If you have a home projection system, then a dedicated DVD player is a minor cost in the whole budget. I have a projector - cost 1500 plus 200 a year for a new bulb, 100-150 for a super silent high quality dedicated DVD player is nothing when you're playing with that budget.
Wow, 200 (quid? Bucks?) a year for a new bulb sounds pretty steep. How much do you use your projector to be going through bulbs at that rate? Mine has 3000 hours lamp life and I fully expect that to last five years at current rates of usage (couple of films a week tops).
I have a PS2 and GameCube. I have used the PS2 as a secondary DVD player but have had to put it into a hifi cabinet to stop the noise of the fan being a constant irritation. While it has played all the DVDs I have wanted to and is also region free thanks to region X I don't think I could stand it as the only DVD player we had. The remote is terrible and the noise irritating. Picture is OK on a small screen (28" widescreen) but I wouldn't use it for films on my projection system.
To be honest, I'm with Nintendo on this, the GameCube is smaller, quieter and starts games quicker so as a games machine it is better than the PS2 as it sticks to what it does best. Sadly, the games are released too late so we tend to get the PS2 version when they appear. If the PS2 and GC versions arrived at the same time I would buy the GC version in a heartbeat. Sadly this delay rather than lack of DVD support is what we mean the GC will be runner up to the PS2. Xbox is even further behind despite being able to play DVDs of course.
As an employer I looked for people who had a range of experience. These people would be able to cope when changes and challenges presented themselves. I remember even twenty years back putting someone one a computer to do some work and they said that they had only be taught how to use another software package and they were completely stumped by what I was asking them to do.
The same is true today. People trained to use MS Office and Windows are frequently hopeless when put in front of another OS. Someone who has learned how to use computers rather than a particular OS and package are much more flexible and know how to read a manual. They will be more productive in the long run than these MS trained drones.
For this reason I would encourage schools to look for less uniformity not more. Mac, UNIX, Linux, Windows, Be, even VMS, it's all good and the diversity helps stem the tide of malware. Whatever happened to the network being the computer? The client shouldn't matter, mix 'em up and we'll have more rounded students entering the workforce.
Buy two, and make sure they are fit for purpose
on
Buying a New TV?
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· Score: 3, Informative
I have spent a lot of time on this and ended up compromising and buying two TVs. Most made for TV material is 4:3 and shot for a small screen. If you watch that material on a big screen it is really going to look bad as you stare up news reader's noses and the likes. A small set (21-25") is ideal for that sort of casual watching material. It is still worth getting a good set though but HDTV ready is not necessary. You will need to use a calibration DVD (eg Video Essentials) to pick a set that will actually give you good flesh tones etc. I bought a 21" Sony, got into the factory settings menu and reset it to give a more natural picture. Sony (as do many others) set the colour temp far too high so you end up with a very blue picture which might look impressive but is rather unrealistic. With that I am all set for watching standard definition material.
For movies I bought a single chip DLP projector (InFocus X1) which is the best bang for the buck at the moment. Fully multistandard, calibrates wonderully and is very bright and clear. The video scaler and deinterlacer are excellent too extracting 24fps from NTSC LDs with 3:2 pulldown eliminating judder. Resolution of the DLP is only 800x600 but that is ample for all current DVDs and even in 16:9 mode where it compresses the picture down vertically it still looks clear. A true 16:9 projector would have a little more resolution but brightness and colour correctness make up for this small deficiency, and cost (about $1500). Oh, and it will accept HDTV signals although it downconverts. Once HD is really cooking this projector will be ready to retire anyway so not to worry.
Lessons to live by:
Buy Video Essentials, practice with it until you can get a really nice picture, try several sets, it takes time to get used to it but you will learn which TVs can be calibrated and which can't.
Don't be swayed by the brightest punchiest picture in the shop. Quite likely a TV with that default setting is running a very high colour temp and also the tube is liable to burn. A calibrated picture looks dark and dull at first but once you get used to it you will never go back. Room lighting is also important, TVs are not designed to be used in brightly lit rooms, control the light, especially that shining on the screen.
Avoid LCD TVs like the plague, the scalers in them are very poor and they have poor contrast and black level, plus they cost a fortune for what is really a very small and muddy picture. They are a very poor substitute for plasma screens.
Plasma TVs are for people who like to show off. Very few produce an acceptable picture, and those that do cost a lot. For the money you would spend on one of them you can have a nice little direct view and a huge projection system. My set up currently has a 100" screen but I want something bigger. It cost less than half the price of a decent plasma screen and the picture is 3x bigger.
LCD projectors are better than they used to be but DLP is much better and about the same money. The InFocus X1 can be had for less than $1500 which is amazing value, particularly as it has a built in Faroudja deinterlacer.
For CRTs, make sure that the picture is stable when there is a strong flashing image (Video Essentials includes the necessary tests and instructions). Nothing worse than a TV where the picture bends and pulses when Arnie blows s**t up:-)
Back projection CRTs are OK but very bulky, imagine what your room will be like when the thing is not turned on. It will be like sharing a room with the monolith out of 2001 and you're back to staring up people's noses. Once all TV is shot assuming large screens as movies are then this won't be a problem. As I said, my solution is to have a small set for small screen stuff and a big screen for big screen movies. Cost is more than your budget but you might be able to find ex-demo or secondhand projectors on E-bay and it is well worth it.
Of course, you could just avoid all this and buy the first set that you like the look of, but that wouldn't be the slashdot way now would it?:-D
I bought the Atari Anniversary playstation disc a while back thinking it would be great to be able to play the games included such as Missile Command. However, the PS controller is simply not suited to these games and made them all but unplayable. I hope in these conversions they do a better job. I expect you really need an arcade style controller to play these games properly.
No, a standard can be implemented by people using different code bases. If the standard is faulty then it needs to be fixed and each implementation also needs to be fixed to deal with the problem. However, the vast majority of problems with standards come from there being a single code base. For example, SSH. There is code based on the original SSH implementation and code based on OpenSSH. Frequently there is a problem with one or the other but not both. Less frequently there is a problem with the standard itself.
Any biologist will tell you that in an environment where there is only one type of organism, any infection that they are susceptable to that comes along will have catastrophic effects. To avoid this you need diversity. In computing the problem with having windows/intel as the vast majority is that any attack that targets that is going to cause a lot of trouble. Standards that have been implemented on many platforms and architectures are what is needed but that goes against Microsoft's desire for control of everything. However, that desire is doomed to fail because if they fail to take control they fail and if they win complete control they fail because of the lack of diversity.
it is good to have lots of operating systems and processors out there, anything else would be suicide. With proper diversity we could control both the virus and spam problems.
I don't see what this has to do with SCO. I read scodot.org for all the SCO news, not for some unrelated tosh about a piece of kit which is guaranteed to have the MPAA kicking your door down!
You said "My little iMac can encode MPEG4 video in realtime. Show me an x86 that can do that. Or, shut up about x86 performance."
Ummm, lots actually. Even my PIII 1Ghz laptop can encode MPEG4 in realtime, OK so we're talking 25 frames per second PAL video here but still. That is using mencoder with libdivx and variable bit rate.
>1) It does not render the Outlook Web Access from Exchange 2000 properly. This may just be because those Microsoft ass-clowns have coded it specifically for IE, it may not be Safari's fault.
I'm using Outlook Web Access 2K as well and it works fine with both Mozilla and Konqueror under Linux so I doubt there is anything in there specifically coded for IE. Of course, I don't have a Mac (yet, gimme a G5!!!!) so I can't test Safari itself.
As someone who uses and develops bioinformatics software for a living I should point out that BLAST is not a great benchmark in this case. The performance graphs Apple is showing are very misleading. The longer word lengths are rarely used because they are very insensitive. More usually a word length of 14 down to 7 would be used for nucleotide searches and at those word lengths the difference in performance is nothing like as marked.
Also, BLAST is IO bound rather than CPU bound so what the graphs are showing is that BLAST needs a lot of memory and a 64 bit processor is a significant advantage in this case. This is why SGI, SUN and Alpha systems are popular for running BLAST as services. You really need gigabytes of RAM especially for DNA searches. I expect a comparison of BLASTp (protein search) would be nothing like as impressive which is why Apple chose BLASTn.
Now, this is not to dismiss the performance in any way, the new Apples look very quick and I am surely not the only one who is very interested in getting one.
Actually, the performance of HMMer is more telling, this is a CPU bound application and clearly AltiVec is doing some good, I wonder if the x86 version is as optimised though?
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If you have a home projection system, then a dedicated DVD player is a minor cost in the whole budget. I have a projector - cost 1500 plus 200 a year for a new bulb, 100-150 for a super silent high quality dedicated DVD player is nothing when you're playing with that budget.
Wow, 200 (quid? Bucks?) a year for a new bulb sounds pretty steep. How much do you use your projector to be going through bulbs at that rate? Mine has 3000 hours lamp life and I fully expect that to last five years at current rates of usage (couple of films a week tops).
I have a PS2 and GameCube. I have used the PS2 as a secondary DVD player but have had to put it into a hifi cabinet to stop the noise of the fan being a constant irritation. While it has played all the DVDs I have wanted to and is also region free thanks to region X I don't think I could stand it as the only DVD player we had. The remote is terrible and the noise irritating. Picture is OK on a small screen (28" widescreen) but I wouldn't use it for films on my projection system.
To be honest, I'm with Nintendo on this, the GameCube is smaller, quieter and starts games quicker so as a games machine it is better than the PS2 as it sticks to what it does best. Sadly, the games are released too late so we tend to get the PS2 version when they appear. If the PS2 and GC versions arrived at the same time I would buy the GC version in a heartbeat. Sadly this delay rather than lack of DVD support is what we mean the GC will be runner up to the PS2. Xbox is even further behind despite being able to play DVDs of course.
As an employer I looked for people who had a range of experience. These people would be able to cope when changes and challenges presented themselves. I remember even twenty years back putting someone one a computer to do some work and they said that they had only be taught how to use another software package and they were completely stumped by what I was asking them to do.
The same is true today. People trained to use MS Office and Windows are frequently hopeless when put in front of another OS. Someone who has learned how to use computers rather than a particular OS and package are much more flexible and know how to read a manual. They will be more productive in the long run than these MS trained drones.
For this reason I would encourage schools to look for less uniformity not more. Mac, UNIX, Linux, Windows, Be, even VMS, it's all good and the diversity helps stem the tide of malware. Whatever happened to the network being the computer? The client shouldn't matter, mix 'em up and we'll have more rounded students entering the workforce.
I have spent a lot of time on this and ended up compromising and buying two TVs. Most made for TV material is 4:3 and shot for a small screen. If you watch that material on a big screen it is really going to look bad as you stare up news reader's noses and the likes. A small set (21-25") is ideal for that sort of casual watching material. It is still worth getting a good set though but HDTV ready is not necessary. You will need to use a calibration DVD (eg Video Essentials) to pick a set that will actually give you good flesh tones etc. I bought a 21" Sony, got into the factory settings menu and reset it to give a more natural picture. Sony (as do many others) set the colour temp far too high so you end up with a very blue picture which might look impressive but is rather unrealistic. With that I am all set for watching standard definition material.
:-)
:-D
For movies I bought a single chip DLP projector (InFocus X1) which is the best bang for the buck at the moment. Fully multistandard, calibrates wonderully and is very bright and clear. The video scaler and deinterlacer are excellent too extracting 24fps from NTSC LDs with 3:2 pulldown eliminating judder. Resolution of the DLP is only 800x600 but that is ample for all current DVDs and even in 16:9 mode where it compresses the picture down vertically it still looks clear. A true 16:9 projector would have a little more resolution but brightness and colour correctness make up for this small deficiency, and cost (about $1500). Oh, and it will accept HDTV signals although it downconverts. Once HD is really cooking this projector will be ready to retire anyway so not to worry.
Lessons to live by:
Buy Video Essentials, practice with it until you can get a really nice picture, try several sets, it takes time to get used to it but you will learn which TVs can be calibrated and which can't.
Don't be swayed by the brightest punchiest picture in the shop. Quite likely a TV with that default setting is running a very high colour temp and also the tube is liable to burn. A calibrated picture looks dark and dull at first but once you get used to it you will never go back. Room lighting is also important, TVs are not designed to be used in brightly lit rooms, control the light, especially that shining on the screen.
Avoid LCD TVs like the plague, the scalers in them are very poor and they have poor contrast and black level, plus they cost a fortune for what is really a very small and muddy picture. They are a very poor substitute for plasma screens.
Plasma TVs are for people who like to show off. Very few produce an acceptable picture, and those that do cost a lot. For the money you would spend on one of them you can have a nice little direct view and a huge projection system. My set up currently has a 100" screen but I want something bigger. It cost less than half the price of a decent plasma screen and the picture is 3x bigger.
LCD projectors are better than they used to be but DLP is much better and about the same money. The InFocus X1 can be had for less than $1500 which is amazing value, particularly as it has a built in Faroudja deinterlacer.
For CRTs, make sure that the picture is stable when there is a strong flashing image (Video Essentials includes the necessary tests and instructions). Nothing worse than a TV where the picture bends and pulses when Arnie blows s**t up
Back projection CRTs are OK but very bulky, imagine what your room will be like when the thing is not turned on. It will be like sharing a room with the monolith out of 2001 and you're back to staring up people's noses. Once all TV is shot assuming large screens as movies are then this won't be a problem. As I said, my solution is to have a small set for small screen stuff and a big screen for big screen movies. Cost is more than your budget but you might be able to find ex-demo or secondhand projectors on E-bay and it is well worth it.
Of course, you could just avoid all this and buy the first set that you like the look of, but that wouldn't be the slashdot way now would it?
I bought the Atari Anniversary playstation disc a while back thinking it would be great to be able to play the games included such as Missile Command. However, the PS controller is simply not suited to these games and made them all but unplayable. I hope in these conversions they do a better job. I expect you really need an arcade style controller to play these games properly.
No, a standard can be implemented by people using different code bases. If the standard is faulty then it needs to be fixed and each implementation also needs to be fixed to deal with the problem. However, the vast majority of problems with standards come from there being a single code base. For example, SSH. There is code based on the original SSH implementation and code based on OpenSSH. Frequently there is a problem with one or the other but not both. Less frequently there is a problem with the standard itself.
Any biologist will tell you that in an environment where there is only one type of organism, any infection that they are susceptable to that comes along will have catastrophic effects. To avoid this you need diversity. In computing the problem with having windows/intel as the vast majority is that any attack that targets that is going to cause a lot of trouble. Standards that have been implemented on many platforms and architectures are what is needed but that goes against Microsoft's desire for control of everything. However, that desire is doomed to fail because if they fail to take control they fail and if they win complete control they fail because of the lack of diversity.
it is good to have lots of operating systems and processors out there, anything else would be suicide. With proper diversity we could control both the virus and spam problems.
I don't see what this has to do with SCO. I read scodot.org for all the SCO news, not for some unrelated tosh about a piece of kit which is guaranteed to have the MPAA kicking your door down!
You said "My little iMac can encode MPEG4 video in realtime. Show me an x86 that can do that. Or, shut up about x86 performance."
Ummm, lots actually. Even my PIII 1Ghz laptop can encode MPEG4 in realtime, OK so we're talking 25 frames per second PAL video here but still. That is using mencoder with libdivx and variable bit rate.
These days MPEG4 encoding is not that tough.
>1) It does not render the Outlook Web Access from Exchange 2000 properly. This may just be because those Microsoft ass-clowns have coded it specifically for IE, it may not be Safari's fault.
I'm using Outlook Web Access 2K as well and it works fine with both Mozilla and Konqueror under Linux so I doubt there is anything in there specifically coded for IE. Of course, I don't have a Mac (yet, gimme a G5!!!!) so I can't test Safari itself.
As someone who uses and develops bioinformatics software for a living I should point out that BLAST is not a great benchmark in this case. The performance graphs Apple is showing are very misleading. The longer word lengths are rarely used because they are very insensitive. More usually a word length of 14 down to 7 would be used for nucleotide searches and at those word lengths the difference in performance is nothing like as marked.
Also, BLAST is IO bound rather than CPU bound so what the graphs are showing is that BLAST needs a lot of memory and a 64 bit processor is a significant advantage in this case. This is why SGI, SUN and Alpha systems are popular for running BLAST as services. You really need gigabytes of RAM especially for DNA searches. I expect a comparison of BLASTp (protein search) would be nothing like as impressive which is why Apple chose BLASTn.
Now, this is not to dismiss the performance in any way, the new Apples look very quick and I am surely not the only one who is very interested in getting one.
Actually, the performance of HMMer is more telling, this is a CPU bound application and clearly AltiVec is doing some good, I wonder if the x86 version is as optimised though?