Isn't it funny that a man will purchase balls to place on his mantle when his wife already keeps the pair he use to have there?
(rimshot followed by silence)
Thank you...
And finally...
Who goes shopping for footballs with lasers? I mean you don't see me going to walmart and be all like, "Hey, it says genuine Hanes brand socks. I gotta hit that with a laser before it's going in my basket..."
There's something about a 5'5" boxer (Little Mac) whooping the shit out of King Hippo or Piston Honda (who bears a striking resemblance to Yao Ming... Hmm...)
When Steve announces a product, he makes it available. There's no coming soon, or available within 4 years, or in the near future crap...
Steve announces these things and you can buy one immediately. If it's software, you can download it/buy it today.
I think the slow lumbering of MS will make this product as much of an also ran as every other competing service to itunes. Tying themselves to MTV is supposed to appeal to a younger demographic, but what teenager associates MTV with music? Unless they're awake at 2:30 am on a Tuesday, they've never seen MTV air a music video. What older person does? VH1 coulda been a better fit than this.
I thought about selling mine a few months back, but then decided against it when a working SNES emulator came out. SNES and NES games ALONE make the thing worth the $250. No amount of money could convince me that those $20 game in a joystick things are worthwhile when I can play Super Metroid, Bionic Commando, or Burgertime in my hands.
The PSP's been the best handheld ever in my opinion.
As soon as someone cracks the new firmware, 2.6?, I'll go games shopping again, since the two games I've waited for are out now. (Boku no watashi no katamari damashii and GTA, for those keeping score...)
So, I have to decide whether or not I want to upgrade my firmware to play the latest Need for Speed/GTA retread, or keep my homebrew so I can play Super Metroid, FFVI, Afterburner, Sonic, Altered Beast, Super Mario Brothers 3, Castlevania 3, Bionic Commando, Zelda, Super Mario Kart, Madden '94, or other classic titles?
Well, hmm.
And you say my trade off is lack of RSS, Web Browsing, and the ability to customize my background by going with 1.5?
Gosh, it's so hard to choose.
Sony, how about we stop this stupid cat and mouse game and let us have the emulators? No one's going to care. You don't see Dell suing someone because they wrote a program that runs on it's software and hardware. And for every version you release, people just keep breaking the code. Whether it's outright flawed or using a misnamed picture file, people are going to beat your code to the point that if they can't break it any more, they'll find a way to replace it outright with their own and modify it however they want. Now, how would that sit with you? If someone came out with a rewritten Firmware that could properly replicate all your code, minus the restrictions you moronically impose, I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. I'd still continue to buy your games, and support your system, and you'd have a loyal customer all the way to the bank.
we here at WB figured it would be in our best interest to produce DVD materials for you, the consumer at poor quality. We sat down, read over the specs for what HD quality MPEG-2 should be, and decided to aim low. Like bottom of the barrel.
So, no fear from us, you'll get the same first gen crap from us that you did with DVD. We feel that it's important here at WB to "test" the waters with low quality media. Better us to make you, the paying consumer, the guinea pig than produce something correctly the first time. If you bite, we save a ton of money. We're talking easily a good dime per DVD produced. What will this mean at the register to you? Nothing! We wouldn't want to charge you more. No, we'd rather save that dime per in the factory and pass the crap along to you, then repackage it and "try" to justify the extra release. Double dip? More like Double Awesome! For you! Good job buying DVD's. You make us proud!
Now get back out there, you good consumer you, and go see WB's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on Friday. We've got sequels to make.
I saw through this last year with the DS and the PSP.
1 of 2 things will occur, neither good for you.
1. There will be too many consoles and the extra console will sell off at or below cost.
2. There will be SO many other people doing what you're doing that you won't be able to stickout from the crowd, and any potential profits to be made on the sale will get eaten from competition.
The idiots who start auctions out on items at 200% or higher of retail cost are the ones who'll learn the lesson hardest.
Does this concern anyone in the video/DVD business? I don't think that the problem of protecting content should be made enough of an issue to where we have to deal with it, but I do a lot of digitizing of content, and I don't want to have to report my statistics of how many copies of Grandma's B-Day I duped to the MPAA. They don't have any rights to how my business is run, or how I make my clients happy.
Stuff like this trickles up and down our business. You see people working on massive productions editing on lower budget systems all the time. It's an effective budgeting model. This goes way beyond dealing with JUST hollywood. TV stations that do local news, mom and pops who do wedding videos, production houses...
I personally don't like it. It's my content that I paid/produced for. No law is going to convince me what I can and cannot do with it. If I have the right to resell it in it's original condition, then it truly is mine and it's something I own. If I'm willing enter an agreement that dictates otherwise, then we can talk, but there's no implied contracts that I'm going to hold to that go outside of what stays in my own home or business. I bought the DVD, it's going to get ripped to my HDD for backup, and Hollywood will have to deal with it.
Take this to the oft raised DVD angle. If I bought the DVD, and I have no intention of reselling "copies" of the DVD, what's the harm in my copying it?
-Does this detract from the sale they made to me? -Does this unrestricted video limit it's replayability on my DVD player or a neighbors? -Does it prevent me from repurchasing the same movie with new bonus content later on?
Stuff like this law and the DMCA are implying on these same grounds that if I were driving a car, I could potentially drive drunk. Therefore, I should be restricted on how much gas I can buy, or where I can drive. Doesn't matter if I even drink.
Rather than make the action illegal, why not go after the people breaking the law and punish them? Last time I checked selling counterfeit merchandise was still quite illegal, and prosecutable. No need to infringe my personal use rights for that. I've got a pretty good judge of right and wrong and my ability TO copy DVD's doesn't imply that I will, or that I will to screw HWood out of a sale.
I can spend my $2.50 to listen to a compressed DRM'd mono version of the Black Eyed Peas' latest musical nightmare.
-OR-
I can go buy a gallon of gas.
What to do...
OH! I can save the $2.50 and walk to work! That'll do!
Good bit of reporting there 1UP!
on
20 Years of NES
·
· Score: 1
You've done what? 1 serious day of work on this so far?
Monday: 1up 3 pg article on the history of the NES (where you devote more time the Wizard and SMB movie than you do the licensing battles)
Tuesday: You have EGM regurgitate the same article and reverse/reword the portions about the movies and licensing)
Wednesday: READERS pick their fav games.
You guys bustin' some balls over there for content aren't you?
I would have preferred some interviews with the people that got the NES over here. Or maybe about the '86 shortages. Or the fact that ROB was a throwaway add on that's been martyr'd as THE lamest pack in for a console. Or all the little commonplace things we take for granted now or were established back when Nintendo was king?
A. The Konami Code B. SMB3/Zelda2 shortages due to "chip manufacturing delays" C. Nintendo's stance on blood/violence in games D. NES Advantage/Multitap/Max/Zapper E. THE GODDAMN SNICKERING DOG FROM DUCK HUNT! F. New genres Nintendo created out of their system. G. Anything you didn't cover in the Famicom article from 2 years ago that was more about the NES's popularity here than the actual Famicom itself in Japan
Lemme know if you want writeups on any of these, because it'll be far more entertaining than reading a passage reminiscing about the kid from the Wizard and his obsession his "Power Glove" That thing gets whipped out more than goatse.cx references.
When you're challenging a big business model like the MPAA or RIAA...
Ignorance is bliss for all parties involved.
Now that Napster came and rocked the boat (can't blame them, though, there was money to be made...) ALL digital downloading of media is being eyed very suspiciously by all sides. Is it legal, illegal?
Can it be made into paid content? Should we allow X resolution based video out versus X-1?
Soon we'll all have to pay for that pr0n we download, and the Britney Spears comeback album (Oops, I Ran Out of Welfare Again!) will require authentication everytime we open iTunes.:)
1. I don't work in a traditional office setting with meetings and appointments.
2. There's compromises that are made on the portability and "all in one" nature of these devices. The camera feature on an older PDA wouldn't have met my needs for what I had at the time. Do I want to limit myself to 512MB of space for everything? These are questions I evaluated before I made my purchases. The cell phone served it's purpose, the ipod does it's own. I can't see much need in crossover for what I use the two for.
I want it thrown out! Give me one that's half empty!
Come on. The device isn't even out yet.
I see this as a great opportunity for the smaller people out there to provide unique content. Podcast subscriptions should point out that people don't want "popular" all the time. What's in itunes' top 20 podcasts?
There's only 2 podcasts that could be tied to a commercial show. Everything else is talk, news, or NPR!
I see a forbear of people willing to give original content a chance here. It's worked out well for ifilm and atom films, why couldn't it work here?
The paid content will come. It's a revenue stream, and there's nothing to suggest that other studios wouldn't follow. It's easy money and they don't have to produce a physical product unlike a DVD. If NBC gets their act together, they'll get WB up with them and get Friends on there. You want to see sales? Get that or Simpsons on there, and you've filled the ipods of every potential future client. That and some CNN broadcast videos and no one will ever complain.
The only misstep I think they made with the ipod is the current paid content. LOST is a very dark show. It's not easy to distinguish jungle environments on a small screen. They should have started with a lineup of more comedy and less drama. They could put "Whose Line Is It Anyway" on there and it would have been a lot better choice that something from the disney channel.
What's my flaw? I can hear the difference in a compressed and uncompressed audio signal. Lots of people can. It's really a matter more of if you think it's passable for what you're wanting from the service. If you're a satellite user, and the sound is okay enough, you'll tolerate it. I've heard it, and I don't like it. I can wait it out for now. Satellite radio's still in it's infancy. When it's had room to grow out more like the satellite TV companies did, it got better and better all the time.
They do compress the stream. There's no way XM or Sirus is capable of broadcasting the full 100+ channels at full CD quality audio. CD audio is about 1.4 Mbps. XM is broadcasting ALL of their channels simultaneously at roughly 4 Mbps. So, you're getting about the signal capability of 4 - 44.1Khz 16 bit channels covering 100 channels of audio. Yes, there's going to be a lot of compression. How much, I'm sure it varies by channel, but if you wanna average the 4 Mbps over all 100 channels, that's about 40 Kbps. Assuming that they probably use several transponders to broadcast this with an increased rate of transfer for the channels (less channels on the Mbps would hopefully mean better audio quality) and that would mean the audio would increase in quality.
I'll give you an allowance of 96-128 kbps for the audio on satellite. Great, so it's mp3 quality at best. I've read that they use a varied version of the AAC codec. So, potentially, you've got audio that will at best sound "similar" to uncompressed, but still have some range issues.
But that's a hope for you at best. All I've ever read or heard XM brag about is their pair of satellites, "Rock" and "Roll" that cover the entire band of stations.
The relevance of all of this? To invalidate your need of self validation in buying up an XM/Sirius reciever. You're the one who wanted to play Devil's Advocate here. Check up on your technology's capabilities and see if it's meeting your needs before you rally behind it so strongly. It didn't meet up to my audio needs, so I passed on it, and I recommend so to anyone I know that asks me about it.
Well, I don't live in a mountainous area, so I couldn't tell you.
And just 'cause they have 3 transponders doesn't mean they're giving you all the available bandwidth for those channels. They're keeping some of it for future use, I'd bet you anything you're not getting a full quality capability of a strong FM signal.
And if you're out in the desert, since you have no terrestrial blockage, I'd bet that the local FM stations are going to broadcast at lower wattage because signals will travel farther on lower power.
If you live in one of the larger cities, they tend to broadcast much higher wattage signals that will sound significantly better, and they do so because of surrounding buildings in the city that could potentially block the signal. If you don't have one of these buildings near you, you get a nice clean FM signal.
I think other people have covered your licensing fees statement.
Satellite is NOT the same as analog, you're right. It's of lesser quality than the capability of analog signals. Whether or not your favorite Tejano Rap station broadcasts at full strength is up to them, but FM has a far superior fidelity to XM or Sirius. 2600 had an article on this from last year.
Both companies are using a single broadcast signal to project all 100+ of those channels into your radio. Those channels are highly compressed. It's not as though the reciever sends a signal up to the master satellite requesting the "moldy oldies" station and then your radio gets a full on signal. Nope, not at all. You get all the quality it'll deliver all at once for all stations (pay channels included) Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's satellite it's better.
I know from experience at Gamestop, whenever I buy a used game, despite them having oodles of cases around, they'll never give you one. Even if that's the last one they have in stock, all I ever get is the DVD. I insisted on getting full cases when I bought DDR, seeing as how I was paying $5 under full retail on a no longer made product.
Seriously. This isn't like the NES or SNES days. Who trades in games with JUST a disc? What happened to the case? Where did it go? There should at least be that. The PS2/Xbox cases should be the most generic freakin cases in the world.
I'll take a beat up case, that's fine, but I'm not paying $5 under retail just because you have a disc. That's what chipped systems are for. Anyone can do that, and go play reburnable ISO's all day long as they get scratched. If I'm buying THE actual game, I expect a case at the very least. New cases are 50 cents a piece (or cheaper in bulk) for chrissake.
Japanese games are the games that got this industry to where it is today.
And you'd be pretty dead on about the Japanese creating good games.
Most of the American games that claim to be classics are retreads of the same genres and ideas. Madden. What's been done with madden? It's football. Great, we got it. Updated rosters, new skins/graphics, and new plays aren't worth the $50 purchase annually to me.
I would think that american developers are just as interested in consoles as they are PCs. I have no problem with the modern PC market. I think the innovation and products produced in the PC market are what's driving it on annually. The ratio of sequels produced out of the PC market pales in comparison with the crap pumped out onto American consoles. I need another Tony Hawk like I need a bullet in the head.
Your complaint is that the Japanese are prejudiced in game/console purchases to their own kind. Half Life, Harry Potter, Doom, and Quake are all on their shelves like they are here. They sell there like they do here. The difference is that they get by on the one version. They look more for unique experiences than retreads. There's probably a reason why each Final Fantasy game is set in a completely different world with different characters.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why the 2000 Flushes Blue tablet goes in your tank, not your trunk.
There's easily two jokes outta this one.
Isn't it funny that a man will purchase balls to place on his mantle when his wife already keeps the pair he use to have there?
(rimshot followed by silence)
Thank you...
And finally...
Who goes shopping for footballs with lasers? I mean you don't see me going to walmart and be all like, "Hey, it says genuine Hanes brand socks. I gotta hit that with a laser before it's going in my basket..."
Okay, you've been a great crowd...
What are you talking about? They had an article on Lifeforce in issue #2. The one with Castlevania 2:Simon's Quest on the cover.
They had maps of levels and everything.
I like Mike Tyson's Punchout better.
There's something about a 5'5" boxer (Little Mac) whooping the shit out of King Hippo or Piston Honda (who bears a striking resemblance to Yao Ming... Hmm...)
When Steve announces a product, he makes it available. There's no coming soon, or available within 4 years, or in the near future crap...
Steve announces these things and you can buy one immediately. If it's software, you can download it/buy it today.
I think the slow lumbering of MS will make this product as much of an also ran as every other competing service to itunes. Tying themselves to MTV is supposed to appeal to a younger demographic, but what teenager associates MTV with music? Unless they're awake at 2:30 am on a Tuesday, they've never seen MTV air a music video. What older person does? VH1 coulda been a better fit than this.
Last I heard shock artists and cop killers were selling pretty well.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_displa y.jsp?g=Singles&f=Pop+100
If you tweak your settings on the PSP, only games that don't go ultra heavy on the Mode7 are VERY playable.
The SNES emulator on the PSP runs quite well.
So, I could buy a smaller screened platform and limit myself to 10 games? Well, that sounds absolutely fun.
Or, if I want to stay illegal, like you suggest, I can go flash rom, and run play 2500 GBA ports? Gosh, I've got that feature already on the PSP.
I thought about selling mine a few months back, but then decided against it when a working SNES emulator came out. SNES and NES games ALONE make the thing worth the $250. No amount of money could convince me that those $20 game in a joystick things are worthwhile when I can play Super Metroid, Bionic Commando, or Burgertime in my hands.
The PSP's been the best handheld ever in my opinion.
As soon as someone cracks the new firmware, 2.6?, I'll go games shopping again, since the two games I've waited for are out now. (Boku no watashi no katamari damashii and GTA, for those keeping score...)
Apparently the Lawson's (like 7-11) outside my friends apt will have this for sale on Saturday. There have been no preorder takers so far.
He lives 2 hours north of Tokyo in a city with about a half million.
So, I have to decide whether or not I want to upgrade my firmware to play the latest Need for Speed/GTA retread, or keep my homebrew so I can play Super Metroid, FFVI, Afterburner, Sonic, Altered Beast, Super Mario Brothers 3, Castlevania 3, Bionic Commando, Zelda, Super Mario Kart, Madden '94, or other classic titles?
Well, hmm.
And you say my trade off is lack of RSS, Web Browsing, and the ability to customize my background by going with 1.5?
Gosh, it's so hard to choose.
Sony, how about we stop this stupid cat and mouse game and let us have the emulators? No one's going to care. You don't see Dell suing someone because they wrote a program that runs on it's software and hardware. And for every version you release, people just keep breaking the code. Whether it's outright flawed or using a misnamed picture file, people are going to beat your code to the point that if they can't break it any more, they'll find a way to replace it outright with their own and modify it however they want. Now, how would that sit with you? If someone came out with a rewritten Firmware that could properly replicate all your code, minus the restrictions you moronically impose, I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. I'd still continue to buy your games, and support your system, and you'd have a loyal customer all the way to the bank.
Hi,
we here at WB figured it would be in our best interest to produce DVD materials for you, the consumer at poor quality. We sat down, read over the specs for what HD quality MPEG-2 should be, and decided to aim low. Like bottom of the barrel.
So, no fear from us, you'll get the same first gen crap from us that you did with DVD. We feel that it's important here at WB to "test" the waters with low quality media. Better us to make you, the paying consumer, the guinea pig than produce something correctly the first time. If you bite, we save a ton of money. We're talking easily a good dime per DVD produced. What will this mean at the register to you? Nothing! We wouldn't want to charge you more. No, we'd rather save that dime per in the factory and pass the crap along to you, then repackage it and "try" to justify the extra release. Double dip? More like Double Awesome! For you! Good job buying DVD's. You make us proud!
Now get back out there, you good consumer you, and go see WB's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on Friday. We've got sequels to make.
Good luck with that all you potential vultures!
I saw through this last year with the DS and the PSP.
1 of 2 things will occur, neither good for you.
1. There will be too many consoles and the extra console will sell off at or below cost.
2. There will be SO many other people doing what you're doing that you won't be able to stickout from the crowd, and any potential profits to be made on the sale will get eaten from competition.
The idiots who start auctions out on items at 200% or higher of retail cost are the ones who'll learn the lesson hardest.
Good luck!
Does this concern anyone in the video/DVD business? I don't think that the problem of protecting content should be made enough of an issue to where we have to deal with it, but I do a lot of digitizing of content, and I don't want to have to report my statistics of how many copies of Grandma's B-Day I duped to the MPAA. They don't have any rights to how my business is run, or how I make my clients happy.
Stuff like this trickles up and down our business. You see people working on massive productions editing on lower budget systems all the time. It's an effective budgeting model. This goes way beyond dealing with JUST hollywood. TV stations that do local news, mom and pops who do wedding videos, production houses...
I personally don't like it. It's my content that I paid/produced for. No law is going to convince me what I can and cannot do with it. If I have the right to resell it in it's original condition, then it truly is mine and it's something I own. If I'm willing enter an agreement that dictates otherwise, then we can talk, but there's no implied contracts that I'm going to hold to that go outside of what stays in my own home or business. I bought the DVD, it's going to get ripped to my HDD for backup, and Hollywood will have to deal with it.
Take this to the oft raised DVD angle. If I bought the DVD, and I have no intention of reselling "copies" of the DVD, what's the harm in my copying it?
-Does this detract from the sale they made to me?
-Does this unrestricted video limit it's replayability on my DVD player or a neighbors?
-Does it prevent me from repurchasing the same movie with new bonus content later on?
Stuff like this law and the DMCA are implying on these same grounds that if I were driving a car, I could potentially drive drunk. Therefore, I should be restricted on how much gas I can buy, or where I can drive. Doesn't matter if I even drink.
Rather than make the action illegal, why not go after the people breaking the law and punish them? Last time I checked selling counterfeit merchandise was still quite illegal, and prosecutable. No need to infringe my personal use rights for that. I've got a pretty good judge of right and wrong and my ability TO copy DVD's doesn't imply that I will, or that I will to screw HWood out of a sale.
Well, let's see...
I can spend my $2.50 to listen to a compressed DRM'd mono version of the Black Eyed Peas' latest musical nightmare.
-OR-
I can go buy a gallon of gas.
What to do...
OH! I can save the $2.50 and walk to work! That'll do!
You've done what? 1 serious day of work on this so far?
Monday: 1up 3 pg article on the history of the NES (where you devote more time the Wizard and SMB movie than you do the licensing battles)
Tuesday: You have EGM regurgitate the same article and reverse/reword the portions about the movies and licensing)
Wednesday: READERS pick their fav games.
You guys bustin' some balls over there for content aren't you?
I would have preferred some interviews with the people that got the NES over here. Or maybe about the '86 shortages. Or the fact that ROB was a throwaway add on that's been martyr'd as THE lamest pack in for a console. Or all the little commonplace things we take for granted now or were established back when Nintendo was king?
A. The Konami Code
B. SMB3/Zelda2 shortages due to "chip manufacturing delays"
C. Nintendo's stance on blood/violence in games
D. NES Advantage/Multitap/Max/Zapper
E. THE GODDAMN SNICKERING DOG FROM DUCK HUNT!
F. New genres Nintendo created out of their system.
G. Anything you didn't cover in the Famicom article from 2 years ago that was more about the NES's popularity here than the actual Famicom itself in Japan
Lemme know if you want writeups on any of these, because it'll be far more entertaining than reading a passage reminiscing about the kid from the Wizard and his obsession his "Power Glove" That thing gets whipped out more than goatse.cx references.
When you're challenging a big business model like the MPAA or RIAA...
:)
Ignorance is bliss for all parties involved.
Now that Napster came and rocked the boat (can't blame them, though, there was money to be made...) ALL digital downloading of media is being eyed very suspiciously by all sides. Is it legal, illegal?
Can it be made into paid content? Should we allow X resolution based video out versus X-1?
Soon we'll all have to pay for that pr0n we download, and the Britney Spears comeback album (Oops, I Ran Out of Welfare Again!) will require authentication everytime we open iTunes.
I've never sought out all for one convergence.
There's a variety of reasons for this.
1. I don't work in a traditional office setting with meetings and appointments.
2. There's compromises that are made on the portability and "all in one" nature of these devices. The camera feature on an older PDA wouldn't have met my needs for what I had at the time. Do I want to limit myself to 512MB of space for everything? These are questions I evaluated before I made my purchases. The cell phone served it's purpose, the ipod does it's own. I can't see much need in crossover for what I use the two for.
This glass is only half full!
I want it thrown out! Give me one that's half empty!
Come on. The device isn't even out yet.
I see this as a great opportunity for the smaller people out there to provide unique content. Podcast subscriptions should point out that people don't want "popular" all the time. What's in itunes' top 20 podcasts?
There's only 2 podcasts that could be tied to a commercial show. Everything else is talk, news, or NPR!
I see a forbear of people willing to give original content a chance here. It's worked out well for ifilm and atom films, why couldn't it work here?
The paid content will come. It's a revenue stream, and there's nothing to suggest that other studios wouldn't follow. It's easy money and they don't have to produce a physical product unlike a DVD. If NBC gets their act together, they'll get WB up with them and get Friends on there. You want to see sales? Get that or Simpsons on there, and you've filled the ipods of every potential future client. That and some CNN broadcast videos and no one will ever complain.
The only misstep I think they made with the ipod is the current paid content. LOST is a very dark show. It's not easy to distinguish jungle environments on a small screen. They should have started with a lineup of more comedy and less drama. They could put "Whose Line Is It Anyway" on there and it would have been a lot better choice that something from the disney channel.
Just 'cause it's a good selling game doesn't make it a good game.
After playing "Enter the Matrix" for 2 weeks, I was ready to return it and IT made a ton of money as well.
There's tons of good games that sold VERY poorly.
What's my flaw? I can hear the difference in a compressed and uncompressed audio signal. Lots of people can. It's really a matter more of if you think it's passable for what you're wanting from the service. If you're a satellite user, and the sound is okay enough, you'll tolerate it. I've heard it, and I don't like it. I can wait it out for now. Satellite radio's still in it's infancy. When it's had room to grow out more like the satellite TV companies did, it got better and better all the time.
They do compress the stream. There's no way XM or Sirus is capable of broadcasting the full 100+ channels at full CD quality audio. CD audio is about 1.4 Mbps. XM is broadcasting ALL of their channels simultaneously at roughly 4 Mbps. So, you're getting about the signal capability of 4 - 44.1Khz 16 bit channels covering 100 channels of audio. Yes, there's going to be a lot of compression. How much, I'm sure it varies by channel, but if you wanna average the 4 Mbps over all 100 channels, that's about 40 Kbps. Assuming that they probably use several transponders to broadcast this with an increased rate of transfer for the channels (less channels on the Mbps would hopefully mean better audio quality) and that would mean the audio would increase in quality.
I'll give you an allowance of 96-128 kbps for the audio on satellite. Great, so it's mp3 quality at best.
I've read that they use a varied version of the AAC codec. So, potentially, you've got audio that will at best sound "similar" to uncompressed, but still have some range issues.
But that's a hope for you at best. All I've ever read or heard XM brag about is their pair of satellites, "Rock" and "Roll" that cover the entire band of stations.
The relevance of all of this? To invalidate your need of self validation in buying up an XM/Sirius reciever. You're the one who wanted to play Devil's Advocate here. Check up on your technology's capabilities and see if it's meeting your needs before you rally behind it so strongly. It didn't meet up to my audio needs, so I passed on it, and I recommend so to anyone I know that asks me about it.
Well, I don't live in a mountainous area, so I couldn't tell you.
And just 'cause they have 3 transponders doesn't mean they're giving you all the available bandwidth for those channels. They're keeping some of it for future use, I'd bet you anything you're not getting a full quality capability of a strong FM signal.
And if you're out in the desert, since you have no terrestrial blockage, I'd bet that the local FM stations are going to broadcast at lower wattage because signals will travel farther on lower power.
If you live in one of the larger cities, they tend to broadcast much higher wattage signals that will sound significantly better, and they do so because of surrounding buildings in the city that could potentially block the signal. If you don't have one of these buildings near you, you get a nice clean FM signal.
I think other people have covered your licensing fees statement.
Satellite is NOT the same as analog, you're right. It's of lesser quality than the capability of analog signals. Whether or not your favorite Tejano Rap station broadcasts at full strength is up to them, but FM has a far superior fidelity to XM or Sirius. 2600 had an article on this from last year.
Both companies are using a single broadcast signal to project all 100+ of those channels into your radio. Those channels are highly compressed. It's not as though the reciever sends a signal up to the master satellite requesting the "moldy oldies" station and then your radio gets a full on signal. Nope, not at all. You get all the quality it'll deliver all at once for all stations (pay channels included) Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's satellite it's better.
I know from experience at Gamestop, whenever I buy a used game, despite them having oodles of cases around, they'll never give you one. Even if that's the last one they have in stock, all I ever get is the DVD. I insisted on getting full cases when I bought DDR, seeing as how I was paying $5 under full retail on a no longer made product.
Seriously. This isn't like the NES or SNES days. Who trades in games with JUST a disc?
What happened to the case? Where did it go? There should at least be that. The PS2/Xbox cases should be the most generic freakin cases in the world.
I'll take a beat up case, that's fine, but I'm not paying $5 under retail just because you have a disc. That's what chipped systems are for. Anyone can do that, and go play reburnable ISO's all day long as they get scratched. If I'm buying THE actual game, I expect a case at the very least. New cases are 50 cents a piece (or cheaper in bulk) for chrissake.
Japanese games are the games that got this industry to where it is today.
And you'd be pretty dead on about the Japanese creating good games.
Most of the American games that claim to be classics are retreads of the same genres and ideas. Madden. What's been done with madden? It's football. Great, we got it. Updated rosters, new skins/graphics, and new plays aren't worth the $50 purchase annually to me.
I would think that american developers are just as interested in consoles as they are PCs. I have no problem with the modern PC market. I think the innovation and products produced in the PC market are what's driving it on annually. The ratio of sequels produced out of the PC market pales in comparison with the crap pumped out onto American consoles. I need another Tony Hawk like I need a bullet in the head.
Your complaint is that the Japanese are prejudiced in game/console purchases to their own kind. Half Life, Harry Potter, Doom, and Quake are all on their shelves like they are here. They sell there like they do here. The difference is that they get by on the one version. They look more for unique experiences than retreads. There's probably a reason why each Final Fantasy game is set in a completely different world with different characters.