Bad example. VERY bad example. Anyone who suggests a "medical IT" worker using a "medical imaging PC" for anything other than medical imaging simply doesn't know how these things work. First, it's unlikely you would even be able to play a movie on one. They don't come with things like WinDVD or AIM installed. Installing such things would not only get you fired, but would very likely land you in jail. Second, "medical IT" workers are "IT" workers, not medical professionals; he wouldn't be looking at your MRI's anyway.
Both systems use the same ATSC (mpeg2) system. As I recall, each channel is 6MHz. (earlier prototypes needed as much as 9MHz, fwiw.) Subchannels are supported and used on both. However, cable systems do tend to use more subchannels... around here, PBS OTA uses the most at 5 subs where as I've seen TW push dozens of stations on one channel (all SD, btw.)
The other thing worth noting is cable's reputation for re-compressing stuff to lower bitrates to make room for more stuff. Looking at CBS's 1080i HD signal OTA vs. TW/Raleigh... cable is noticablly worse. (see also: "HD Lite")
DirecTV uses their proprietary DSS technology. Their birds transmit the same encoding as everyone else, but digital bits are not DVB. They have a lot of money invested in DSS, so I doubt they'll ever drop it. Plus, using a proprietary protocol means they have 100% control over who builds receivers.
FCC rule(s). The local stations lobied to stop "non-local locals" because it was eating away their advertising revenue. If you are within a certain distance of the broadcast antenna, you cannot get the "superstation" for that local. It was a big mess years ago when the hammer dropped -- mostly because DISH/DTV didn't carry many local markets, since then there have been a number of spot-beam's launched to cover just about every DMA.
Yes, it is. The S3 is a unidirectional device. It has no RF transmitter or embeded cable modem ("eCM").
Mine gets digital cable stations just fine without any cards. (and, *ahem* without cable service.) The cableCARD(tm) provides two functions for the tivo: 1) channel mapping, and 2) signal decryption. Without a card, the tivo will show unencrypted cable channels (if you can find them) but won't associate any guide data with them. For "basic digital" (the OTA stations carried on cable), the tivo will correctly process the PSIP ("channel id") and put the channels where they should be, just like it does for OTA stations. (channel "5" is actually broadcast on UHF channel 53, for example. PSIP is what makes it appear as "5-1", etc.)
The "integration ban" has been looming for a long time. Depending on how you look at it, it's been coming for 20 years. I don't know when the FCC first put a date on paper, but the mandate has been around for a decade. The cable companies have been dragging their feet and now it's about to bite them on the ass. The deadline has been moved twice... one of those was because the cableco's came up with OCAP/DCAS (software instead of hardware) [read: complicated CRAP that gives them basically the same controll as today] as they don't "like" cableCARD(tm)s [and they don't want to buy new cable boxes and lose the cash cow of rented STBs.] I believe the exact phrase they used was "better technology is on the horizon"; duh, that's always true, but at some point you have to stop flappin' your gums and actually build something.
(here we go again) It's not the cableCARD(tm) that restricts "on demand" stuff. Every cableCARD(tm) ever made is capable of bidirectional use. The device USING the card has to be bidirectional -- and there aren't any.
The 2.0 spec is currently "issued" which means it's 99% set, but can still be ammended. "M-Cards" are currently on the market, but very few cableco's have them and even fewer devices support them -- they fall back to the 1.0 spec "S-Card" instead. As for the Tivo Series 3, the 2.0 spec changed too much after it was designed, so it isn't M-Card capable.
NTP supports authentication. It also allows admins to set the authoritative sources.
Here's my config:
# Prohibit general access to this service. restrict default ignore
# Permit all access over the loopback interface. This could # be tightened as well, but to do so would effect some of # the administrative functions. restrict 127.0.0.1
# # Drift file. Put this in a directory which the daemon can write to. # No symbolic links allowed, either, since the daemon updates the file # by creating a temporary in the same directory and then rename()'ing # it to the file. # driftfile/etc/ntp/drift broadcastdelay 0.008
Every computer on my network (several dozen) are sync'd every 5 seconds by a single packet. (ok, 3... one from each NTP server.) That includes windows machines too. (forget w32time and install ntpd)
I guess you're too young to have experienced EISA. That's what you are asking for... changes to the system take explicit configuration processes. There's no plug-and-play at all. Just plugging in a new card without configuration means it's effectively not there -- and in some systems, it wouldn't even power the slot until it was configured.
You may be surprised to know most of that check list is available in the S2 Tivos with the addition of TivoToGo... and a PC on the network somewhere to feed music and other video to/from it. I already said there are models with DVD playback and recording abilities; for obvious reasons, they don't rip dvds.
Tivo: free, subscription: $99/yr -> $297 (I know, that's not been available for a long time *grin*) DTivo: free, subscription: $4.99/month (covers up to 5 DVRs) -> $179.64
I've been using tivos for over 5 years. And I've never had to do anything but take it out of the box and plug it up. (excluding sticking larger hard drives in 'em.) I like the tivo interface; why would I copy the content to something else when I want to watch it from the tivo? (humax makes one with a dvd burner/player, but I've not tinkered with it enough to judge how well/poorly they integrated the dvd.)
Yes. Almost all video capture cards come with programs to do this -- every card I've had/seen from ASUS and ATI does. There won't be any program guide or fancy remote control, but it'll record whatever you program it to. Just like a VCR.
The appeal of the Tivo is it's simplicity and ease of use. Yes, I can build my own, but it will cost far more than the cost of the tivo and monthly (or lifetime) service. Plus a home grown solution will tend to require never ending tweaks to keep it running.
If you are refering to the interfaces in a PIX, then yes, they are standard PCI cards using Intel chips. In 99% of the cases, there's no reason at all to pay Cisco over $1000 for a card I can get at Best Buy for $25. Trust me, Cisco's card isn't any better made or tested than the thousands of other cards Intel makes. (In fact, for years, the PIX was nothing more than a PC in a rack mounted case. The only thing that made it a PIX was the flash card.)
The issue is a little more troubling when we're talking about a WIC/VIC/etc. as those are Cisco proprietary cards. There's nothing common or generic about them -- only Cisco's gear can use them.
And exactly what interest is that? So arsonists can know the best time(s) to set a fire? There's no reason for the general public to know when and where the fire department is deployed. Those people ("volunteers") that need to know, have radios that tell them where they need to be.
Tell me, why do I need to know where all the firemen are?
Actually, they can. However, that's much more complicated than ever necessary. (I've been forced to do something like this exactly once in 20 years... f'ing Cisco IP phones.)
But can you expect a judge to be as technically savvy as anyone in IT...
No. Likewise, one cannot assume IT people know as much about the law as a judge (or lawyer.) That's why people are called upon as expert witnesses; they understand subject matter the court does not.
That said, I doubt 99% of slashdot realizes what is actually going on here... Spamhaus (the defendants) didn't appear in court. So, the charges went uncontested. The court automatically rules in favor of the plaintif(s) in such cases, without hearing anything -- no trial, no evidence, no witnesses. It doesn't matter what kind of nonsense charges are being brought; if you don't show up to defend yourself, you're guilty by default.
If it was possible to recover any data under these conditions, DSL could be easily made to work well beyond 15 kilofeet.
Not using 2$ worth of logic. Today's DSL gear is insanely cheap shit. (which makes me wonder what the Cisco Tax is if a WIC-1ADSL is ~600$.) (A|S)DSL can go that far (and little bit further), but the data rate drops to something no one in their right mind would call "broadband".
That's not legal anywhere... you cannot be forced to agree to something without review. They're dancing very close to the line. Hiding the rules from prospective members until they have no choice but to agree to them smells fishy; the only reason to do something like that is because they have something to hide. I'd tell the HOA to kiss my ass the instant they refused to disclose the rules.
(You have to buy the house to see the rules which you are required to accept now that you own the house. Your estate attorney should frown at that.)
You are vastly overestimating the amount of bandwidth a typical ADSL DSLAM gets.
No. I know first hand how badly some ISPs connect their DSLAM(s)... like selling (multiple) 1.5M SDSL lines from 768K connected DSLAMs. My point is, if you sell someone 3M/384k ADSL, then they sould at least have a snowball's chance of getting that rate. It doesn't matter that everyone cannot get that rate at the same time.
... low-density residential neighborhoods... You can't really put a huge pedestal in that application, there is often very little space available.
If it's low enough density to have "very little space available", then it's most certainly not a low-density neighborhood. They don't need to build a freakin' CO; all they need is a few square feet to put a cement pad -- in many cases, it'll fit in the right-of-way, so they can plop it down in the corner of someone's yard. (and, btw, Bellsouth does.)
Ok, how many pairs would be needed to get 750W 25kft from the CO? A lot more than it's worth.
they are definitely a very nice solution for middle-of-nowhere applications where you can't afford to splurge on a pedestal when you only have 50-100 customers in a 10-mile radius.
That's called "unprofitable":-) And 10miles is 52,800ft... or about 4x the distance most telcos/ISPs are willing to run DSL (15kft.) It'll work up to about half that, but it'll be slow and marginally unstable. And just because they are 2.6miles as the crow flies, doesn't mean the cable feeding them isn't 7.8miles long.
Dropping a 24port DSLAM on a poll just isn't worth it. It'll need ~4 T1's to feed it or a DS3 which adds to the equipment and power costs. The telco isn't going to see any profit on such deployments for several years. Granted, it's a small cost as far as telcos go. *grin*
(I'll go look at what Bellsouth uses in "rural NC" next time I'm home.)
Slashdot Mirror
Bad example. VERY bad example. Anyone who suggests a "medical IT" worker using a "medical imaging PC" for anything other than medical imaging simply doesn't know how these things work. First, it's unlikely you would even be able to play a movie on one. They don't come with things like WinDVD or AIM installed. Installing such things would not only get you fired, but would very likely land you in jail. Second, "medical IT" workers are "IT" workers, not medical professionals; he wouldn't be looking at your MRI's anyway.
Both systems use the same ATSC (mpeg2) system. As I recall, each channel is 6MHz. (earlier prototypes needed as much as 9MHz, fwiw.) Subchannels are supported and used on both. However, cable systems do tend to use more subchannels... around here, PBS OTA uses the most at 5 subs where as I've seen TW push dozens of stations on one channel (all SD, btw.)
The other thing worth noting is cable's reputation for re-compressing stuff to lower bitrates to make room for more stuff. Looking at CBS's 1080i HD signal OTA vs. TW/Raleigh... cable is noticablly worse. (see also: "HD Lite")
DirecTV uses their proprietary DSS technology. Their birds transmit the same encoding as everyone else, but digital bits are not DVB. They have a lot of money invested in DSS, so I doubt they'll ever drop it. Plus, using a proprietary protocol means they have 100% control over who builds receivers.
FCC rule(s). The local stations lobied to stop "non-local locals" because it was eating away their advertising revenue. If you are within a certain distance of the broadcast antenna, you cannot get the "superstation" for that local. It was a big mess years ago when the hammer dropped -- mostly because DISH/DTV didn't carry many local markets, since then there have been a number of spot-beam's launched to cover just about every DMA.
The "magic" of 2.0 is the multi-stream capabilities. One cableCARD(tm) can decode up to 4 streams (channels) at once.
Mine gets digital cable stations just fine without any cards. (and, *ahem* without cable service.) The cableCARD(tm) provides two functions for the tivo: 1) channel mapping, and 2) signal decryption. Without a card, the tivo will show unencrypted cable channels (if you can find them) but won't associate any guide data with them. For "basic digital" (the OTA stations carried on cable), the tivo will correctly process the PSIP ("channel id") and put the channels where they should be, just like it does for OTA stations. (channel "5" is actually broadcast on UHF channel 53, for example. PSIP is what makes it appear as "5-1", etc.)
The "integration ban" has been looming for a long time. Depending on how you look at it, it's been coming for 20 years. I don't know when the FCC first put a date on paper, but the mandate has been around for a decade. The cable companies have been dragging their feet and now it's about to bite them on the ass. The deadline has been moved twice... one of those was because the cableco's came up with OCAP/DCAS (software instead of hardware) [read: complicated CRAP that gives them basically the same controll as today] as they don't "like" cableCARD(tm)s [and they don't want to buy new cable boxes and lose the cash cow of rented STBs.] I believe the exact phrase they used was "better technology is on the horizon"; duh, that's always true, but at some point you have to stop flappin' your gums and actually build something.
(here we go again) It's not the cableCARD(tm) that restricts "on demand" stuff. Every cableCARD(tm) ever made is capable of bidirectional use. The device USING the card has to be bidirectional -- and there aren't any.
The 2.0 spec is currently "issued" which means it's 99% set, but can still be ammended. "M-Cards" are currently on the market, but very few cableco's have them and even fewer devices support them -- they fall back to the 1.0 spec "S-Card" instead. As for the Tivo Series 3, the 2.0 spec changed too much after it was designed, so it isn't M-Card capable.
Here's my config:
One word: MULTICAST
Every computer on my network (several dozen) are sync'd every 5 seconds by a single packet. (ok, 3... one from each NTP server.) That includes windows machines too. (forget w32time and install ntpd)
I guess you're too young to have experienced EISA. That's what you are asking for... changes to the system take explicit configuration processes. There's no plug-and-play at all. Just plugging in a new card without configuration means it's effectively not there -- and in some systems, it wouldn't even power the slot until it was configured.
Nobody liked EISA.
You may be surprised to know most of that check list is available in the S2 Tivos with the addition of TivoToGo... and a PC on the network somewhere to feed music and other video to/from it. I already said there are models with DVD playback and recording abilities; for obvious reasons, they don't rip dvds.
Tivo: free, subscription: $99/yr -> $297 (I know, that's not been available for a long time *grin*)
DTivo: free, subscription: $4.99/month (covers up to 5 DVRs) -> $179.64
Current deals: S2 Tivo: free, subscription: $299 pre-paid 3yrs
I've been using tivos for over 5 years. And I've never had to do anything but take it out of the box and plug it up. (excluding sticking larger hard drives in 'em.) I like the tivo interface; why would I copy the content to something else when I want to watch it from the tivo? (humax makes one with a dvd burner/player, but I've not tinkered with it enough to judge how well/poorly they integrated the dvd.)
Yes. Almost all video capture cards come with programs to do this -- every card I've had/seen from ASUS and ATI does. There won't be any program guide or fancy remote control, but it'll record whatever you program it to. Just like a VCR.
The appeal of the Tivo is it's simplicity and ease of use. Yes, I can build my own, but it will cost far more than the cost of the tivo and monthly (or lifetime) service. Plus a home grown solution will tend to require never ending tweaks to keep it running.
Maybe in the 7.x series. The 6.3 series has driven every intel nic I've tried. (including some made by HP/Compaq)
If you are refering to the interfaces in a PIX, then yes, they are standard PCI cards using Intel chips. In 99% of the cases, there's no reason at all to pay Cisco over $1000 for a card I can get at Best Buy for $25. Trust me, Cisco's card isn't any better made or tested than the thousands of other cards Intel makes. (In fact, for years, the PIX was nothing more than a PC in a rack mounted case. The only thing that made it a PIX was the flash card.)
The issue is a little more troubling when we're talking about a WIC/VIC/etc. as those are Cisco proprietary cards. There's nothing common or generic about them -- only Cisco's gear can use them.
Tell me, why do I need to know where all the firemen are?
Actually, they can. However, that's much more complicated than ever necessary. (I've been forced to do something like this exactly once in 20 years... f'ing Cisco IP phones.)
MSDNS 5.0 (2k server) doesn't do per-domain forwarding. (what BIND calls "slave" zones.) I really wish it did, but that's what I've got to work with.
That said, I doubt 99% of slashdot realizes what is actually going on here... Spamhaus (the defendants) didn't appear in court. So, the charges went uncontested. The court automatically rules in favor of the plaintif(s) in such cases, without hearing anything -- no trial, no evidence, no witnesses. It doesn't matter what kind of nonsense charges are being brought; if you don't show up to defend yourself, you're guilty by default.
That's not legal anywhere... you cannot be forced to agree to something without review. They're dancing very close to the line. Hiding the rules from prospective members until they have no choice but to agree to them smells fishy; the only reason to do something like that is because they have something to hide. I'd tell the HOA to kiss my ass the instant they refused to disclose the rules.
(You have to buy the house to see the rules which you are required to accept now that you own the house. Your estate attorney should frown at that.)
If it's low enough density to have "very little space available", then it's most certainly not a low-density neighborhood. They don't need to build a freakin' CO; all they need is a few square feet to put a cement pad -- in many cases, it'll fit in the right-of-way, so they can plop it down in the corner of someone's yard. (and, btw, Bellsouth does.)
That's called "unprofitable"
Dropping a 24port DSLAM on a poll just isn't worth it. It'll need ~4 T1's to feed it or a DS3 which adds to the equipment and power costs. The telco isn't going to see any profit on such deployments for several years. Granted, it's a small cost as far as telcos go. *grin*
(I'll go look at what Bellsouth uses in "rural NC" next time I'm home.)