The problem comes in the highlights. Digital sensors "clip" differently in different colors, so highlights don't instantly blow out to white - you sometimes get odd color highlights before full-on clip. Not hugely important to most people...
However, the wider dynamic range is extremely important for quite a few people - wedding photographers! In full sunlight, there is a HUGE dynamic range between the groom's black suit, and the bride's white dress. The challenge to the professional photographer is to get details in the black tux, and highlight details in the dress. Difficult with any film, let alone digital sensors. I'm sure they'll improve though.
I think you mean, "unfortunately, it will never happen with MythTV because it flies in the face of DRM".
But, my understanding is that Microsoft is going to be supporting DirecTV HD cards and HD cable cards. They can do this because they (kinda) protect the content after it comes out of the card. Good luck getting an opensource driver for *that*.:)
Film forces you to think in artistic terms BEFORE you click, and there's a definite cost associated with clicking the shutter release. I believe it makes better photographers.
I TOTALLY agree with you. It is for the precise reason i have neither disposed of Minolta 550 bought 6 years ago, nor have i bought any digital cameras.
While I strongly agree with you both, I have something to add. What got me into photography 5 years ago was my shitty 2MP digital camera. I never bothered with 35mm film because I was just not willing to wait for the results. The experimentation just took too long. With the digital camera, I saw the results immediately, made corrections and learnt a lot in a short period of time.
THEN I bought a Nikon F100 and got crazy with 35mm film, scanners and Epson printers! Without the digital camera, I would never have got into photography in the first place.
35mm cameras (film and the lenses themselves) *do* have resolution - it's just not the same as you may be familiar with (i.e. 800x600, etc). Optical Resolution existed way before pixels did, sonny.
I'm drooling over the lastest digital cameras as much as anyone is these days, but I am a little sad about 35mm going away. My reason is that I shoot infrared photographs and the only way I know to do so is by using specific brands of IR film, available for 35mm and other formats too.
I do remember some digital cameras being able to shoot infrared, but my memory tells me that you had to hack them a bit, removing filters, and other such things.
Anyway, I have my 35mm film camera (F100) and they'll probably make my Kodak HIE Infrared film for a little while yet, so I'll shut up now, and continue to drool over the D200 that I'm not going to buy.
If you're blowing up 35mm film to the size of a wall, then I feel sorry for you. The article was referring to 35mm and not medium or large format. Digital sensors exist that *exceed* the resolution of 35mm, even if the lens rarely does the sensor justice. Yes yes, dynamic range and color reproduction are important too, I know...
The fact is, digital SLRs *do* offer comparable performance to 35mm film cameras for the majority of users. Not all, but the majority. Camera manufacturers aren't stupid - they're watching how many cameras they sell, and they make decisions based on those volumes...
I'm not sure if you knew I was kidding or not. Anyway, I *was* kidding, hence the old and well known joke regarding "the great thing about standards is that they are so many to choose from".
Wrong. Linux enthusiasts LOVE standards - lots and lots of them! And if (when) they don't find a standard that fits their own requirements, they'll happily make a new one to compete, thereby adding to the glorious beauty of standards: that there are so many to choose from.
I was wondering when the endless Googlemania was going to begin to crack. All the "evil" posts are coming in...
With the stock price at about 450, I'm really not surprised by their behavior. Can you imagine how many employees there are at Google that are paper millionaires right now? I'm not exactly sure how the Google stock options work but my understanding is that most stock options cannot be sold immediately - they need to vest over a period of time and then you can sell them later. How many employees are sitting there just *praying* for the stock price to stay high? Management too...
So what do you do to keep the stock price up? Meet expectations, for one. Unfortunately, Google expectations are so high and possibly un-reachable. Everyone expects them to take over the world as if they're magicians, Jesus, or both. They need to keep making money - MORE MONEY with better and BETTER products ALL THE TIME!!! The moment they just perform "exceptionally" or "excellently", the stock price will go down because this is below expectations. So the hype continues.
If they acheive these expectations, then I'll be happy. We'll have some amazing products, and the world may even be a better place for it! But I suspect that their value is based on expectations of a higher future value, as opposed to realistic expectations regarding revenue and future revenue growth. Irrational Exuberance? Perhaps... I think so anyway.
I doubt Windows XP (even without the GUI) would run on a cell phone. The XP-embedded kernel might, but not the normal kernel.
FYI, XP Embedded is a bastardized and "componentized" version of XP Pro. It's for those people that want to run a semi-embedded OS on good (i.e. fairly normal PC) hardware but have more control over the OS, the licensing, and what runs on it.
The binaries and kernel are identical to what is supplied with XP Pro. It's just XP Pro, hacked apart with a rusty spoon.
Windows has indeed WORKED on older hardware due to amazingly good driver support for all hardware in existence (pretty much). Work WELL? I don't think so.
Windows 95 didn't run well on low cost hardware for a couple of years after it was released. Almost everyone had 4MB of RAM and it ran like shit. People with money spent a ton to install 16MB or more and it ran well.
NT on 12MB of RAM? I don't think so.
Windows XP on a dual Pentium Pro? Usable? I'm guessing you have a tremendous amount of RAM installed (for the motherboard you have) and even then I doubt that many would agree with you that it's usable. Try loading an application or two (Photoship, Firefox, etc) and honestly say you don't find it sluggish... Jeez.
I think your definition of usable differs from the majority.
Every time Microsoft has released a new OS, the usable hardware specs (by most people's perception) has been beyond the average hardware of the time. 95 ran like crap on average hardware when it came out. So did NT. So did XP. So will Vista!!! I'm not complaining about this - I actually think that Microsoft has a lot to do with pushing the limits of hardware and moving us forward. Their stuff was always so bloated and full-featured that you *needed* the best in order for it to be decent to use.
What the test fails to understand is that when you're installing Linux on 1997 hardware (which oddly, is not far off the original hardware I installed Linux on), you generally don't install Redhat Enterprise 4000 with all the whiz-bang options! In the case of Linux, you actually have a fucking choice. In those days, you could build a Linux SERVER on basic hardware simply because you had absolutely no need for a GUI and could manage the server quite well from the command line. Could you do the same with a Windows OS at the time? No!!!
It took a long time for Windows to be able to run well on low cost hardware. Nowadays, everyone has 256 or 512MB even on budget systems, and so the requirements aren't much different because EVERYONE will run X.
Basically, the test was stupid and missed the point of being able to run Linux on older hardware - by lowering the requirements through a choice of what you want to install (namely the GUI).
I think you might be right, although I'd hesitate to predict if HD-DVD/Blu-ray is where it will stop.
The same thing happened with CD audio. CDs sound great, and if you're not one of the 0.01% of people that buy silver, uni-directional cables, then you'll agree with me. They tried SACD and some other crap I can't remember, but what's the point? Most people can't hear it, and if they can, they don't care enough.
I think 720p or 1080p might be that limit for video. We are, after all, talking about home living rooms with a limited amount of space for a screen.
Although I partially agree with you, I would add that CONTENT is what will really win it for Blu-ray. *If* the majority of movie studios were on the side of HD-DVD (which they are absolutely not, BTW), then it wouldn't matter if Sony sold a billion PS3s - HD-DVD would still win.
From what I've read, it is possible (and has been demonstrated), that Blu-ray discs can be made that also have regular DVD layers on them. I believe the blu-ray layer is underneath the regular single/dual DVD layer(s). So, you put the disc in a blu-ray player and watch the HD version with special Java wonderfulness, or you put the disc in a regular DVD player and watch the normal DVD stuff.
Assuming that this production process is not that much more expensive (disc production, after all, is not a significant part of the purchase price), I'm hoping that Blu-ray discs become the norm. In addition, the vast majority of movie studios are behind Blu-ray, perhaps partly for the reasons I mention above. For blu-ray, it's a built in upgrade carrot. Even if you're a late adopter, by the time you consider buying that $35 Circuit City Blu-ray player in 2010, you've already got a collection of 50 blu-ray movies you didn't even know you had!
I totally agree, but then how would a multitude of service providers rape you on a monthly basis for a data plan for each of your devices? Share connectivity? You must be crazy!
Earpieces are a pain (admit it) and almost as bad as putting a calculator to your ear... I've tried bluetooth headsets and they're OK, as long as you remember to charge the damn thing!
I'm coming from a situation where I've had all the gadgets, and have got fed up of having an oversize and unreliable phone. I'm also fed up of charging all these damn gadgets all the time. I'm ditching the bluetooth headsets, ditching the huge phone/pda/unreliable-piece-o-crap and going back to as basic a phone as I can find!
I have a Treo 650 (which I hate) and get accused of "talking on a calculator" when I use it as a phone. I'm from England originally and when I took back my Treo to the UK for the "holidays" one year, my brother laughed really hard and said "what the fuck is that?". He of course pulled out his cool, small phone.
So we have this conflict. People want smaller, less obtrusive phones, and they want larger screens so they can do more on them! Ultimately, the maximum size of the screen is the phone itself, and there's the problem. I think PDAs for the most part are dying, and *nobody* (except the true ultra geek) wants to talk into one as a phone.
So the Internet gets richer (640 width isn't enough for most sites any more - 800 or 1024 is the norm), and phones get smaller. A new miniNet must be developed! And WAP can fuck off if it thinks it's part of that miniNet!
Perhaps we should have a 3" LCD with 1024x1024 resolution? At a certain point, those pixels are going to get tiny and useless. Most people don't like small fonts and difficult to read text. My mother-in-law runs a 17inch monitor at 800x600. It kills me when I see it...
For me it's not so much how many buttons, but whether they layout is useful
AND how many other remotes it replaces! I was delighted to find that my TiVo remote can be configured to behave like my shitty Toshiba remote so I could ditch that remote forever! After all, I only ever used the on/off, volume, and video input buttons.
If I can just have one remote, and the layout is useful and not confusing, I care less about the number of buttons.
It doesn't even need to be that small - no need to try and cram it all in. Sure, don't make it as big as some of those MS Media Center boxes, but if they made it the same size as a normal DVD player then I think that would be fine for the vast majority of people.
I think that the footprint of the mini is designed for conservation of desk space, which is perhaps more constrained than the space on top of the mammoth AV receivers that people have these days!:)
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However, the wider dynamic range is extremely important for quite a few people - wedding photographers! In full sunlight, there is a HUGE dynamic range between the groom's black suit, and the bride's white dress. The challenge to the professional photographer is to get details in the black tux, and highlight details in the dress. Difficult with any film, let alone digital sensors. I'm sure they'll improve though.
But, my understanding is that Microsoft is going to be supporting DirecTV HD cards and HD cable cards. They can do this because they (kinda) protect the content after it comes out of the card. Good luck getting an opensource driver for *that*. :)
I sniff the death of opensource PVR solutions.
I TOTALLY agree with you. It is for the precise reason i have neither disposed of Minolta 550 bought 6 years ago, nor have i bought any digital cameras.
While I strongly agree with you both, I have something to add. What got me into photography 5 years ago was my shitty 2MP digital camera. I never bothered with 35mm film because I was just not willing to wait for the results. The experimentation just took too long. With the digital camera, I saw the results immediately, made corrections and learnt a lot in a short period of time.
THEN I bought a Nikon F100 and got crazy with 35mm film, scanners and Epson printers! Without the digital camera, I would never have got into photography in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_resolution/
Unfortunately for you, your approach and incorrect information indicates that it is *you* that has "no idea how a 35mm camera functions".
I do remember some digital cameras being able to shoot infrared, but my memory tells me that you had to hack them a bit, removing filters, and other such things.
Anyway, I have my 35mm film camera (F100) and they'll probably make my Kodak HIE Infrared film for a little while yet, so I'll shut up now, and continue to drool over the D200 that I'm not going to buy.
The fact is, digital SLRs *do* offer comparable performance to 35mm film cameras for the majority of users. Not all, but the majority. Camera manufacturers aren't stupid - they're watching how many cameras they sell, and they make decisions based on those volumes...
Wrong. Linux enthusiasts LOVE standards - lots and lots of them! And if (when) they don't find a standard that fits their own requirements, they'll happily make a new one to compete, thereby adding to the glorious beauty of standards: that there are so many to choose from.
With the stock price at about 450, I'm really not surprised by their behavior. Can you imagine how many employees there are at Google that are paper millionaires right now? I'm not exactly sure how the Google stock options work but my understanding is that most stock options cannot be sold immediately - they need to vest over a period of time and then you can sell them later. How many employees are sitting there just *praying* for the stock price to stay high? Management too...
So what do you do to keep the stock price up? Meet expectations, for one. Unfortunately, Google expectations are so high and possibly un-reachable. Everyone expects them to take over the world as if they're magicians, Jesus, or both. They need to keep making money - MORE MONEY with better and BETTER products ALL THE TIME!!! The moment they just perform "exceptionally" or "excellently", the stock price will go down because this is below expectations. So the hype continues.
If they acheive these expectations, then I'll be happy. We'll have some amazing products, and the world may even be a better place for it! But I suspect that their value is based on expectations of a higher future value, as opposed to realistic expectations regarding revenue and future revenue growth. Irrational Exuberance? Perhaps... I think so anyway.
FYI, XP Embedded is a bastardized and "componentized" version of XP Pro. It's for those people that want to run a semi-embedded OS on good (i.e. fairly normal PC) hardware but have more control over the OS, the licensing, and what runs on it.
The binaries and kernel are identical to what is supplied with XP Pro. It's just XP Pro, hacked apart with a rusty spoon.
Yes, yes, I've used it... Poor me.
Windows has indeed WORKED on older hardware due to amazingly good driver support for all hardware in existence (pretty much). Work WELL? I don't think so.
Windows 95 didn't run well on low cost hardware for a couple of years after it was released. Almost everyone had 4MB of RAM and it ran like shit. People with money spent a ton to install 16MB or more and it ran well.
NT on 12MB of RAM? I don't think so.
Windows XP on a dual Pentium Pro? Usable? I'm guessing you have a tremendous amount of RAM installed (for the motherboard you have) and even then I doubt that many would agree with you that it's usable. Try loading an application or two (Photoship, Firefox, etc) and honestly say you don't find it sluggish... Jeez.
I think your definition of usable differs from the majority.
Every time Microsoft has released a new OS, the usable hardware specs (by most people's perception) has been beyond the average hardware of the time. 95 ran like crap on average hardware when it came out. So did NT. So did XP. So will Vista!!! I'm not complaining about this - I actually think that Microsoft has a lot to do with pushing the limits of hardware and moving us forward. Their stuff was always so bloated and full-featured that you *needed* the best in order for it to be decent to use.
It took a long time for Windows to be able to run well on low cost hardware. Nowadays, everyone has 256 or 512MB even on budget systems, and so the requirements aren't much different because EVERYONE will run X.
Basically, the test was stupid and missed the point of being able to run Linux on older hardware - by lowering the requirements through a choice of what you want to install (namely the GUI).
The same thing happened with CD audio. CDs sound great, and if you're not one of the 0.01% of people that buy silver, uni-directional cables, then you'll agree with me. They tried SACD and some other crap I can't remember, but what's the point? Most people can't hear it, and if they can, they don't care enough.
I think 720p or 1080p might be that limit for video. We are, after all, talking about home living rooms with a limited amount of space for a screen.
Although I partially agree with you, I would add that CONTENT is what will really win it for Blu-ray. *If* the majority of movie studios were on the side of HD-DVD (which they are absolutely not, BTW), then it wouldn't matter if Sony sold a billion PS3s - HD-DVD would still win.
Assuming that this production process is not that much more expensive (disc production, after all, is not a significant part of the purchase price), I'm hoping that Blu-ray discs become the norm. In addition, the vast majority of movie studios are behind Blu-ray, perhaps partly for the reasons I mention above. For blu-ray, it's a built in upgrade carrot. Even if you're a late adopter, by the time you consider buying that $35 Circuit City Blu-ray player in 2010, you've already got a collection of 50 blu-ray movies you didn't even know you had!
It's 100% curable. The treatment involves enjoy the music, as opposed to the sound.
I totally agree, but then how would a multitude of service providers rape you on a monthly basis for a data plan for each of your devices? Share connectivity? You must be crazy!
Sacred blue!
I'm coming from a situation where I've had all the gadgets, and have got fed up of having an oversize and unreliable phone. I'm also fed up of charging all these damn gadgets all the time. I'm ditching the bluetooth headsets, ditching the huge phone/pda/unreliable-piece-o-crap and going back to as basic a phone as I can find!
So we have this conflict. People want smaller, less obtrusive phones, and they want larger screens so they can do more on them! Ultimately, the maximum size of the screen is the phone itself, and there's the problem. I think PDAs for the most part are dying, and *nobody* (except the true ultra geek) wants to talk into one as a phone.
So the Internet gets richer (640 width isn't enough for most sites any more - 800 or 1024 is the norm), and phones get smaller. A new miniNet must be developed! And WAP can fuck off if it thinks it's part of that miniNet!
Perhaps we should have a 3" LCD with 1024x1024 resolution? At a certain point, those pixels are going to get tiny and useless. Most people don't like small fonts and difficult to read text. My mother-in-law runs a 17inch monitor at 800x600. It kills me when I see it...
I personally communicate via postcard! I aint hiding nothing!
America, fuck yeah!
LOL! Do you have any spare drugs?
AND how many other remotes it replaces! I was delighted to find that my TiVo remote can be configured to behave like my shitty Toshiba remote so I could ditch that remote forever! After all, I only ever used the on/off, volume, and video input buttons.
If I can just have one remote, and the layout is useful and not confusing, I care less about the number of buttons.
I think that the footprint of the mini is designed for conservation of desk space, which is perhaps more constrained than the space on top of the mammoth AV receivers that people have these days! :)