>My biggest concern wouldn't be so much that pyTiVo couldn't handle the HD video and AC3 audio, but that at 100Mbps you couldn't stream it fast enough to get really good HD quality
In my case, I was not even trying to stream HD, just SD from my DVD's. The picture was just very poor once transcoded from 264 to whatever limited bitrate and codec that TiVo understood (can't recall at this moment). I might have been doing something wrong (or maybe just the way I stored it made it worse), but I seem to remember the lack of AC3 was the real deal killer for me. Plus, with a very large, digital, HD TV, my tolerance for reduction of the starting DVD quality is probably pretty low.
It probably *is* past time for me to look at it again. I will add it to my long "to-do" list.
As you know, DirecTV is not a cable provider. They are beyond paranoid and proprietary (like all satellite companies- and probably with good reason, though).
Aside, it is inexcusable that the FCC has not been more forceful in guaranteeing consumers have the right to choose the end equipment they want; not just cable but with satellite also. Oh well:(
Last time I tried pyTiVo with my TiVO HD, the results were far from stellar. I do store many of my DVD's as 1Mb/s 264 + AC3 AVI files and it just didn't seem to like it. It down-res'ed them horribly and the resulting video was poor. Plus, I believe it trashes the AC3, resulting in just stereo (yuck) sound.
Now, it has been at least a year since I messed with it (and gave up on it). If you think it has improved, I will give it another shot.
Not having decent local streaming of video files has been my #2 complaint with TiVo (#1 being that we can't easily backup the damn settings to a USB key or something so if the unit dies we can recover many hours of work done with preferences, season passes, stations, etc). Otherwise, the TiVo HD is *extremely* impressive and I highly recommend it... it runs circles around any cable provider's DVR or "software" solution I have seen.
My solution wasn't software at all. I just went with a TiVo HD. Dual tuner, dual cable card, over-the-air recording, cable recording, HD, SD, Netflix streaming, YouTube, Amazon, season passes, automatic listings, fantastic remote control, remote access, the list goes on and on.
The fact that it runs Linux is interesting, but doesn't really matter one way or the other. The box just "works" and it works very well. It should certainly be in the list of anyones' comparisons to messing with software solutions... although there is a service fee, it is less than a typical premium channel; and the box is far cheaper than anything one could ever put together on their own.
Is it perfect? Of course not. I am very picky and have my own list of things that need to be improved or fixed. But when I compare it to anything else out there, it always seems to come out on top, by far.
>According to the article, databases (tracking IP address mappings) could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading
Exactly how is knowing an IP address mapping going to tell anyone which SPECIFIC USER is doing anything? It might tell you which account is doing something. But last I checked, that doesn't tie to a person. Any number of people might use a single IP address. At work, we have 150+ users behind a single IP address.
So, an account holder will be guilty, regardless of who the "user" actually was.
Good grief. Take a chill pill, anonymous *coward*. So I misread the last line. It doesn't change hardly anything. It still took them 10 years to notice it was being used in 95, 98, 2000, and xp.
> it's specifically about bringing up an interface to escalate when the system determines that > escalation will be required, not about escalating manually before the task is attempted.
Funny, but that is exactly what my Mandriva Linux system does when I try to install updates, launch the system configurator, change a network setting (instead of just selecting a network) etc. It pops up a GUI asking for the root password if I am not already allowed. And it has done this for years.
News at 11- it is a huge surprise when it was found that money from commercial software giant lobbyists and special interest groups influenced the assumed impartial decision-making process of the EU. How could this happen????
If you can beat 'em, just redefine the playing field.
I have used TiVo's forever... since they first came out. I watch nothing that isn't recorded.
Yet, when I fast forward through commercials, which is normal for me, I still SEE them. And I OFTEN will stop and watch a commercial if it appears to be interesting or for something I have interest in purchasing.
Welcome to the new higher-tech TV watcher- we don't want to watch ads for things we have no interest in. And we certainly don't need or want to see the same ad over and over and over again. If I am not in the market for a car, a car commercial is nothing but a waste of time. If I am a man, I don't want to see commercials about that "fresh feeling" down there. I certainly have no interest in debt consolidation, dresses, children's cereal, or 90% of the other stuff in commercials.
>Most of what you say is implementation-related rather than format-related. It's like saying that C sucks because there are so many crappy programs.
I will agree that there are better and worse ways to IMPLEMENT Flash, but even properly implemented, it doesn't address all (or most) of my issues.
>Nothing "just works" on all devices and in this area flash fares better than most other technologies; agree is slow; not really agree on RAM usage.
HTML works fine on all devices. 95% of the time I see Flash used, it is totally unnecessary.
>Flash uses less bandwidth than alternatives, it's quite very well optimized. Sure, someone can stuff some 10 min. mp3s encoded at 256kbps and and bunch of 2048x2048 bitmaps but that's another story.
Agreed- for when you really need video or audio, that is one of the few times Flash shines (although it is still a pig). But we are mostly talking about documents, not multimedia. And for general website use and documents, rarely does Flash really add anything useful to counteract the tremendous negatives.
>Cut/Paste is more tedious because of security reasons but keyboard shortcuts work.
I cannot highlight and middle paste somewhere, so it is at least 1/2 broken.
> Search works too and static text is indexed by Google.
Funny, when I do control-F in firefox and ask to find something, it never finds anything inside a Flash object.
>Agree on native UI, but then so it's Java.
And I agree on Java- it is usually unnecessary and an annoying pig too. But I encounter Java less than 1% of the time I encounter unnecessary Flash.
> Font size is controllable by user if the app is done properly -- granted, user can't override any settings.
And that is what I am talking about. I am rarely, if ever in control when viewing anything Flash. I can do ONLY what the developer decided I should be allowed to do, and only in their non-standard way.
> Rarely adjust to screen size - are you kidding me? it's vector, by default it will adjust to anything and can be programmed a lot better than CSS/HTML.
Try this on your small internet tablet or Flash supporting phone: http://blueswitch.com/ It is a perfect example of the typical Flash site that doesn't adjust to anything. And without Flash, there is essentially no content. If you have a large screen, it uses only a fraction of it. If you have a small screen, it is barely usable.
>Irritating animation - not a fault of the format itself.
True. And, yet, Flash developers can't seem to resist form over function.
>Works with screen readers -- seriously, have you TRIED it?
Under what platforms does it work? All? Can the browser see the text inside Flash? Can the OS?
>One more comment from the summary: "unfindable by search engines" - where does this come from? Google and all have been indexing PDF files since 10 years ago.
I assume they are referring to text within Flash objects, not PDF.
>I know Slashdot crowd loves to hate flash, but at least hate it for the right reasons: its lack of speed and real 3d hardware acceleration.
There are a lot more reasons to hate it than 3D and speed. I listed quite a few already. And you are correct that maybe half of my issues are with the typical IMPLEMENTATION of Flash and not Flash itself. But if 99% of the time I saw a steel pipe in someone's hand it was used to clobber and rob people, I might be upset when I see one.
"not to mention the fact that Palm and Microsoft have yet to give up on their respective WebOS and Windows Mobile visions."
When I saw that, I almost stopped reading completely. Yet to give up? WebOS? Palm just released the Linux-based WebOS a few ( 5) months ago! Why would anyone expect them to already "give up"???
"The first is that Android has taken four versions over two years to reach the same ballpark as the iPhone; WebOS did it in a dot-one upgrade a few months after its release."
There, that is more like it.
"the mobile equivalent of desktop Linux: just a plaything for open source community."
I am OK with PDF. I would RATHER see documents in plain HTML, but there are times when formatting is important. In those cases, if it is to be read/print-only, PDF is the way to go. Otherwise, the gov should use ODF.
But Flash? Are you kidding? The last thing on earth we need is more Flash.
* Does not work on all devices * Slow and/or consumes tons of CPU * Consumes tons of RAM * Consumes more bandwidth * Makes it difficult or impossible to cut and paste * Impossible to "search/find" * Violates the native UI look and feel * Fonts and font sizes are uncontrollable by the end user * Can't scroll correctly much of the time * Almost completely proprietary * Rarely adjusts to screen size * Often introduces extremely irritating animation. * Doesn't allow text to be "seen" by the browser (or OS), making other plugins (like a screen reader) 100% useless
At least that SilverDark stuff isn't even on the radar- thank God for little favors.
Everyone knows that hard drives will continue to get bigger and bigger, and smaller drives will drop off the market and the "entry" price will remain around the same. But if you don't *NEED* such huge drives, then SSDD works just fine. My Netbook can attest to that. Sure- I can't store ALL my music and ALL my video and ALL my pictures, but I don't need to on that type of device. Linux seems to work just fine on SSDD, saves a bit of battery, seems a bit faster overall, and it is impervious to jarring and magnetism, and is smaller and lighter. And that is just 40GB (16 fast, 32 "normal"). I can't imagine that in the next few years that Flash won't continue to get faster, cheaper, and more dense- especially as more and more portable devices create an ever-increasing demand.
>It's not like you could trust a bunch of hippy academics to design a viable internetworking protocol....
Yeah, like that one MS "borrowed" from BSD to implement TCP/IP when they finally gave up trying to force everyone to use their proprietary network junk. Hmm
>The way you write this, it sounds like something positive.
Well, it is both positive and negative. Personally, I *hate* what Flash does to web browsing, most of the time. It consumes tons of RAM, makes loading pages slow, eats bandwidth, eats CPU, lowers security, damages compatibility, restricts screen sizes, and most of all- makes animation while I am trying to READ.
And on a phone, it will drain the battery like no tomorrow.
But if they have the ability to turn it on/off or limit/control it's use, that will be the best of both worlds.
>Oh, an if you want video, there is a video player on the iPhone
Well, WebOS/Pre, Android, etc, they all have that- Youtube player, video player, stream player. This is about Flash 10.1 on a phone web browser.
Slashdot Mirror
>My biggest concern wouldn't be so much that pyTiVo couldn't handle the HD video and AC3 audio, but that at 100Mbps you couldn't stream it fast enough to get really good HD quality
In my case, I was not even trying to stream HD, just SD from my DVD's. The picture was just very poor once transcoded from 264 to whatever limited bitrate and codec that TiVo understood (can't recall at this moment). I might have been doing something wrong (or maybe just the way I stored it made it worse), but I seem to remember the lack of AC3 was the real deal killer for me. Plus, with a very large, digital, HD TV, my tolerance for reduction of the starting DVD quality is probably pretty low.
It probably *is* past time for me to look at it again. I will add it to my long "to-do" list.
As you know, DirecTV is not a cable provider. They are beyond paranoid and proprietary (like all satellite companies- and probably with good reason, though).
Aside, it is inexcusable that the FCC has not been more forceful in guaranteeing consumers have the right to choose the end equipment they want; not just cable but with satellite also. Oh well :(
Last time I tried pyTiVo with my TiVO HD, the results were far from stellar. I do store many of my DVD's as 1Mb/s 264 + AC3 AVI files and it just didn't seem to like it. It down-res'ed them horribly and the resulting video was poor. Plus, I believe it trashes the AC3, resulting in just stereo (yuck) sound.
Now, it has been at least a year since I messed with it (and gave up on it). If you think it has improved, I will give it another shot.
Not having decent local streaming of video files has been my #2 complaint with TiVo (#1 being that we can't easily backup the damn settings to a USB key or something so if the unit dies we can recover many hours of work done with preferences, season passes, stations, etc). Otherwise, the TiVo HD is *extremely* impressive and I highly recommend it... it runs circles around any cable provider's DVR or "software" solution I have seen.
My solution wasn't software at all. I just went with a TiVo HD. Dual tuner, dual cable card, over-the-air recording, cable recording, HD, SD, Netflix streaming, YouTube, Amazon, season passes, automatic listings, fantastic remote control, remote access, the list goes on and on.
The fact that it runs Linux is interesting, but doesn't really matter one way or the other. The box just "works" and it works very well. It should certainly be in the list of anyones' comparisons to messing with software solutions... although there is a service fee, it is less than a typical premium channel; and the box is far cheaper than anything one could ever put together on their own.
Is it perfect? Of course not. I am very picky and have my own list of things that need to be improved or fixed. But when I compare it to anything else out there, it always seems to come out on top, by far.
> VB does ONE job and does it quite well-GUIs for databases
As long as you don't mind being completely and utterly locked into a single, closed platform.
>According to the article, databases (tracking IP address mappings) could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading
Exactly how is knowing an IP address mapping going to tell anyone which SPECIFIC USER is doing anything? It might tell you which account is doing something. But last I checked, that doesn't tie to a person. Any number of people might use a single IP address. At work, we have 150+ users behind a single IP address.
So, an account holder will be guilty, regardless of who the "user" actually was.
+3 LOL!!!!
What a completely intelligent and useful response. Eight curse words and a few completely unfounded accusations... impressive.
Good grief. Take a chill pill, anonymous *coward*. So I misread the last line. It doesn't change hardly anything. It still took them 10 years to notice it was being used in 95, 98, 2000, and xp.
>Zhongyi argues that agreement applied only to Windows 95
It took them over 10 years to notice their fonts were also being used in 98, 2000, xp, vista, and 7???
> it's specifically about bringing up an interface to escalate when the system determines that
> escalation will be required, not about escalating manually before the task is attempted.
Funny, but that is exactly what my Mandriva Linux system does when I try to install updates, launch the system configurator, change a network setting (instead of just selecting a network) etc. It pops up a GUI asking for the root password if I am not already allowed. And it has done this for years.
News at 11- it is a huge surprise when it was found that money from commercial software giant lobbyists and special interest groups influenced the assumed impartial decision-making process of the EU. How could this happen???? If you can beat 'em, just redefine the playing field.
I have used TiVo's forever... since they first came out.
I watch nothing that isn't recorded.
Yet, when I fast forward through commercials, which is normal for me, I still SEE them. And I OFTEN will stop and watch a commercial if it appears to be interesting or for something I have interest in purchasing.
Welcome to the new higher-tech TV watcher- we don't want to watch ads for things we have no interest in. And we certainly don't need or want to see the same ad over and over and over again. If I am not in the market for a car, a car commercial is nothing but a waste of time. If I am a man, I don't want to see commercials about that "fresh feeling" down there. I certainly have no interest in debt consolidation, dresses, children's cereal, or 90% of the other stuff in commercials.
>Most of what you say is implementation-related rather than format-related. It's like saying that C sucks because there are so many crappy programs.
I will agree that there are better and worse ways to IMPLEMENT Flash, but even properly implemented, it doesn't address all (or most) of my issues.
>Nothing "just works" on all devices and in this area flash fares better than most other technologies; agree is slow; not really agree on RAM usage.
HTML works fine on all devices. 95% of the time I see Flash used, it is totally unnecessary.
>Flash uses less bandwidth than alternatives, it's quite very well optimized. Sure, someone can stuff some 10 min. mp3s encoded at 256kbps and and bunch of 2048x2048 bitmaps but that's another story.
Agreed- for when you really need video or audio, that is one of the few times Flash shines (although it is still a pig). But we are mostly talking about documents, not multimedia. And for general website use and documents, rarely does Flash really add anything useful to counteract the tremendous negatives.
>Cut/Paste is more tedious because of security reasons but keyboard shortcuts work.
I cannot highlight and middle paste somewhere, so it is at least 1/2 broken.
> Search works too and static text is indexed by Google.
Funny, when I do control-F in firefox and ask to find something, it never finds anything inside a Flash object.
>Agree on native UI, but then so it's Java.
And I agree on Java- it is usually unnecessary and an annoying pig too. But I encounter Java less than 1% of the time I encounter unnecessary Flash.
> Font size is controllable by user if the app is done properly -- granted, user can't override any settings.
And that is what I am talking about. I am rarely, if ever in control when viewing anything Flash. I can do ONLY what the developer decided I should be allowed to do, and only in their non-standard way.
> Rarely adjust to screen size - are you kidding me? it's vector, by default it will adjust to anything and can be programmed a lot better than CSS/HTML.
Try this on your small internet tablet or Flash supporting phone: http://blueswitch.com/ It is a perfect example of the typical Flash site that doesn't adjust to anything. And without Flash, there is essentially no content. If you have a large screen, it uses only a fraction of it. If you have a small screen, it is barely usable.
>Irritating animation - not a fault of the format itself.
True. And, yet, Flash developers can't seem to resist form over function.
>Works with screen readers -- seriously, have you TRIED it?
Under what platforms does it work? All? Can the browser see the text inside Flash? Can the OS?
>One more comment from the summary: "unfindable by search engines" - where does this come from? Google and all have been indexing PDF files since 10 years ago.
I assume they are referring to text within Flash objects, not PDF.
>I know Slashdot crowd loves to hate flash, but at least hate it for the right reasons: its lack of speed and real 3d hardware acceleration.
There are a lot more reasons to hate it than 3D and speed. I listed quite a few already. And you are correct that maybe half of my issues are with the typical IMPLEMENTATION of Flash and not Flash itself. But if 99% of the time I saw a steel pipe in someone's hand it was used to clobber and rob people, I might be upset when I see one.
So there is a partial option for MS-Windows only. Great. Not exactly platform agnostic and open. I suppose it is better than nothing, though.
From the article:
"not to mention the fact that Palm and Microsoft have yet to give up on their respective WebOS and Windows Mobile visions."
When I saw that, I almost stopped reading completely. Yet to give up? WebOS? Palm just released the Linux-based WebOS a few ( 5) months ago! Why would anyone expect them to already "give up"???
"The first is that Android has taken four versions over two years to reach the same ballpark as the iPhone; WebOS did it in a dot-one upgrade a few months after its release."
There, that is more like it.
"the mobile equivalent of desktop Linux: just a plaything for open source community."
Desktop Linux is only a plaything?? Yeesh.
I am OK with PDF. I would RATHER see documents in plain HTML, but there are times when formatting is important. In those cases, if it is to be read/print-only, PDF is the way to go. Otherwise, the gov should use ODF.
But Flash? Are you kidding? The last thing on earth we need is more Flash.
* Does not work on all devices
* Slow and/or consumes tons of CPU
* Consumes tons of RAM
* Consumes more bandwidth
* Makes it difficult or impossible to cut and paste
* Impossible to "search/find"
* Violates the native UI look and feel
* Fonts and font sizes are uncontrollable by the end user
* Can't scroll correctly much of the time
* Almost completely proprietary
* Rarely adjusts to screen size
* Often introduces extremely irritating animation.
* Doesn't allow text to be "seen" by the browser (or OS), making other plugins (like a screen reader) 100% useless
At least that SilverDark stuff isn't even on the radar- thank God for little favors.
Everyone knows that hard drives will continue to get bigger and bigger, and smaller drives will drop off the market and the "entry" price will remain around the same. But if you don't *NEED* such huge drives, then SSDD works just fine. My Netbook can attest to that. Sure- I can't store ALL my music and ALL my video and ALL my pictures, but I don't need to on that type of device. Linux seems to work just fine on SSDD, saves a bit of battery, seems a bit faster overall, and it is impervious to jarring and magnetism, and is smaller and lighter. And that is just 40GB (16 fast, 32 "normal"). I can't imagine that in the next few years that Flash won't continue to get faster, cheaper, and more dense- especially as more and more portable devices create an ever-increasing demand.
Granted, none of mine are newer than a 40GB Video...
Of course, I won't buy any newer ones from now on if they don't work in Linux.
>Apple forces people to install iTunes to access their iPods. Strange; I have several ipods and use them just fine in Linux, without iTunes...
Doesn't the Kindle offer free, unlimited, live access to Wikipedia? Seems like they left THAT off their feature comparison chart....
No, I knew it was sarcastic :) I was just adding to it.
>It's not like you could trust a bunch of hippy academics to design a viable internetworking protocol....
Yeah, like that one MS "borrowed" from BSD to implement TCP/IP when they finally gave up trying to force everyone to use their proprietary network junk. Hmm
No, it will be TCP/IP with a pinch of Microsoft proprietary.
>The way you write this, it sounds like something positive.
Well, it is both positive and negative. Personally, I *hate* what Flash does to web browsing, most of the time. It consumes tons of RAM, makes loading pages slow, eats bandwidth, eats CPU, lowers security, damages compatibility, restricts screen sizes, and most of all- makes animation while I am trying to READ.
And on a phone, it will drain the battery like no tomorrow.
But if they have the ability to turn it on/off or limit/control it's use, that will be the best of both worlds.
>Oh, an if you want video, there is a video player on the iPhone
Well, WebOS/Pre, Android, etc, they all have that- Youtube player, video player, stream player. This is about Flash 10.1 on a phone web browser.