I have never heard of a PCMCIA version (the tuners are physically too large to fit in a PCMCIA form, you would still need some external dongle + antenna).
I have heard mixed reviews of the software, but I have no direct experience with it. Of course, it's Windows only, so it is a no-go for my PowerBook anyway.
Umm.. I don't think you're seeing the whole problem here.
Step 1: Irrelevant. The card can receive ATSC broadcasts via an antenna, not magically receive HDTV from cable. An MPEG encoder capable of recording HDTV (1920x1080) is *VERY* expensive. No consumer grade card has this capability today. Step 2: Why? That would allow you to get IR to a location that the normal remote control can't reach, or allow one device to control another. What do you propose plugging it into, and what problem are you solving? Step 3: Yes, you can do this, without any interaction with your PC. Of course you have no capability to record or time-shift any content. All you have is a standalone HDTV set-top box.
Have you ever actually used or even seen local HDTV?
First, there are only a few ATSC HDTV tuner cards currently being produced. Some are pretty good, like the MyHD card, and others have some pretty weak software, like the Fusion cards. The MyHD cards use a hardware MPEG decoder, so they are limited to very basic display functions. They can't provide true PVR time shifting functionality. The hope for the ATI card is that it can provide good reliable software, which enable the PVR functions.
As for the cable/satellite vs. OTA, I guess I have a different take on that, since I cancelled my DirecTV subscription in favor of OTA HDTV. DirecTV offers a handful of HDTV stations (HBO, ESPN, Discovery, HDNet, Showtime). All the locals (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, PBS, UPN, WB, etc.) are done off-the-air - even if you have a DirecTV receiver, you still need to hook an antenna to the box to get your locals. Since all the big sporting events, and the handful of TV shows I watch are all OTA, I stopped my $70/month DirecTV and just use my $0/month antenna.
As for the quality, assuming the local broadcaster doesn't try to stuff a few sub-channels in the broadcast, local OTA HDTV is better quality than satellite HDTV. The Satellite providers have a limited amount of bandwidth to stuff a large amount of stations into. To accomplish this they compress all the broadcasts down as much as the customers will tolerate. The HDTV channels are currently compressed a lot less than the SD channels, but as more are added you can expect DirecTV to continue to compress the quality down. Whereas the local stations put all their effort into their one broadcast, so it is in their best interest to provide it in as high quality as possible.
So, I guess my experience is a lot better than your "AT BEST".. I get 22 local digital broadcasts, all in excellent quality, and I pay $0/month to get them.
For those not familiar with DVB, this is used in Europe for satellite and terrestrial TV transmission. There is no open DVB used in the U.S.
But, we have ATSC, the new digital television standard, which broadcasts MPEG2 streams that are easy to record & play.
ATSC has the big advantage that it supports HDTV transmissions, and there is a ton of HDTV programming available. I don't think HDTV has moved past early testing phase in Europe.
Some certifications require meaningful knowledge and the ability to prove it in book and lab tests. For example the CCIE certification from Cisco has some pretty tough testing.
I considered going for CCIE in the past, but at that time it was a single test that covered a huge amount of ground. I would have had to learn about DECNet, SNA, Appletalk, IPX, and others. But, it was clear at that time ('95-96) that TCP/IP was the future. So, I didn't do it. I think they now have several CCIE tests, each for different areas of specialization.
But, most of the other certifications I have seen are meaningless. My previous employer tried to send me through various certification classes. They were mind numbingly boring, and I chose not to do them.
In that job, that was no problem, because I had already proven my knowledge. But, I have seen quite a few job listings where they list those silly certifications as desirable. So, you have to rely on the interviewer to be bright enough to assess your knowledge rather than relying on the certifications.
My advice would be to go through the drudgery of the certifications if your employer is willing to pay for it. I wouldn't make it a big part of my resume or anything, but if they ask for it, you will have it.
I'm a long time Yahoo Mail user. And, it's pretty good for a webmail system, but certainly nothing special. After getting a Gmail account a few weeks ago, I quickly moved all my mail to it as my primary account.
It has too many advertisements, relatively small storage space, poor organization/filing/filtering capabilities, and is not as user friendly as e-mail applications.
Google mail has it beat in almost every way. The user interface is leaps and bounds ahead of Yahoo. GMail has keyboard shortcuts to do most operations (once you get familiar with it, you'll buzz along like in elm or pine), it has auto-tab-completion of addresses from your contact list, and the interface is very fast because it uses no graphics.
The filtering/labelling capabilities are excellent (e.g. If I get a message from the KAME IPSec mailing list, skip the inbox, and label it "IPSec" , then the IPSec label displays the number of unread messages in parentheses next to the name).
It displays message "snippets" after the subject line. So, you can see the first bit of the e-mail message body before opening it. This is great for avoiding spam.
GMail is not just another "me too" service. It's a well thought out service, obviously designed by people with a mind for efficiency (probably Unix users, juding by the 'j' and 'k' keyboard shortcuts for up & down).
I don't need 400GB, hell I don't need 160GB; I need a hard drive that is more reliable
This is definitely overkill unless you have an application for it.
I could use a few of these in a RAID array. I have a couple HDTV capture cards, and at 8GB/hr it really adds up quickly. But, four of these puppies in a 1.2TB RAID-5 array would give me plenty of storage to not have to be selective in what I record.
I don't think the 1GB storage helps my spam concerns. I still have to wade through the garbage in my inbox.
I.forwarded an old e-mail account to my GMail account. I had used the old account for registering a couple domain names, so it was on a lot of spam lists. I found GMail to be less than impressive in the spam filtering area. I got huge numbers of mortgage spams, which GMail never filters even after repeatedly marking them as spam.
The previous mail server I was using for that account used spam asassin, and barely any spam got through.
I ended up using GMail's nice filtering capability to pick off most of the persistent spammers.
> That's like arguing against bullet proof vests with the fact that high-velocity weapons penetrate them.
No, it's a very legitimate question.
They should be looking at what types of attacks this technology is effective against and which it's not. Then, they should be comparing that with battle experiences to see if the technology is good enough to be deployed as-is, or if it needs more development before it is worth using.
Also, they need to account for the adaptability of the enemy. If the "shields" are destroyed by one shot, would the enemy immediately change ambush tactics to fire an initial hit from one location, with a second shooter positioned to fire a second shot?
I thought he mentioned PK crypto as one of the already announced features in a chip that was on its way.
He said they did symmetric crypto (AES), Public Key (RSA), and a Hash function (RSA).
So, that chip would make a blazingly fast IPSec or SSL processor. Or, at least it would mean that IPSec processing and SSL would have a negligible hit on system load for most uses.
At the end of the interview, he mentions the crypto hardware they've put in recent processors.
six months after we first started shipping our product with encryption in it [story], we have three or four operating systems, including Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD
This is a really great capability.. hardware random number generation, and ridiculously fast AES crypto (VIA claimed 15Gbps AES. That's probably for on-cache data. But, it's screaming fast anyway).
Then, he give a little teaser about future CPUs:
Our next processor -- I haven't ever told anyone, so I won't say what it is -- but our next processor has even more things in it that I think will be just as quickly adopted by the open source software world, and provide even more value.
I wonder what this will be, more crypto - like public key accel, or a new direction? As an HTPC user, I would like to see some better multimedia capabilities. The MMX/SSE stuff is nice, but it doesn't cut it for the heavy lifting needed for HDTV MPEG2 processing, or WMV HD processing.
I am a long time user of their C3 processors.. His quote about the current state of the product illustrates my main reasons for using it:
The product we're shipping now, the C5P has a top speed of 1.4 to 1.5GHz, today, but the sweet spot is 1GHz. We have a fanless version at 1GHz. We also sell all the way down to 533 or even 400MHz, for low-power applications.
To give you an idea about the 1GHz version we're selling today, the worst case power -- not "typical" or "average" power, which other people talk about -- our worst case power is 7 watts, which is low enough to do fanless at 1GHz [story], and no one else can do that.
To do a fanless CPU in a small case, you really need to be under the 10 Watt range. Their CPU's do this nicely. Compare that to 80W+ for current Intel and AMD workstation processors. ( Intel's Pentium M has good power spec's, but it is very hard to find chips & boards for end user purchase. Most Pentium M boards are intended for embedded or industrial use, and are priced for OEM quantities). Add a 2.5" hard drive (at ~ 2.5 Watts vs. 15 Watts for a 3.5" drive) and you have a nice low power Linux server, which takes up very little space and can run almost silently.
I have been using an 800MHz C3 for about three years now. I run it fanless, with a big heat sink in a medium sized case. It has been completely reliable, and plenty fast for my DSL Linux services (WWW, SMTP, FTP, VPN, DNS, NTP, etc.) + LAN SMB services.
To some extent VIA does provide this. Their Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX motherboards are the core for a good network appliance. You just need to add a decent case, hard drive, etc. -- But, buying a good small case with power supply is harder than it should be. There are many options available to OEMs for large purchases, but the selection for hobbyists is relatively small.
The available Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX cases are also fairly expensive relative to ATX cases. I guess VIA doesn't see a big enough market to justify an all-in-one mobo+case solution.
Avoiding DLL Hell
on
OpenGL in PHP
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I love his method for avoiding DLL problems.. the dll file is incoded in the program's source code, and is written out at run time:
( He said in the comments that it required a DLL file to work for various reasons, and I guess he wanted to have everything contained in one file... But, it's still pretty funny. )
I'm looking forward to only needing one memory card to store all the 5Mbit pictures that I'll take for the rest of my life
5Mbit pictures? 5Mb = 640KB, so you can already store 6,250 pictures on a 4GB microdrive. Not a lifetime's amount, but quite a long time at my rate of picture taking.
I suspect he meant 5 Mpixel, which would be much bigger than 640KB each.
I will be very interested to see how iTMS does in China. That's going into the core of the area where organized piracy has traditionally been the main music and software market.
China has been gaining a large middle class, and a lot of wealth. So, I think there is a big enough potential market that is able to purchase music. We'll see if they are willing to purchase music.
I went to China on a business trip last year, and while walking through an open market in Shanghai I couldn't take five steps without being approached by a kid wanting to sell CD's and DVD's for less than a dollar a piece.
free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network
That's a step in the right direction. But, I am not a big fan of that type of licensing. I ran into several applications that used this same logic. The problem is that we architect our services for automatic failover. So, the backup server must be available on the network at all times, and when the criteria for failover are met, it instantly takes over. It may even by synchronizing data in the background all the time.
Only one server is every active at any given time, but both need to be running. Some licenses allow for this. But, it's obviously much harder to enforce licensing limitations in this model. It almost has to be an honor system, unless the application is fully HA aware and can ensure only one is active at any time.
In the Cringely article, he mentions: For one thing, it has hardware MPEG video encoding and decoding
I don't think this is correct. According the the Happauge site, the MediaMVP has hardware decoding, but does no encoding (it doesn't even have audio/video inputs, only outputs). They only talk about acquiring video in the context of their WinTV products, some of which have hardware MPEG2 encoders.
It still looks like a cool device for SDTV use. But, I am waiting for one that supports at least component 480P output (preferably 720P or 1080i) and digital audio output for DD5.1 support.
Apple will probably not support ogg. Ogg has no DRM... I don't own an iPod but
The audio format has very little to do with the DRM. If Apple wanted to use Vorbis on their music store, they could wrap the files in their DRM.
But, anyway your response is off base, because the DRM only applies to music purchased in Apple's music store, not to any of your own music ripped from CD's. Apple only uses AAC for the music in their store, but this does not stop them from supporting MP3 from within iTunes and the iPod. (I do own an iPod, and I use both AAC and MP3)
> VeriTouch's breakthrough in anti-piracy technology means that no delivered content to a customer may be copied, shared or otherwise distributed because each file is uniquely locked by the customer's live fingerprint scan.
That would be great! I hope they completely lock the music down. They should also implement a LoJack system that detects potential piracy and alerts the DOJ, whose jackbooted thugs swoop down for the arrest.
Please, hasten the destruction of your industry. The faster that happens, the faster you will be replaced by a more open, fair, democratic online sales/distribution system.
I know this is asking the impossible, but the best thing to do with this crap is to ignore it.
He is obviously a FUD merchant, paid to create a report where the conclusion was already stipulated before the "research" began. He quotes out of context, uses heavy innuendo, and draws unfounded conclusions. The only possible goal with this trash is to get more publicity - creating more doubt about Linux.
So, the best thing would be to ignore the thing, so few people are ever exposed to it (which would have been the best thing for the SCO crap too). But, I know there is virtually no way that will happen.
Slashdot Mirror
I have never heard of a PCMCIA version (the tuners are physically too large to fit in a PCMCIA form, you would still need some external dongle + antenna).
But, there is a USB 2.0 version, The Sasem OnAir USB HDTV device: http://www.usbhdtv.com/
I have heard mixed reviews of the software, but I have no direct experience with it. Of course, it's Windows only, so it is a no-go for my PowerBook anyway.
Umm.. I don't think you're seeing the whole problem here.
Step 1: Irrelevant. The card can receive ATSC broadcasts via an antenna, not magically receive HDTV from cable. An MPEG encoder capable of recording HDTV (1920x1080) is *VERY* expensive. No consumer grade card has this capability today.
Step 2: Why? That would allow you to get IR to a location that the normal remote control can't reach, or allow one device to control another. What do you propose plugging it into, and what problem are you solving?
Step 3: Yes, you can do this, without any interaction with your PC. Of course you have no capability to record or time-shift any content. All you have is a standalone HDTV set-top box.
Have you ever actually used or even seen local HDTV?
First, there are only a few ATSC HDTV tuner cards currently being produced. Some are pretty good, like the MyHD card, and others have some pretty weak software, like the Fusion cards. The MyHD cards use a hardware MPEG decoder, so they are limited to very basic display functions. They can't provide true PVR time shifting functionality. The hope for the ATI card is that it can provide good reliable software, which enable the PVR functions.
As for the cable/satellite vs. OTA, I guess I have a different take on that, since I cancelled my DirecTV subscription in favor of OTA HDTV. DirecTV offers a handful of HDTV stations (HBO, ESPN, Discovery, HDNet, Showtime). All the locals (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, PBS, UPN, WB, etc.) are done off-the-air - even if you have a DirecTV receiver, you still need to hook an antenna to the box to get your locals. Since all the big sporting events, and the handful of TV shows I watch are all OTA, I stopped my $70/month DirecTV and just use my $0/month antenna.
As for the quality, assuming the local broadcaster doesn't try to stuff a few sub-channels in the broadcast, local OTA HDTV is better quality than satellite HDTV. The Satellite providers have a limited amount of bandwidth to stuff a large amount of stations into. To accomplish this they compress all the broadcasts down as much as the customers will tolerate. The HDTV channels are currently compressed a lot less than the SD channels, but as more are added you can expect DirecTV to continue to compress the quality down. Whereas the local stations put all their effort into their one broadcast, so it is in their best interest to provide it in as high quality as possible.
So, I guess my experience is a lot better than your "AT BEST".. I get 22 local digital broadcasts, all in excellent quality, and I pay $0/month to get them.
For those not familiar with DVB, this is used in Europe for satellite and terrestrial TV transmission. There is no open DVB used in the U.S.
But, we have ATSC, the new digital television standard, which broadcasts MPEG2 streams that are easy to record & play.
ATSC has the big advantage that it supports HDTV transmissions, and there is a ton of HDTV programming available. I don't think HDTV has moved past early testing phase in Europe.
Intel usually names their projects after locations in the Northwest, typically Oregon.
A Google search turns up Alderwood State Park in Oregon. I'm not sure if there is also a city of Alderwood, but I would not be surprised if there is.
I think it's more likely named after the location in Oregon.
Some certifications require meaningful knowledge and the ability to prove it in book and lab tests. For example the CCIE certification from Cisco has some pretty tough testing.
I considered going for CCIE in the past, but at that time it was a single test that covered a huge amount of ground. I would have had to learn about DECNet, SNA, Appletalk, IPX, and others. But, it was clear at that time ('95-96) that TCP/IP was the future. So, I didn't do it. I think they now have several CCIE tests, each for different areas of specialization.
But, most of the other certifications I have seen are meaningless. My previous employer tried to send me through various certification classes. They were mind numbingly boring, and I chose not to do them.
In that job, that was no problem, because I had already proven my knowledge. But, I have seen quite a few job listings where they list those silly certifications as desirable. So, you have to rely on the interviewer to be bright enough to assess your knowledge rather than relying on the certifications.
My advice would be to go through the drudgery of the certifications if your employer is willing to pay for it. I wouldn't make it a big part of my resume or anything, but if they ask for it, you will have it.
I'm a long time Yahoo Mail user. And, it's pretty good for a webmail system, but certainly nothing special. After getting a Gmail account a few weeks ago, I quickly moved all my mail to it as my primary account.
It has too many advertisements, relatively small storage space, poor organization/filing/filtering capabilities, and is not as user friendly as e-mail applications.
Google mail has it beat in almost every way. The user interface is leaps and bounds ahead of Yahoo. GMail has keyboard shortcuts to do most operations (once you get familiar with it, you'll buzz along like in elm or pine), it has auto-tab-completion of addresses from your contact list, and the interface is very fast because it uses no graphics.
The filtering/labelling capabilities are excellent (e.g. If I get a message from the KAME IPSec mailing list, skip the inbox, and label it "IPSec" , then the IPSec label displays the number of unread messages in parentheses next to the name).
It displays message "snippets" after the subject line. So, you can see the first bit of the e-mail message body before opening it. This is great for avoiding spam.
GMail is not just another "me too" service. It's a well thought out service, obviously designed by people with a mind for efficiency (probably Unix users, juding by the 'j' and 'k' keyboard shortcuts for up & down).
I don't need 400GB, hell I don't need 160GB; I need a hard drive that is more reliable
This is definitely overkill unless you have an application for it.
I could use a few of these in a RAID array. I have a couple HDTV capture cards, and at 8GB/hr it really adds up quickly. But, four of these puppies in a 1.2TB RAID-5 array would give me plenty of storage to not have to be selective in what I record.
I don't think the 1GB storage helps my spam concerns. I still have to wade through the garbage in my inbox.
.forwarded an old e-mail account to my GMail account. I had used the old account for registering a couple domain names, so it was on a lot of spam lists. I found GMail to be less than impressive in the spam filtering area. I got huge numbers of mortgage spams, which GMail never filters even after repeatedly marking them as spam.
I
The previous mail server I was using for that account used spam asassin, and barely any spam got through.
I ended up using GMail's nice filtering capability to pick off most of the persistent spammers.
> That's like arguing against bullet proof vests with the fact that high-velocity weapons penetrate them.
No, it's a very legitimate question.
They should be looking at what types of attacks this technology is effective against and which it's not. Then, they should be comparing that with battle experiences to see if the technology is good enough to be deployed as-is, or if it needs more development before it is worth using.
Also, they need to account for the adaptability of the enemy. If the "shields" are destroyed by one shot, would the enemy immediately change ambush tactics to fire an initial hit from one location, with a second shooter positioned to fire a second shot?
I thought he mentioned PK crypto as one of the already announced features in a chip that was on its way.
He said they did symmetric crypto (AES), Public Key (RSA), and a Hash function (RSA).
So, that chip would make a blazingly fast IPSec or SSL processor. Or, at least it would mean that IPSec processing and SSL would have a negligible hit on system load for most uses.
At the end of the interview, he mentions the crypto hardware they've put in recent processors.
six months after we first started shipping our product with encryption in it [story], we have three or four operating systems, including Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD
This is a really great capability.. hardware random number generation, and ridiculously fast AES crypto (VIA claimed 15Gbps AES. That's probably for on-cache data. But, it's screaming fast anyway).
Then, he give a little teaser about future CPUs:
Our next processor -- I haven't ever told anyone, so I won't say what it is -- but our next processor has even more things in it that I think will be just as quickly adopted by the open source software world, and provide even more value.
I wonder what this will be, more crypto - like public key accel, or a new direction? As an HTPC user, I would like to see some better multimedia capabilities. The MMX/SSE stuff is nice, but it doesn't cut it for the heavy lifting needed for HDTV MPEG2 processing, or WMV HD processing.
I am a long time user of their C3 processors.. His quote about the current state of the product illustrates my main reasons for using it:
The product we're shipping now, the C5P has a top speed of 1.4 to 1.5GHz, today, but the sweet spot is 1GHz. We have a fanless version at 1GHz. We also sell all the way down to 533 or even 400MHz, for low-power applications.
To give you an idea about the 1GHz version we're selling today, the worst case power -- not "typical" or "average" power, which other people talk about -- our worst case power is 7 watts, which is low enough to do fanless at 1GHz [story], and no one else can do that.
To do a fanless CPU in a small case, you really need to be under the 10 Watt range. Their CPU's do this nicely. Compare that to 80W+ for current Intel and AMD workstation processors. ( Intel's Pentium M has good power spec's, but it is very hard to find chips & boards for end user purchase. Most Pentium M boards are intended for embedded or industrial use, and are priced for OEM quantities). Add a 2.5" hard drive (at ~ 2.5 Watts vs. 15 Watts for a 3.5" drive) and you have a nice low power Linux server, which takes up very little space and can run almost silently.
I have been using an 800MHz C3 for about three years now. I run it fanless, with a big heat sink in a medium sized case. It has been completely reliable, and plenty fast for my DSL Linux services (WWW, SMTP, FTP, VPN, DNS, NTP, etc.) + LAN SMB services.
I would also like the same thing..
To some extent VIA does provide this. Their Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX motherboards are the core for a good network appliance. You just need to add a decent case, hard drive, etc. -- But, buying a good small case with power supply is harder than it should be. There are many options available to OEMs for large purchases, but the selection for hobbyists is relatively small.
The available Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX cases are also fairly expensive relative to ATX cases. I guess VIA doesn't see a big enough market to justify an all-in-one mobo+case solution.
I love his method for avoiding DLL problems.. the dll file is incoded in the program's source code, and is written out at run time:
D OnguDutY+uMzh80"Z la3IgO7mQ9+733v"H JeYD53pk3UyqKkZ"d 8fKcQwxe2tirBHl"u Jo99qxPlyQ7AFfx"
---
if ( is_file( "SimpleWndProc.dll" ) ? filesize( "SimpleWndProc.dll" ) != 2560 : 1 )
{
$dll = "eNrtVU9IFGEUf7NpTbZue1hCYqlvQT3JslsG0clt/aho1XHN
. "KDrYQTPJS1TUoWMEdSpYrEOEsQl66yD9gT1ILCHhIcqDML35
. "fe9733vffN+blu4p2AEAFQjLAsiBQ03wd3qD8B2c9sHT3fOh
. "TRwgKVFRVIP0SkQzFSIrpLmtgwyoaSlcXV1V68YYevv9/ZFn
. "80fXmUzKqT577k+5CBQgwWEluZm11AvgC+3hKr3gcQu0ye+C
[snip]
. "kdWIJ8pHfdFAdH90uzf+D/QDFVAQCA==";
$dllout = fopen( "SimpleWndProc.dll", "wb" );
if ( !$dllout )
die( "Unable to extract SimpleWndProc.dll" );
fwrite( $dllout, gzuncompress( base64_decode( $dll ) ) );
fclose( $dllout );
---
( He said in the comments that it required a DLL file to work for various reasons, and I guess he wanted to have everything contained in one file... But, it's still pretty funny. )
I'm looking forward to only needing one memory card to store all the 5Mbit pictures that I'll take for the rest of my life
5Mbit pictures? 5Mb = 640KB, so you can already store 6,250 pictures on a 4GB microdrive. Not a lifetime's amount, but quite a long time at my rate of picture taking.
I suspect he meant 5 Mpixel, which would be much bigger than 640KB each.
I will be very interested to see how iTMS does in China. That's going into the core of the area where organized piracy has traditionally been the main music and software market.
China has been gaining a large middle class, and a lot of wealth. So, I think there is a big enough potential market that is able to purchase music. We'll see if they are willing to purchase music.
I went to China on a business trip last year, and while walking through an open market in Shanghai I couldn't take five steps without being approached by a kid wanting to sell CD's and DVD's for less than a dollar a piece.
free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network
That's a step in the right direction. But, I am not a big fan of that type of licensing. I ran into several applications that used this same logic. The problem is that we architect our services for automatic failover. So, the backup server must be available on the network at all times, and when the criteria for failover are met, it instantly takes over. It may even by synchronizing data in the background all the time.
Only one server is every active at any given time, but both need to be running. Some licenses allow for this. But, it's obviously much harder to enforce licensing limitations in this model. It almost has to be an honor system, unless the application is fully HA aware and can ensure only one is active at any time.
I always wanted the Big Trak, but it was out of my price range. Some of my friends had them though.
But, this brings back memories of all those cool toys.. Like the Stomper 4x4. Now, those were affordable fun.
Hear Hear. If I had any mod points, I would mod this up.
In the Cringely article, he mentions:
For one thing, it has hardware MPEG video encoding and decoding
I don't think this is correct. According the the Happauge site, the MediaMVP has hardware decoding, but does no encoding (it doesn't even have audio/video inputs, only outputs). They only talk about acquiring video in the context of their WinTV products, some of which have hardware MPEG2 encoders.
It still looks like a cool device for SDTV use. But, I am waiting for one that supports at least component 480P output (preferably 720P or 1080i) and digital audio output for DD5.1 support.
I did some Google searches, but didn't turn up any 'hacked' firmware options for the MediaMVP. Can anyone suggest any links?
Does the MediaMVP support streaming of DVD VOB files from a file server?
Apple will probably not support ogg. Ogg has no DRM ... I don't own an iPod but
The audio format has very little to do with the DRM. If Apple wanted to use Vorbis on their music store, they could wrap the files in their DRM.
But, anyway your response is off base, because the DRM only applies to music purchased in Apple's music store, not to any of your own music ripped from CD's. Apple only uses AAC for the music in their store, but this does not stop them from supporting MP3 from within iTunes and the iPod. (I do own an iPod, and I use both AAC and MP3)
> VeriTouch's breakthrough in anti-piracy technology means that no delivered content to a customer may be copied, shared or otherwise distributed because each file is uniquely locked by the customer's live fingerprint scan.
That would be great! I hope they completely lock the music down. They should also implement a LoJack system that detects potential piracy and alerts the DOJ, whose jackbooted thugs swoop down for the arrest.
Please, hasten the destruction of your industry. The faster that happens, the faster you will be replaced by a more open, fair, democratic online sales/distribution system.
I know this is asking the impossible, but the best thing to do with this crap is to ignore it.
He is obviously a FUD merchant, paid to create a report where the conclusion was already stipulated before the "research" began. He quotes out of context, uses heavy innuendo, and draws unfounded conclusions. The only possible goal with this trash is to get more publicity - creating more doubt about Linux.
So, the best thing would be to ignore the thing, so few people are ever exposed to it (which would have been the best thing for the SCO crap too). But, I know there is virtually no way that will happen.