP3 library Check
- Stream video and audio to another PC over my LAN. Check... as well as my X-Box
In addition, you get MythWeather which supplies weather reports to your screen, MythGallery for photos, MythGame which integrates with a number of emulators including MAME and NES emulators, MythWeb to set up recording over the internet. And you can theme it, it's free and runs on a free OS, the developers are fairly responsive and development is constantly moving forward. Go ahead and list your favorite features of SageTV and wait for them to be integrated into MythTV.
All that said, Sage does look like the most complete package for Windows (I used ShowShifter back in the day).
So you're saying that the only "good" music is music that you like? This is why socialism fails: it addresses only the needs of the majority, and fails to realize the needs of the minority.
I have absolutely no idea where you came up with this... the whole point of my comment was getting more and varied music to people's ears instead of what record execs consider 'good'... and what they consider 'good' is what is 'profitable.' If boy-bands and Britney Spears-etts is your thing, more power to you but people should at least have exposure and choice.
"I refuse to drink Coke anymore because Coke subsidizes what I consider bad music"
And if the only soda in the machine were Coke products... you'd buy Coke products.
The average home Linux user probably downloaded RedHat ISOs and installed it without paying RedHat any support costs. Most RedHat users I know don't use up2date rather apt-get or just manage their own RPMs.
When security patches for Apache are released I'm sure someone is going to release RedHat 9 packages for it. When a new kernel is released I'm sure someone is going to release packages for it (or at least sources that compile in RedHat 9's environment). I image just about any popular software package will be released/packaged/tested on RedHat 9 until it's unpopular enough to forget. You may not be able to up2date them but that was probably a bad idea anyway. Apart from the set of RedHat-specific software (which, on the free version I can only think of the config tools and installer) what exactly is losing support?
The situation may be different for enterprise customers with support contracts which is why independent commercial support exists. And $5/mo/mac sound extremely reasonable for enterprise support.
I guess that's the cool thing about Linux. Just because RedHat says stop, noone has to listen... there really is no EOL until enough people quit using it that noone bothers to package or compile their software for it.
Since most people will promptly point you to the 'hardware requirements' which are often vague, I'll fill you in on my experiences. I originally had MythTV running on my old PII-550 (256mb PC133, WD 120g) as a test box using a regular old BT8x8 based capture card. It was able to record in the default live TV mode (poorly compressed, not using the MPEG4 codec) with no hitches however playback while recording was slow. I popped it into an XP1400 (512 DDR, same 120gb, same BT8x8) and everything is smooth as silk using the MPEG4 codec constantly. If you're going to be using MPEG2, you must be using a hardware assisted capture card (Hauppage PVR series?). Your 1ghz should easily be able to handle the load with the hardware assist. If you're not using a hardware assisted card (in which you could not record to MPEG2) then you should have no problem using the non-MPEG4 codec (the name escapes me) while playing and recording and you *should* be able to pull off MPEG4 as long as you don't go crazy with the resolution. My current setup is a XP1400 backend/frontend (w/TV out on the main TV), an XP2200 as my main machine which occassionally runs the front end, and XBox frontend which moves from TV to TV as required, and a Duron 800 laptop that runs the frontend like ass due to the poorly supported ATI Mobility chipset. I have about 100 of the 120 gig dedicated to video recording.
Two important additions to your comments. First, the reason supply was low was the record companies were atificially keeping it that way. There should have never been $18 CDs and the only reason they were was because the record company 'trusts' were the only game in town. Secondly, the incentive for 'good' music was already destroyed by these companies. The goal shifted from 'good' music to 'profitable' music. As distribution costs go down, recording costs go down, and availability goes up I imagine (and hope) we'll see more diverse and artistic music than the cookie-cutter stuff that is only released because every 14 year old girl in the world demands a copy. The amount of 'good' music should go up. Things aren't so different in the OS world which is possibly why this subject appeals to slashdotters so much.
Most of the home users are smart enough to call their local PC guru instead of agonizing through a tech-support call.
If this were Microsoft, we'd call it "Tuesday"
I can see tomorrow's headline already: "SCO Sues Gartner"; claims ownership of 'letters and numbers and stuff' used to create the report citing similar reports produced by SCO in the past. It appears most of these allegations stem from similar comments strewn across the reports such as "we are so screwed" and "hurry up and sell that before it goes back down."
and maybe we can discover what planet Darl is from.
This is a shameless plug but a (very young) SecondLife Wiki is available at http://www.lilmikey.com/slwiki
I don't know if you are being sarcastic however...
People can have homes (oft built by the player), they can lock the doors (using player built locking scripts), and if you're especially motivated you can probably find a way around the scripts.
However, objects in the world have permissions so that if the owner says noone can take an object, you cannot take it regardless of them leaving their door open.
As for defiling other avatars, that (along with most anything illegal in the real world) violates their terms of service. There have been instances of harassment leading to expulsion.
Killing on the other hand is possible in any damage-enabled area. It's not as satisfying as you'd think though. The avatar is simply teleported home. Also, obnoxiously annoying people in any way could probably be considered harassment and the authorities are pretty good at maintaining order. Not to mention the internal system... if you're a dick, you're rated down (and possibly banned from people's land). If you're rated down you don't get as much money. If you don't get as much money, you don't get to do as much stuff. The game becomes less fun for a-holes and idiots.
There are many other things that can exist outside of secondlife that are worth of IP protections. Many objects are scripted. These scripts should be protected no differently than any other code. There are things such as poetry and short story contests the contents of which should be protected. Art in the form of textures as you stated should be protected. The models themselves (although it seems possible to construe them as derivative works) need protection.
Acknowledging this encourages people to bring in more and better content making secondlife better for all of its participants.
As for the poor graphics, I'd suggest you look again. With the latest particle enhancements, bump mapping, improved lighting effects, etc. the graphics are quite good. That doesn't prevent people from creating things poorly however.
We use Ghost here and have few complaints. The new versions seem to work very well.
More to the point; you're already running Windows with one of the most insane-restrictive w3 p0wn5 j00 EULAs on the planet. Symantec's copy-protection, while evil in it's own right, should be the least of your worries.
oh wait, we have no Windows 2003 for the desktop - doh! Just missed an opportunity to sell a new round of OS upgrades - cr*p!
That's why Longhorn is initially coming out for the desktop. Server will follow in a couple years when 2003 starts to fall off of support.
GWB considers quitting presidency and working at Mickey D's
Nooo!!! Don't let GWB run McDs into the ground like his other corporate (and political) ventures! However, that's a blunder the US populace might actually call him on.
Why not, he's the one guy that could get GWB re-elected. How much you want to bet he ends up captured about next September.
The fact that they are willing to give out information on a product which is years from being finished shows both courage and strategic integrity, if you ask me.
Hype == courage and strategic integrity? What?
Although my exposure to ATITD is limited, 'SecondLife' (!!!) and 'There' are even higher up the gameplay innovation tree. Both offer free signup and client downloads as well.
Pretty soon SCO will just start tossing out press releases with "LOOK AT ME" on them.
There's got to be prior art on this one...
I agree with you except the "or this % less expensive" line... I spend maybe $500-700 anually on upgrades. I haven't bought a new complete system in 6 or 8 years. The geeks I work with are the same way. I couldn't care less how these $3000+ systems perform. 'How well does the equipment I can jack into my PC for a few hundred bucks perform?' is the question I'm interested in. No doubt the Opteron will be in this range for me soon enough. Maybe for traditional Mac users the G5s will fall into this category (Macs are fairly easy to upgrade, right?)
And as for as the OS wars, bollocks to the fan boys. The OS should be transparent. It should be the least noticeable part of the machine. The only platform that fails this criteria, IMO of course, is Windows. And if ya'll are impressed at the bright lights and pretty colors of the task-menu-bar-tray-icon-movie type things of XP, OSX or KDE/Gnome then I disregard you. Start using your machine instead of gazing at all the pretty colors.
Of course you can't just take GPLed code and do whatever the hell you want with it! Just because it's GPL doesn't mean it's a free code bazaar. They're using the results of thousands of man-hours of work spread across hundreds of people. What did they think was going to happen?
The GPL isn't brain surgery and they should've known full well where this would lead. The code Broadcom spent time and money on belongs under the GPL just like the code they built it upon... the code others spent time and money on.
The GPL isn't designed to protect their business model, it's designed to protect the coders. That fosters innovation. Hiding away code may make you a lot of money but does everyone else no good at all.
Personally, I run Windows and Linux because each has their place. Linux runs web-server, SQL Server, business software, and mythtv. Windows runs games.
Why would I spend a lot of extra money on a machine that partially fills all of those roles but excels at none? I don't feel that either are difficult to navigate, it's only 2 or 3 clicks in either to launch a word processor or web browser or whatnot. Who are these mythical people that waste hours and hours of time and energy navigating the innards of their OSes?
To prove a point to these losers I sold the hundreds of shares of their stock I had invested in...
Now what are they going to do without my 20 bucks?!