(I've left out the first line, which sets an environment variable with the key for cdrecord-prodvd. It's a free key, which you can get off the author's site; it's just long and ugly.)
This will give you a disc with the basic video and sound from title 1 (usually the movie), and no menus. In the event that the movie is too big to fit on a DVD*R, use requant on dvd.m2v to cut it down before mplexing. You can add other audio tracks (such as commentary) by using the -aid option with -dumpaudio, and then just adding them to the mplex command line.
You can get a full.mpg movie directly, by using -dumpstream instead of -dumpvideo/-dumpaudio/mplex; but the resulting stream is incompatible with dvdauthor, so you'd have to remux it anyway. (Then again, given the relative slowness of reading from DVD, it may be faster to do it that way, if you have the space.)
So, it's not a one-button solution, but it sounds harder than it is. All the tools are open source, except for cdrecord-prodvd. There are open source burner programs, but that's the only one that works with my particular drive (a BenQ DW400A).
Opposing the measure without providing an "alternative" is just fine, if the existing system of laws is working satisfactorily. Is it? I'm not a European, so I won't presume to say. But I imagine that the FFII would say either that it is, or that it needs to be liberalized -- not made stricter. A "solution" is only needed if there is, in fact, a problem. And as far as I can tell, the only "problem" is that the copyright cartels aren't raping their customers as hard as they'd like to.
No, the link above (ultimatebootcd.com) also has 2.1. Unfortunately, many of the linked mirrors don't. Most disappointingly, the bittorrent isn't working, either (can't connect to tracker). But I worked my way down the list of mirrors (only the ones showing "Ver 2.1") until I found a good one -- #10 in my case.
It looks like the site hasn't been updated since Jan. 19th, when he talked about releasing 2.2 in "late Jan or early Feb". Normally I wouldn't think much of that, but when combined with the decayed mirrors and broken bittorrent, it seems something is amiss. I hope the author is OK.
Fortunately, open source has already secured a position of economic importance, so this is never going to happen.
There will be conflicts ahead, of course, and not just on this counterfeiting issue. Another that's already threatening, here in the U.S., is the broadcast flag for digital television. That seems equally incompatible with open source.
It will be, ah, interesting to see how this plays out in the next few years.
Re:Not only cost, but what about security?
on
WiFi Free-For-All
·
· Score: 1
It is of course possible to require user validation, even on a free, unmetered system. I dunno about PIT, but that's how it's done in the Baltimore Inner Harbor's free WiFi network.
But I'm hoping for more fully open, unvalidated access points, so I can grab some MP3's without the RIAA suing me.
When I went shopping for a new monitor a few months ago, I couldn't find a CRT that looked nearly as good as the LCDs. But I have to admit, I don't think that store viewing conditions really give an accurate impression of how it will look when you get it home. So, maybe a high-end CRT can look better than an LCD. But personally, I'm done with CRTs. I'm not buying another one. (Maybe, maybe for TV, but not for a computer.)
Re: refresh rates, I just wanted to point out that LCDs all run at 60 Hz, don't need more, and can't use more -- because they have no flicker to begin with.
Seriously, though, it's not twice as much area. First, that 17" on a CRT isn't even equivalent to 17" on an LCD, much less 19" -- with an LCD, you get all of that specified area, while the CRT measurement includes the bits under the rim that you can't use, plus the visible border that you can't use unless you don't mind a lot of distortion. The difference is so great that, as a rule of thumb, I reckon the size of an LCD as the "next higher" size (i.e., two more inches) for purposes of comparing to CRTs.
On top of that, the LCD is sharper, so you can potentially run it at a higher resolution than a CRT of equivalent dimensions, with equal or superior clarity. (I say "potentially" because with LCD, the achievable resolution is limited by the native resolution it's built with -- and lower resolutions don't look too good, either. On the other hand, my sister and mother have laptops with native 1600x1200 resolution, which they run at 1024x768 (against my advice) -- and they still look better than CRTs.)
"Flat" simply describes a surface which is not curved. LCD screens are all flat; it's their nature. As such, it's sufficient to identify a screen as an "LCD", and not necessary to also point out that it's flat. However, it is most definitely a flat screen.
CRTs, on the other hand, are by nature curved, so (relative) flatness is a feature worth pointing out. But in fact, even so-called "flat" CRTs only approximate the condition, AFAIK.
LCDs are a better fit for most people's conception of "flat", because not only are their screens uncurved, but they're very shallow front-to-back. You could put one "flat against the wall" or "flat on the floor"; you couldn't really do that with a cube-shaped CRT, no matter how uncurved its screen.
Yeah, that was my first reaction. But my second reaction was to wonder if he ordered the stuff with the premeditated intent of suing when it inevitably failed. If so, he's a genius. (If not, he's a sucker with a small dick.)
At least with cable you could get all nondigital channels without a box though.
No, I couldn't. That's what I'm saying -- I had an all-analog system with most of the non-premium channels scrambled. You could not view them without a descrambler. What's more, my system was divided onto two lines. Without the cable box, you'd need a switch to view all channels. In practice, that might not have been such a problem, because on one of the lines, I'm not sure there was a single unscrambed channel.
DirecTV: You have a really bad thunderstorm. During the worst part of it, you lose your picture for about 15 minutes.
Comcast: You have a really bad thunderstorm. During the worst part of it, you lose your picture. It comes back a few days later.
Oh, and the one where the guy has only one satellite tuner for multiple TVs is pretty silly, too. Most people just pay $5 a month for an extra receiver for each set. Which is a nuisance, I grant you... but I had exactly the same fees when I was with Comcast, and that was with analog cable. (It was a two-line system, with almost all channels scrambled; you couldn't realistically use it without renting a box.) For digital cable, they wanted $13 per box per month! With most channels still analog!
Your main point -- that unlike DirecTV or Dish, most channels on a "digital cable" system are, often, still analog -- is right, and important; but I just have to add that in neither case are we talking about "HDTV". The picture DirecTV puts out looks much better than my old analog Comcast service did, but it's not even full standard-def resolution; it's SVCD resolution, 480x480.
HDTV, by contrast, is typically 1280x720 or 1920x1080. Some digital stations also broadcast in 704x480, but that's just considered DTV, not HDTV.
Where cable may have an advantage nowadays is precisely in its ability to deliver true HDTV locals. DirecTV and Dish don't do it -- and CAN'T do it, because it would take so much bandwidth (they have enough trouble delivering their 480x480 locals). There are some workarounds -- you can get CBS, and soon Fox, via national feeds in areas where the network owns your local station. But for the most part, you'll have to pick up HDTV locals off the air if you want to stick with a satellite provider. Fortunately, the HDTV-capable satellite receivers are also OTA-capable, and can integrate off-air digital channels into their lineups.
Nobody is "forcing" anyone to contribute. If you don't want to comply with the GPL, you're free to write your own damn code, or rip it off from those poor suckers who used the BSD license. As for me, hell yes, I'll keep on GPL'ing my code.
The light bulb is the resistor. The resistance of the wires is negligible by comparison, and replacing them with superconducting wires would have no ill effect. The original poster is talking nonsense.
Seriously, I use Google as a spell checker sometimes. If you put in an unusual spelling, you'll get result;, but the first thing you'll see is "Did you mean:", with the most popular spelling. It's like using the audience poll lifeline in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"? -- the consensus answer is almost always the correct one. Only moreso, in this case; because it's consensus among speakers that actually defines a language.
I couldn't find it spelled out just what the license terms (if any?) would be. Not to be paranoid, but if the license isn't sufficiently liberal, this has the potential to be a trap.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's my procedure:
.mpg movie directly, by using -dumpstream instead of -dumpvideo/-dumpaudio/mplex; but the resulting stream is incompatible with dvdauthor, so you'd have to remux it anyway. (Then again, given the relative slowness of reading from DVD, it may be faster to do it that way, if you have the space.)
mplayer -dumpvideo -dumpfile dvd.m2v dvd://1
mplayer -dumpaudio -dumpfile dvd.mp2 dvd://1
mplex -f8 -odvd.mpg dvd.m2v dvd.mp2
dvdauthor -t -o disc dvd.mpg
dvdauthor -T -o disc
Then I call my script, "dvdburn", which is just a shell around mkisofs and cdrecord-prodvd:
size=`mkisofs -dvd-video -q -V "$1" -print-size $2`
mkisofs -dvd-video -q -V "$1" $2 | cdrecord-prodvd -v -dao dev=0,0 tsize=${size}s -
(I've left out the first line, which sets an environment variable with the key for cdrecord-prodvd. It's a free key, which you can get off the author's site; it's just long and ugly.)
This will give you a disc with the basic video and sound from title 1 (usually the movie), and no menus. In the event that the movie is too big to fit on a DVD*R, use requant on dvd.m2v to cut it down before mplexing. You can add other audio tracks (such as commentary) by using the -aid option with -dumpaudio, and then just adding them to the mplex command line.
You can get a full
So, it's not a one-button solution, but it sounds harder than it is. All the tools are open source, except for cdrecord-prodvd. There are open source burner programs, but that's the only one that works with my particular drive (a BenQ DW400A).
OK, why is this modded "Funny"?
I would not buy a car with this behavior, unless I could disable it. And I'd prefer it be disabled by default.
@#@&* car alarms!
Opposing the measure without providing an "alternative" is just fine, if the existing system of laws is working satisfactorily. Is it? I'm not a European, so I won't presume to say. But I imagine that the FFII would say either that it is, or that it needs to be liberalized -- not made stricter. A "solution" is only needed if there is, in fact, a problem. And as far as I can tell, the only "problem" is that the copyright cartels aren't raping their customers as hard as they'd like to.
No, the link above (ultimatebootcd.com) also has 2.1. Unfortunately, many of the linked mirrors don't. Most disappointingly, the bittorrent isn't working, either (can't connect to tracker). But I worked my way down the list of mirrors (only the ones showing "Ver 2.1") until I found a good one -- #10 in my case.
It looks like the site hasn't been updated since Jan. 19th, when he talked about releasing 2.2 in "late Jan or early Feb". Normally I wouldn't think much of that, but when combined with the decayed mirrors and broken bittorrent, it seems something is amiss. I hope the author is OK.
Google on "Apple III drop fix". This was an officially recommended procedure at one time.
That happenned long ago. You just didn't notice.
Fortunately, open source has already secured a position of economic importance, so this is never going to happen.
There will be conflicts ahead, of course, and not just on this counterfeiting issue. Another that's already threatening, here in the U.S., is the broadcast flag for digital television. That seems equally incompatible with open source.
It will be, ah, interesting to see how this plays out in the next few years.
It is of course possible to require user validation, even on a free, unmetered system. I dunno about PIT, but that's how it's done in the Baltimore Inner Harbor's free WiFi network.
But I'm hoping for more fully open, unvalidated access points, so I can grab some MP3's without the RIAA suing me.
When I went shopping for a new monitor a few months ago, I couldn't find a CRT that looked nearly as good as the LCDs. But I have to admit, I don't think that store viewing conditions really give an accurate impression of how it will look when you get it home. So, maybe a high-end CRT can look better than an LCD. But personally, I'm done with CRTs. I'm not buying another one. (Maybe, maybe for TV, but not for a computer.)
Re: refresh rates, I just wanted to point out that LCDs all run at 60 Hz, don't need more, and can't use more -- because they have no flicker to begin with.
But a lot less space on your desk.
Seriously, though, it's not twice as much area. First, that 17" on a CRT isn't even equivalent to 17" on an LCD, much less 19" -- with an LCD, you get all of that specified area, while the CRT measurement includes the bits under the rim that you can't use, plus the visible border that you can't use unless you don't mind a lot of distortion. The difference is so great that, as a rule of thumb, I reckon the size of an LCD as the "next higher" size (i.e., two more inches) for purposes of comparing to CRTs.
On top of that, the LCD is sharper, so you can potentially run it at a higher resolution than a CRT of equivalent dimensions, with equal or superior clarity. (I say "potentially" because with LCD, the achievable resolution is limited by the native resolution it's built with -- and lower resolutions don't look too good, either. On the other hand, my sister and mother have laptops with native 1600x1200 resolution, which they run at 1024x768 (against my advice) -- and they still look better than CRTs.)
"Flat" simply describes a surface which is not curved. LCD screens are all flat; it's their nature. As such, it's sufficient to identify a screen as an "LCD", and not necessary to also point out that it's flat. However, it is most definitely a flat screen.
CRTs, on the other hand, are by nature curved, so (relative) flatness is a feature worth pointing out. But in fact, even so-called "flat" CRTs only approximate the condition, AFAIK.
LCDs are a better fit for most people's conception of "flat", because not only are their screens uncurved, but they're very shallow front-to-back. You could put one "flat against the wall" or "flat on the floor"; you couldn't really do that with a cube-shaped CRT, no matter how uncurved its screen.
Yeah, that was my first reaction. But my second reaction was to wonder if he ordered the stuff with the premeditated intent of suing when it inevitably failed. If so, he's a genius. (If not, he's a sucker with a small dick.)
I'm normally from Kazakhstan, or thereabouts. Of course I'm also a 100-year-old woman.
One of the troubled chains mentioned in the article tried to do exactly that. But they were stymied by the record companies.
No, I couldn't. That's what I'm saying -- I had an all-analog system with most of the non-premium channels scrambled. You could not view them without a descrambler. What's more, my system was divided onto two lines. Without the cable box, you'd need a switch to view all channels. In practice, that might not have been such a problem, because on one of the lines, I'm not sure there was a single unscrambed channel.
Apparently your system is better. You're lucky.
Here's the reality:
DirecTV: You have a really bad thunderstorm. During the worst part of it, you lose your picture for about 15 minutes.
Comcast: You have a really bad thunderstorm. During the worst part of it, you lose your picture. It comes back a few days later.
Oh, and the one where the guy has only one satellite tuner for multiple TVs is pretty silly, too. Most people just pay $5 a month for an extra receiver for each set. Which is a nuisance, I grant you... but I had exactly the same fees when I was with Comcast, and that was with analog cable. (It was a two-line system, with almost all channels scrambled; you couldn't realistically use it without renting a box.) For digital cable, they wanted $13 per box per month! With most channels still analog!
Your main point -- that unlike DirecTV or Dish, most channels on a "digital cable" system are, often, still analog -- is right, and important; but I just have to add that in neither case are we talking about "HDTV". The picture DirecTV puts out looks much better than my old analog Comcast service did, but it's not even full standard-def resolution; it's SVCD resolution, 480x480.
HDTV, by contrast, is typically 1280x720 or 1920x1080. Some digital stations also broadcast in 704x480, but that's just considered DTV, not HDTV.
Where cable may have an advantage nowadays is precisely in its ability to deliver true HDTV locals. DirecTV and Dish don't do it -- and CAN'T do it, because it would take so much bandwidth (they have enough trouble delivering their 480x480 locals). There are some workarounds -- you can get CBS, and soon Fox, via national feeds in areas where the network owns your local station. But for the most part, you'll have to pick up HDTV locals off the air if you want to stick with a satellite provider. Fortunately, the HDTV-capable satellite receivers are also OTA-capable, and can integrate off-air digital channels into their lineups.
Get a DirecTivo, and you won't miss VoD. It works across all channels, too.
Nobody is "forcing" anyone to contribute. If you don't want to comply with the GPL, you're free to write your own damn code, or rip it off from those poor suckers who used the BSD license. As for me, hell yes, I'll keep on GPL'ing my code.
The light bulb is the resistor. The resistance of the wires is negligible by comparison, and replacing them with superconducting wires would have no ill effect. The original poster is talking nonsense.
Debian is a non-commercial distro. Free, yes; but what's the market got to do with it?
Seriously, I use Google as a spell checker sometimes. If you put in an unusual spelling, you'll get result;, but the first thing you'll see is "Did you mean:", with the most popular spelling. It's like using the audience poll lifeline in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"? -- the consensus answer is almost always the correct one. Only moreso, in this case; because it's consensus among speakers that actually defines a language.
I couldn't find it spelled out just what the license terms (if any?) would be. Not to be paranoid, but if the license isn't sufficiently liberal, this has the potential to be a trap.
I'm wondering how to print it properly myself. I tried a simple "lpr all.ps", and got just one page of output, from the bottom up to about the Sun.
The web site refers to printing each page and then joining them. What pages?