"Anyway you slice it, the money grubbing dept. is in full gear in Middle Earth."
Why? Are you seriously claiming you didn't know that there would be an extended version of this movie released? It's not as though it's been any kind of a secret.
Hell, if they'd only released the extended version people would be complaining that they couldn't buy the theatrical cut.
"The American design reuses the engines for several launches"
More realistically, it refurbishes the engines after every launch: it's debatable as to whether it would have been cheaper to have built expendable engines in the first place. Certainly they've never even come close to the original goal of 50-ish missions between overhauls.
Re:Poland has something like this too
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Ceefax Turns 30
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· Score: 1
"Was this service the same a Ceefax?"
Sounds similar. I think the BBC weather maps use characters and block graphics, AFAIR there are special characters in the character set which have blocks in different places so you can effectively get 'hi-res' (probably something like 80x48) graphics for non-text use.
"I know of people missing recording Babylon 5 in its uncut 1am broadcast because some engineer at Channel 4 couldn't be bothered to turn on the V+ signal when the program started"
Yeah, I was one of those people: took me an age to figure out why my VCR wouldn't record the programs I told it to record...
Re:Er... "20 Million users a week"??
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Ceefax Turns 30
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· Score: 1
Hint: amongst other things, Teletext lets people check the national lottery results after they get back from the pub on Saturday night:).
"Remember those times where nearly everyone made a decent living for a reasonable amount of work and when a man could support one family with one job, and when people weren't crushed by 60 hour-weeks because half the people don't work and the other half work for two???"
You mean before the government started stealing nearly 50% of our income in one tax or another?
I read an interesting study a few years back about US families: turned out that the lower-paid worker in a couple typically took home just about as much money as the higher-paid worker paid in taxes... cut the taxes back to the absolute minimum, and they could survive on one income.
But hey, there's no problem that can't be solved by increasing taxes, right?
"Well, how about CUSTOMS TARIFFS designed to bring the price of low wages countries products more in line with those in the high wages coutries???"
What a brilliant idea: let's increase the cost of goods to poor people in the West and shovel even more of their money to unproductive government workers through the new taxes.
"if you were Lucas, wouldn't you go back and fix the things that you'd wanted to change but never had the resources?"
Yes, but I'd still release the original versions too. Of course the idea that Lucas always wanted Solo to shoot second and never had the resources to do so is a joke in any case.
Lucas is a hack: 'Star Wars' is 30s pulp SF combined with Kurosawa's 'Hidden Fortress' and Joseph Campbell's writings on mythology, supported by the best that 70s effects technologies could provide.
For its time it was great, but there's nothing really original there and Lucas has no claim to be an 'artist' or whine about his 'vision'. We've seen what Lucas' 'vision' looks like when he doesn't have a studio to keep him on track (i.e. the prequels), and it's dire.
"he added things that at the time he didn't have the budget/technology for"
What, like Han Solo shooting second? That would really have required radical technology that was unavailable back then.
Also, frankly, the CG effects he added to the 'Special Ed' versions looks worse to me than the original models. At least they're real, the CG versions are way too clean (and let's not even mention the CG stormtroopers on CG animals).
In addition to which, 35mm film does not have 4k resolution vertically, particularly not by the time it's shown on a cinema screen. An awful lot of CG work, for example, is done with scanned film at closer to 2k x 1k, which is pretty much the same as HDTV. 4k across the film (and about 2k vertically) is really the best you'll get from current low-grain 35mm film in ideal conditions, not a general figure.
Presumably that he wanted to make 'Phantom Menace' in 1977, but the studio realised what a pile of sith it would be and how it would destroy his career, and stopped him.
No, I'm saying that all the ones I could think of are worse. Someone mentioned fixing the speeder matte issues, which I'd agree is an improvement... but that's the kind of thing which has no effect on the story.
And the violent crime rate in the UK is growing fast. You see, crooks don't care about being photographed, particularly when they're wearing hoods and masked, whereas they do care about police patrols catching them in the act. Replacing police patrols with people sitting in a room eating donuts and oggling girls' boobs on CCTV does nothing to reduce crime.
"More likely they're recording to tape at 960x1080"
Not if they intend to stick to the HDV standard: I may be wrong, but from what little is available on the web it appears that the the only recording option at 1080i is 1440x1080 anamorphic.
"DV is also lossy [adamwilt.com]. But maybe it doesn't get worse as fast on successive saves?"
DV is lossy, but it compresses individual frames, so when you cut DV and output an edited file, you just take the compressed frames and write them to tape in order.
MPEG-2 is lossy and compresses groups of frames, so if you cut MPEG-2 then you have to recompress the entire movie when you output an edited file, and every time the video will get worse (minus optimisations to copy over the original data in places where the frame grouping matches up with the output file).
Slashdot Mirror
"Anyway you slice it, the money grubbing dept. is in full gear in Middle Earth."
Why? Are you seriously claiming you didn't know that there would be an extended version of this movie released? It's not as though it's been any kind of a secret.
Hell, if they'd only released the extended version people would be complaining that they couldn't buy the theatrical cut.
"The American design reuses the engines for several launches"
More realistically, it refurbishes the engines after every launch: it's debatable as to whether it would have been cheaper to have built expendable engines in the first place. Certainly they've never even come close to the original goal of 50-ish missions between overhauls.
"Was this service the same a Ceefax?"
Sounds similar. I think the BBC weather maps use characters and block graphics, AFAIR there are special characters in the character set which have blocks in different places so you can effectively get 'hi-res' (probably something like 80x48) graphics for non-text use.
"You've nevver bloody been there have you mate? It's full of bloody germans."
:).
Yeah, but they don't like being there
"I know of people missing recording Babylon 5 in its uncut 1am broadcast because some engineer at Channel 4 couldn't be bothered to turn on the V+ signal when the program started"
Yeah, I was one of those people: took me an age to figure out why my VCR wouldn't record the programs I told it to record...
Hint: amongst other things, Teletext lets people check the national lottery results after they get back from the pub on Saturday night :).
"Remember those times where nearly everyone made a decent living for a reasonable amount of work and when a man could support one family with one job, and when people weren't crushed by 60 hour-weeks because half the people don't work and the other half work for two???"
You mean before the government started stealing nearly 50% of our income in one tax or another?
I read an interesting study a few years back about US families: turned out that the lower-paid worker in a couple typically took home just about as much money as the higher-paid worker paid in taxes... cut the taxes back to the absolute minimum, and they could survive on one income.
But hey, there's no problem that can't be solved by increasing taxes, right?
"Well, how about CUSTOMS TARIFFS designed to bring the price of low wages countries products more in line with those in the high wages coutries???"
What a brilliant idea: let's increase the cost of goods to poor people in the West and shovel even more of their money to unproductive government workers through the new taxes.
"what if Windows Media Player has another security flaw"
.asf file can be set to automatically open a web page from Media Player which contains a JPEG that takes over your machine...
Well, that porn
God knows what moron thought it would be a good idea to let movie files open a web page without even asking you.
"if you were Lucas, wouldn't you go back and fix the things that you'd wanted to change but never had the resources?"
Yes, but I'd still release the original versions too. Of course the idea that Lucas always wanted Solo to shoot second and never had the resources to do so is a joke in any case.
Lucas is a hack: 'Star Wars' is 30s pulp SF combined with Kurosawa's 'Hidden Fortress' and Joseph Campbell's writings on mythology, supported by the best that 70s effects technologies could provide.
For its time it was great, but there's nothing really original there and Lucas has no claim to be an 'artist' or whine about his 'vision'. We've seen what Lucas' 'vision' looks like when he doesn't have a studio to keep him on track (i.e. the prequels), and it's dire.
"he added things that at the time he didn't have the budget/technology for"
What, like Han Solo shooting second? That would really have required radical technology that was unavailable back then.
Also, frankly, the CG effects he added to the 'Special Ed' versions looks worse to me than the original models. At least they're real, the CG versions are way too clean (and let's not even mention the CG stormtroopers on CG animals).
"Especially given the way that Episode VI panders to pre-teens with those blasted Ewoks"
:).
Yeah, but it also panders to the dads with that metal bikini
In addition to which, 35mm film does not have 4k resolution vertically, particularly not by the time it's shown on a cinema screen. An awful lot of CG work, for example, is done with scanned film at closer to 2k x 1k, which is pretty much the same as HDTV. 4k across the film (and about 2k vertically) is really the best you'll get from current low-grain 35mm film in ideal conditions, not a general figure.
"What in the world could Lucas be talking about?"
Presumably that he wanted to make 'Phantom Menace' in 1977, but the studio realised what a pile of sith it would be and how it would destroy his career, and stopped him.
No, I'm saying that all the ones I could think of are worse. Someone mentioned fixing the speeder matte issues, which I'd agree is an improvement... but that's the kind of thing which has no effect on the story.
"Ultimately, I'm going to probably move it into television"
Thank God! We can finally have a sequel to the 'Star Wars Holiday Special'!
"Some of Lucas' "improvements" are *gasp* actually improvements!"
Which ones? I can't think of any offhand, and most of the "improvements" are awful.
"If you have to work too hard to do it, most people will just give up and/or buy the media"
No, they'll download it from their favorite P2P service after one person rips it.
You don't quite get this 'Internet' thing, do you?
"Because kidnappings and ransom demands never happened before RFID came along"
They happened... but tagging your kids is only going to make it easier for a kidnapper to find them. I don't see that as a win.
"From DVD there is no real compelling reason for the consumer to upgrade"
Other than the fact that it looks like poo when compared to HD...
Sure, I doubt I'll be buying 'slave girls from beyond infinity' again on HD, but I'd upgrade my favorite movies to HD tomorrow if I could.
And the violent crime rate in the UK is growing fast. You see, crooks don't care about being photographed, particularly when they're wearing hoods and masked, whereas they do care about police patrols catching them in the act. Replacing police patrols with people sitting in a room eating donuts and oggling girls' boobs on CCTV does nothing to reduce crime.
And the XL1 uses half-resolution CCDs and 'pixel shift' to approximate full resolution. So they're about even.
"More likely they're recording to tape at 960x1080"
Not if they intend to stick to the HDV standard: I may be wrong, but from what little is available on the web it appears that the the only recording option at 1080i is 1440x1080 anamorphic.
"DV is also lossy [adamwilt.com]. But maybe it doesn't get worse as fast on successive saves?"
DV is lossy, but it compresses individual frames, so when you cut DV and output an edited file, you just take the compressed frames and write them to tape in order.
MPEG-2 is lossy and compresses groups of frames, so if you cut MPEG-2 then you have to recompress the entire movie when you output an edited file, and every time the video will get worse (minus optimisations to copy over the original data in places where the frame grouping matches up with the output file).