Any hardware that's designed in such a crippled way should be considered broken!
I thought that was implicit. DRM, broken by design. This is Slashdot, is it not?
In this case the goal is to break it for the end user, not for the protection. For the content providers (all of them in the chain), this is the device failing safely.
It WAS NOT THE CARDS. They were tested before they left the shop and tested AOK.
That they were tested before they left the shop is why they didn't work in the field! You can't just move a CableCard from one device to another. Once paired with a device they need to be reset before they can be paired with another. They've been paired to equipment in the shop; they weren't reset and thus could not then be paired with the machines in the field.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable company itself could not reset them and they had to be sent back to the supplier to maximize DRM protection.
It makes you wonder whether the "flakiness" reputation actually originated from people performing such testing.
Actually, by testing the cards before taking them to the field, they got married to the test hardware and could no longer be married to the device in the field. Either they needed to divorce the cards (through some deep secret kung fu no customer should ever know how to do) or get new cards that are still bachelors.
So this product test was invalid and says nothing about the machines being tested, only the cable company tech who screwed it up before driving out.
That story makes God look like the lazy parent. "See this box of fireworks and matches? DON'T play with them! Got it? Whatever you do don't play with these incredibly fun fireworks that I'm going to leave in the middle of your toys."
"What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?"
"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting 'Gotcha.' It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."
Another feature would be a built-in microphone with a program that has been trained to your voice so that you can speak into this mic and have your words translated into the written form of the local language and displayed on the LCD.
Great, so now I can have it read, "I really like urinalysis" in Japanese.
It's the subsurface cannon barrel they used to fire their cylinders to invade Earth in 1898, 1938, and 1953. They may be readying for another attempt! When is the next opposition?
Holo-Official: You young 50 have been selected from the best, the brightest, and the most loyal of all His Shadow's subjects from thousands of planets. Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels. And after you receive your Awards of Merit today, you will return to your home planets, where you will dedicate the rest of your lives to helping His Shadow's light reach those unfortunate dark corners where it still does not yet fall. A shining example for every planet, you are hereby--
Holo-Judge: Sentenced to be devoured by Cluster Lizards, such sentence to be executed immediately!
Holo-Official: Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels.
Holo-Judge: You have been found guilty. Guilty, guilty.
I'm planning out a MythTV system not primarily for recording TV but rather for organizing and scheduling the viewing of my DVD collection in a manner less boredom-inducing than the marathons to which Sony's 400-disc player limits me.
If you find good software for it, please let me know, but MythDVD is *not* it. It is not satisfying at all. It doesn't even preserve menus.
I plan to make major changes to the code to enable features DVDs can't perform, including inserting content from other disks between chapters. I'd rather see the trailer for the next episode of The X-Files just before the credits of the one I'm watching. Or at the original commercial breaks in other shows.
An early goal is to make playback virtually indistinguishable from watching the same shows on a premium cable channel: the only ads you see are trailers for upcoming episodes. The ultimate goal is to get it to the point where it can be used to schedule a 24/7 channel, even incorporating live video feeds, program preemption features, and severe weather alert overlays.
There's some benefit though in having access to content independent from the menus. Some disks have some content that isn't accessible from the menus, and not just easter eggs with obscure access methods. It also won't be long before there are ads for Coke, Pepsi, and Doritos embedded in the backgrounds of DVD menus.
I think part of the problem may be in the lack of features in rippers. Necessity has been breeding systems that transcode or recompress video, drop tracks to fit on single layer disks, and whole disk imaging, but nothing that can deconstruct all of a disk's assets into easily manipulated components for remastering. (I'd love to be able to decompile a DVD into a DVD Studio Pro project; I have the same titles from different regions with different features that I want to remaster into a merged project, but nothing rips menu stills and button locations.)
I intend to resume the search for a good DIY hard drive based DVD jukebox when it's winter again.
I'll be using the time in this summer re-run season to learn the Myth code and start building the features I want into it. I'll see what I can do to get your wishlist of features in as well, but I think that'll take some study of DVD structure and building a better ripper.
After so recently decided to support Linux on their machines, including limited technical support, Dell seems to be squandering any possible good-will with this decision to leave purchasers of these machines high and dry for hardware warranty coverage.
I suggest "After so recently deciding" for the above. Alternatively, "After having so recently decided" would also work. Otherwise, a bigger change is needed: "After Dell so recently decided to support support Linux on their machines, including limited technical support, they seem".
Although the 'normal' version works like a dream on the Mac
Maybe you like your spreadsheets to always open maximized, but I don't. I've never been able to get the X11 Mac version to remember the size and position of spreadsheet document's window and restore it properly on open. I always have to unmaximize to get the resize widget to appear, then drag it to my desired size (yes, the unmaximized window size is also the same size as the display). Hardware is a G4 Cube, software is the latest version (the previous version was crashing attempting to copy a sheet of a spreadsheet to a new sheet).
And the slow redraws if you dare try to move to another cell while the spreadsheet is redrawing its recalculation are very annoying. It's like just moving to another cell causes the recalculation to abort and start over again.
I should have a right to expect a standard during primetime when my children are near the TV. After hours, they can do what they want but a standard needs to be in place when children are around.
Have you considered moving the children away from the TV? Or, in the case of smaller TVs, moving the TV away from the children?
Or just get yourself a TiVo and time-shift your mature prime-time programming to after the kids have gone to bed, school, or out to play. Parental controls are built-in.
I enjoy the body of human knowledge as much as the next geek, but I'm content in my ability to peruse most of it at a library (or on somebody else's webserver instead of a local mirror) and only own a select set of books (and tarballs) and perhaps an encyclopedia for home use.
Yet unlike books, a lot of video content does not get endlessly reprinted, does get pulled from circulation, and eventually ceases to be available from your local DVD rental store. (Some titles may never be seen again after their original airing. I'm not holding my breath for the series Drive to come out while I still wait for VR.5 and Strange Luck to even appear on cable.)
If your media archive consists of things that you've watched at least once, you're not nearly as bad as some media packrats.
Well then, let me put some numbers to "not nearly as bad". According to Delicious Library, I'm approaching 800 DVD titles. Most of those titles are complete seasons of TV series, a few of them are complete runs of several-season TV series, some of those complete series ran quite long (Homicide: Life on the Street, M*A*S*H, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Prisoner, Star Trek: Voyager, and The West Wing being the big ones I can easily name).
However, it would be reasonable to say that the commentaries and special features would constitute never-before-experienced content.
I'm planning out a MythTV system not primarily for recording TV but rather for organizing and scheduling the viewing of my DVD collection in a manner less boredom-inducing than the marathons to which Sony's 400-disc player limits me. I can barely sit through watching 3 episodes per disc of Highlander these days.
Still, it's good to know that I'm "not nearly as bad as some media packrats". But I'm still not planning any more purchases this month. (At least not until Deep Discount DVD's seasonal sales start again soon.)
What gets me is all the 16:9 ads that they show on HD channels in SD format, but letterboxed into a 4:3 window. Those ads end up as a postage-stamp size rectangle in the middle of my screen. What are they thinking?
A 16:9 letterboxed commercial in a 4:3 frame on a 16:9 TV is reduced in diagonal by only 25%. E.g. a 47" HDTV has only a 35.25" image in that situation.
A typical postage stamp is only 1" x 7/8", and unless cut in half and the halves placed side-by-side, you can fit two of them in a 16:9 frame at maximum magnification and no cropping (apart from overscan), upright or sideways, and still with a little space to spare.
So, where did you manage to find that 2.5" HDTV, and is it 720p or 1080i/p?
(Determining the DPI of a 2.5" HDTV is left as an exercise for the reader.)
I wouldn't say that. After all, I've watched everything in my archive at least once at some time in my life. It's just that not everything in my archive have I watched from my archive.
Having an archive is not about watching everything again; it's about having the ability to watch anything again, and being able to share it with someone else in the room.
It's also like owning a set of encyclopedias: you may never read them from start to finish, but you can access parts of them from time to time as reference material.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case the goal is to break it for the end user, not for the protection. For the content providers (all of them in the chain), this is the device failing safely.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable company itself could not reset them and they had to be sent back to the supplier to maximize DRM protection.
It makes you wonder whether the "flakiness" reputation actually originated from people performing such testing.
Actually, by testing the cards before taking them to the field, they got married to the test hardware and could no longer be married to the device in the field. Either they needed to divorce the cards (through some deep secret kung fu no customer should ever know how to do) or get new cards that are still bachelors.
So this product test was invalid and says nothing about the machines being tested, only the cable company tech who screwed it up before driving out.
Hilarious!
God is Police Chief Wiggum!
Now this 2005 direct to video one starring C. Thomas Howell...
Ok now the Altoids tin mod would rock!
Well, you don't need a board that small to do that. They make "The BIG Tin(TM)" at 4" by 7.5" (holds 10 Oz. (283g) of mints). UPC 0-59280-20202-4.
Another feature would be a built-in microphone with a program that has been trained to your voice so that you can speak into this mic and have your words translated into the written form of the local language and displayed on the LCD.
Great, so now I can have it read, "I really like urinalysis" in Japanese.
business card-sized motherboard
The first order was placed by one Mordecai Sahmbi.
Or a piece of grit on the scanner scope.
See, the thing about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes,,,
It's the subsurface cannon barrel they used to fire their cylinders to invade Earth in 1898, 1938, and 1953. They may be readying for another attempt! When is the next opposition?
What's wrong with ALT+130 ?
128 to 159 are not valid Unicode characters.
Holo-Official: You young 50 have been selected from the best, the brightest, and the most loyal of all His Shadow's subjects from thousands of planets. Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels. And after you receive your Awards of Merit today, you will return to your home planets, where you will dedicate the rest of your lives to helping His Shadow's light reach those unfortunate dark corners where it still does not yet fall. A shining example for every planet, you are hereby--
Holo-Judge: Sentenced to be devoured by Cluster Lizards, such sentence to be executed immediately!
Holo-Official: Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels.
Holo-Judge: You have been found guilty. Guilty, guilty.
Of course, when installing an artificial intelligence in your home, you should become acquainted with its development history first.
... And whatever was here before B.R.A.D.
Jack:
Fargo: It was a war games simulation.
S.A.R.A.H.: Would you like to play a game?
Everyone: NO!!
An early goal is to make playback virtually indistinguishable from watching the same shows on a premium cable channel: the only ads you see are trailers for upcoming episodes. The ultimate goal is to get it to the point where it can be used to schedule a 24/7 channel, even incorporating live video feeds, program preemption features, and severe weather alert overlays.
There's some benefit though in having access to content independent from the menus. Some disks have some content that isn't accessible from the menus, and not just easter eggs with obscure access methods. It also won't be long before there are ads for Coke, Pepsi, and Doritos embedded in the backgrounds of DVD menus.
I think part of the problem may be in the lack of features in rippers. Necessity has been breeding systems that transcode or recompress video, drop tracks to fit on single layer disks, and whole disk imaging, but nothing that can deconstruct all of a disk's assets into easily manipulated components for remastering. (I'd love to be able to decompile a DVD into a DVD Studio Pro project; I have the same titles from different regions with different features that I want to remaster into a merged project, but nothing rips menu stills and button locations.) I'll be using the time in this summer re-run season to learn the Myth code and start building the features I want into it. I'll see what I can do to get your wishlist of features in as well, but I think that'll take some study of DVD structure and building a better ripper.
And the slow redraws if you dare try to move to another cell while the spreadsheet is redrawing its recalculation are very annoying. It's like just moving to another cell causes the recalculation to abort and start over again.
"How's it dangling, Chad?"
Or just get yourself a TiVo and time-shift your mature prime-time programming to after the kids have gone to bed, school, or out to play. Parental controls are built-in.
I've been using XEmacs 19.13 for the past 6 years at my workplace. It came out in 1995.
I don't expect this announcement to affect my work environment.
However, it would be reasonable to say that the commentaries and special features would constitute never-before-experienced content.
I'm planning out a MythTV system not primarily for recording TV but rather for organizing and scheduling the viewing of my DVD collection in a manner less boredom-inducing than the marathons to which Sony's 400-disc player limits me. I can barely sit through watching 3 episodes per disc of Highlander these days.
Still, it's good to know that I'm "not nearly as bad as some media packrats". But I'm still not planning any more purchases this month. (At least not until Deep Discount DVD's seasonal sales start again soon.)
A typical postage stamp is only 1" x 7/8", and unless cut in half and the halves placed side-by-side, you can fit two of them in a 16:9 frame at maximum magnification and no cropping (apart from overscan), upright or sideways, and still with a little space to spare.
So, where did you manage to find that 2.5" HDTV, and is it 720p or 1080i/p?
(Determining the DPI of a 2.5" HDTV is left as an exercise for the reader.)
unwatchable-in-your-lifetime media archive
I wouldn't say that. After all, I've watched everything in my archive at least once at some time in my life. It's just that not everything in my archive have I watched from my archive.
Having an archive is not about watching everything again; it's about having the ability to watch anything again, and being able to share it with someone else in the room.
It's also like owning a set of encyclopedias: you may never read them from start to finish, but you can access parts of them from time to time as reference material.