The most amusing thing about this story wasn't the story itself, but the rumors. Because the main forums run off the same database server as the game (a WTF in itself!), the developers were unable to post any information except through unofficial chat/IRC/etc, resulting in a number of rumors being spread. The most popular rumor was that a rollback would be necessary due to some sort of cheating, with the numbers flying around going up to that of a 6 week rollback. Of course, this made players go nuts, and probably gave a good laugh to those who made up the rumors. Most of all, it shows how important communication with customers is.
This was on Fark the other day, and between the usual conservative and liberal bashing and flaming, it became quite obvious that this was a non-story:
An organization saw their trademark being used without their permission in an advertisement, and asked that it be taken down.
If this was Microsoft running an ad that said "Ubuntu Linux promotes terrorism," and Ubuntu asked Google to remove it, would you get all angry about how evil Ubuntu and Google are?
When Bioshock came out, I heard the hype, and was prepared to delve into the amazing awesomeness that Bioshock apparently was. Especially considering how good System Shock 2 was. So I expected that it would be as good as SS2 or better.
I installed it and began playing.
About two hours later I was bored out of my mind at the console-ized, dumbed-down mess that was Bioshock.
I reinstalled System Shock 2.
I played the entire thing through again and loved every second of it. System Shock 2 is without a doubt one of the best games of all time, worthy of any top 10 list as the best FPS-RPG ever. Probably even better than Deus Ex, though that's a hard comparison to make for sure.
In the very early 2000s, when I started my business, most of my "problems" involved dealing with Windows 98 crapping out or computers just grinding to a halt from overbloatedness and installation of a few too many Bonzi Buddies. Often I was asked to help install antivirus software. But they almost never had viruses.
A few years later, almost all the computers I worked on had antivirus and/or antispyware software... yet almost every single one had some sort of virus, usually a botnet-style worm, or at least loads of spyware. In my opinion this is proof that viruses are something one can only avoid through overall system security and, most importantly, knowledge about computers--no antivirus will protect you if you cannot protect yourself.
The proper response isn't to eschew HD movies, but to simply acquire them through the correct channels. You see, where I get my HD movies, they have no copy protection, come in the easily-playable MKV container, and fit on a single DVD9. No HD-DVD drive required, no HDMI required!
I'm not talking about the block-matching metric; SAD is perfectly fine and already has an SIMD instruction for it, PSADBW. What's pointless is the exhaustive SAD search in SSE4, which is worse than already-existing and relatively simple free algorithms that allow the lossless elimination of unnecessary block candidates before doing the actual SAD search.
SSE4 as a whole, perhaps. The particular instruction that has received so much press that I commented on, definitely not (it is ridiculously specific in its application).
The SSE4 ESA SAD instruction (for an exhaustive SAD motion search) has been touted constantly as the "new big thing" with DivX benchmarks showing 100% speed improvements, etc, etc. This is generally bullshit. The DivX encoder was specifically modified so as to use the exhaustive motion search in its normal encoding, basically contriving the test to work faster with SSE4. Talk to anyone working on an encoder and they'll tell you the same--not only is an exhaustive motion search generally useful, but there are equivalent algorithms, such as successive elimination (SEA) that are actually faster implemented in software than SSE4 is implemented in hardware with mathematically equivalent results. The main developer of x264, for example, has stated that SSE4 offers basically no useful instructions whatsoever.
The chip as a whole, on the other hand, is quite awesome, but I think its important to correct this bit of common misinformation.
I just used the Windows Media Encoder with the quality slider maxed (not the one that affects quantizer, the one that affects motion precision and so forth). I should probably try a more fully-featured VC-1 encoder. Are there any VC-1 encoders that support multiple reference frames, mixed references, rate-distortion optimization, and trellis quantization? Those are the main features that I find really help in H.264 over most other codecs (along with CABAC, of course).
I did an encoding test of WMV9 and WMV9 Advanced Profile (VC-1) against x264-encoded H.264 High Profile using SSIM as the metric. The quality of WMV9 Advanced Profile was about the same as WMV9 but it dropped frames (!!!) and so it broke the SSIM measuring tool after 10-15 seconds of measurement, so I compared WMV9 and H.264 only. Let's just say that H.264 at 2000kbps was much better quality than WMV9 at 4000kbps, by a considerable margin.
It is something special about x264, because no other H.264 encoder has it.
VC-1 is a joke though; its quality is absolutely laughable compared to H.264. Microsoft should be able to do better.
1080p works pretty well at 3-4 megabits with H.264 High Profile. You can fit a full-length movie on a DVD5 that way. Of course, it'll be completely unplayable without CoreAVC.
You hardly need a link: most of the popular low-to-mid bitrate sound algorithms are pretty straightforward in effectiveness.
Low bitrate, AAC-HE is the king. Ogg is close though. At higher bitrates AAC and Ogg become more equal and eventually Lame MP3 catches up at the highest bitrates (192+).
There are a number of comparisons around the internet, and the last ones from 2006 show that x264 and Mainconcept are basically tied as the best, with Mainconcept having a tiny lead. However, x264 now has Adaptive Quantization available, an experimental feature that can help eliminate blocking in dark scenes which is pretty much impossible to avoid without AQ unless you use absurdly high bitrates. This feature alone puts it way over the top, IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
The most amusing thing about this story wasn't the story itself, but the rumors. Because the main forums run off the same database server as the game (a WTF in itself!), the developers were unable to post any information except through unofficial chat/IRC/etc, resulting in a number of rumors being spread. The most popular rumor was that a rollback would be necessary due to some sort of cheating, with the numbers flying around going up to that of a 6 week rollback. Of course, this made players go nuts, and probably gave a good laugh to those who made up the rumors. Most of all, it shows how important communication with customers is.
Its an advertisement. Its perfectly fine if a company doesn't like their advertisements being used for things other than advertising products.
This was on Fark the other day, and between the usual conservative and liberal bashing and flaming, it became quite obvious that this was a non-story:
An organization saw their trademark being used without their permission in an advertisement, and asked that it be taken down.
If this was Microsoft running an ad that said "Ubuntu Linux promotes terrorism," and Ubuntu asked Google to remove it, would you get all angry about how evil Ubuntu and Google are?
You can shoot the camera. It takes one shot with your pistol. ;)
When Bioshock came out, I heard the hype, and was prepared to delve into the amazing awesomeness that Bioshock apparently was. Especially considering how good System Shock 2 was. So I expected that it would be as good as SS2 or better.
I installed it and began playing.
About two hours later I was bored out of my mind at the console-ized, dumbed-down mess that was Bioshock.
I reinstalled System Shock 2.
I played the entire thing through again and loved every second of it. System Shock 2 is without a doubt one of the best games of all time, worthy of any top 10 list as the best FPS-RPG ever. Probably even better than Deus Ex, though that's a hard comparison to make for sure.
In the very early 2000s, when I started my business, most of my "problems" involved dealing with Windows 98 crapping out or computers just grinding to a halt from overbloatedness and installation of a few too many Bonzi Buddies. Often I was asked to help install antivirus software. But they almost never had viruses.
A few years later, almost all the computers I worked on had antivirus and/or antispyware software... yet almost every single one had some sort of virus, usually a botnet-style worm, or at least loads of spyware. In my opinion this is proof that viruses are something one can only avoid through overall system security and, most importantly, knowledge about computers--no antivirus will protect you if you cannot protect yourself.
Two cities were leveled? More like well over 60?
Energy? You build the boreholes for the MINERALS, the energy is just a side benefit!
The proper response isn't to eschew HD movies, but to simply acquire them through the correct channels. You see, where I get my HD movies, they have no copy protection, come in the easily-playable MKV container, and fit on a single DVD9. No HD-DVD drive required, no HDMI required!
I'm not talking about the block-matching metric; SAD is perfectly fine and already has an SIMD instruction for it, PSADBW. What's pointless is the exhaustive SAD search in SSE4, which is worse than already-existing and relatively simple free algorithms that allow the lossless elimination of unnecessary block candidates before doing the actual SAD search.
SSE4 as a whole, perhaps. The particular instruction that has received so much press that I commented on, definitely not (it is ridiculously specific in its application).
Slight correction, "not only is an exhaustive motion search generally useful" > "not only is an exhaustive motion search not generally useful".
The SSE4 ESA SAD instruction (for an exhaustive SAD motion search) has been touted constantly as the "new big thing" with DivX benchmarks showing 100% speed improvements, etc, etc. This is generally bullshit. The DivX encoder was specifically modified so as to use the exhaustive motion search in its normal encoding, basically contriving the test to work faster with SSE4. Talk to anyone working on an encoder and they'll tell you the same--not only is an exhaustive motion search generally useful, but there are equivalent algorithms, such as successive elimination (SEA) that are actually faster implemented in software than SSE4 is implemented in hardware with mathematically equivalent results. The main developer of x264, for example, has stated that SSE4 offers basically no useful instructions whatsoever.
The chip as a whole, on the other hand, is quite awesome, but I think its important to correct this bit of common misinformation.
It seems Slashdot has abandoned its "making available" defense for its articles, too!
That's because LCDs don't flicker, while CRTs do... an LCD wouldn't show flicker at 1hz, it would just refresh slowly.
1. Get lots of venture capital, somehow.
2. Declare the site beta.
3. Allow people to upload videos as high as 18 megabits per second.
4. Wonder where all the venture capital went.
A fully featured GUI SSH client in less than 200 kilobytes (when UPX'd). uTorrent also, of course.
Yeah, they could condense Noir into 5 episodes. Then it might actually be worth watching.
I just used the Windows Media Encoder with the quality slider maxed (not the one that affects quantizer, the one that affects motion precision and so forth). I should probably try a more fully-featured VC-1 encoder. Are there any VC-1 encoders that support multiple reference frames, mixed references, rate-distortion optimization, and trellis quantization? Those are the main features that I find really help in H.264 over most other codecs (along with CABAC, of course).
With CABAC, 16 reference frames, and 1080p resolution? Wow.
I did an encoding test of WMV9 and WMV9 Advanced Profile (VC-1) against x264-encoded H.264 High Profile using SSIM as the metric. The quality of WMV9 Advanced Profile was about the same as WMV9 but it dropped frames (!!!) and so it broke the SSIM measuring tool after 10-15 seconds of measurement, so I compared WMV9 and H.264 only. Let's just say that H.264 at 2000kbps was much better quality than WMV9 at 4000kbps, by a considerable margin.
It is something special about x264, because no other H.264 encoder has it. VC-1 is a joke though; its quality is absolutely laughable compared to H.264. Microsoft should be able to do better.
1080p works pretty well at 3-4 megabits with H.264 High Profile. You can fit a full-length movie on a DVD5 that way. Of course, it'll be completely unplayable without CoreAVC.
You hardly need a link: most of the popular low-to-mid bitrate sound algorithms are pretty straightforward in effectiveness. Low bitrate, AAC-HE is the king. Ogg is close though. At higher bitrates AAC and Ogg become more equal and eventually Lame MP3 catches up at the highest bitrates (192+).
There are a number of comparisons around the internet, and the last ones from 2006 show that x264 and Mainconcept are basically tied as the best, with Mainconcept having a tiny lead. However, x264 now has Adaptive Quantization available, an experimental feature that can help eliminate blocking in dark scenes which is pretty much impossible to avoid without AQ unless you use absurdly high bitrates. This feature alone puts it way over the top, IMO.
--aq-strength for the win!