Another parameter 1080i advocates use to advance their cause is resolution. Resolution is the ability to preserve the separate components of fine detail in a picture, so that they may be discerned by the viewer. But picture quality is not dependent on resolution alone. Numerous studies of perceived picture quality reveal that it is dependent on brightness, color reproduction, contrast, and resolution. Color reproduction is identical in all HDTV scanning formats, and may thus be disregarded as a factor. A typical study assigns the following weights to brightness, contrast, and resolution:
Contrast 64%
Resolution 21%
Brightness 15%
Resolution, then, is only a factor, and not the largest factor, in the determination of the subjective quality of a television picture. This was well illustrated in an industry meeting of professional video engineers that took place a few years ago. At that meeting, two direct-view (cathode ray tube) monitors of the same size, shape, and brand were fed the same HDTV signal. One of these monitors was priced in the $40,000 range, while the other was priced in the $4000 range. The $40,000 monitor unsurprisingly had a picture tube of far higher resolution capability than the lesser priced monitor, but the lesser monitor, because of its larger pixel "dots", had the higher contrast ratio, the relationship between the lightest and darkest parts of the picture. With a single exception, the engineers preferred the pictures displayed on the lower-definition monitor. While they seem at first glance to contradict intuition, the results of this demonstration are consistent with all the published literature on the subject.
and...
"Television pictures move, so when we consider resolution, dynamic resolution is typically a more important factor than static resolution."
and...
Finally, let's take a closer look at the display. The resolution of any type of display is dependent on its dot pitch, which effectively defines the physical size of the dots, or screen pixels: the higher the resolution, the smaller each dot must be. We see this when considering computer monitors or printers: a 600 dot-per-inch printer makes a sharper image than a 300 dot-per-inch printer, and a 0.28 dot-pitch monitor makes a higher resolution image than a 0.50 dot-pitch monitor, and of course the higher resolution printer and monitor cost more than their lower-resolution counterparts.
In order to fully resolve a 1080i picture, a display screen must have about 6 million dots, and for 720P, the figure is about 2.75 million dots. The larger the number of dots required, the smaller each dot must be, and the smaller the dot, the less light it generates. The full resolution of 720P may be displayed using dots three times larger than 1080i for a given screen size, and this gives the HDTV viewer a brighter picture with a higher contrast ratio. As an added bonus, the lower resolution display is less expensive to make.
We saw previously that the real vertical resolution of 720P pictures is better than that of 1080i pictures. It is also true that the additional horizontal resolution that 1080i boasts cannot be displayed on any currently available consumer HDTV display of any technology. Fortunately for the viewer, it is not necessary to the enjoyment of HDTV. An instructive illustration is the much-admired digital cinema, where micromirror projectors are used to project theatrical features onto screens that may be 50 feet or more wide. The horizontal resolution capability of these projectors is 1280 pixels, the same as that of 720P, and we have not heard anyone complain that digital cinema has inadequate horizontal resolution.
Micromirror projection is one of several advanced display
I would consider it a 4 billion dollar loss-LEADER. They just wanted their foot in the door and that costs money, especially when you're trying to compete with an incumbant as powerful as Sony was. I won't be surprised if the 360 turns into a cash cow for them with all their "micropayments" (arggghhhh) and arcade games. I myself have spent a good amount of money (+/- $100) on the marketplace.
"That and the fact that there are more jobs AFAIK."
At the risk of being off-topic I have to point this out because it kills me. What you just said is "That and the fact that there are more jobs And For All I Know".
Leave the "A" off!! I also hate it when people say..."Yes, I read RTFA". Just sounds silly when you're reading it in your head. Sorry, end rant.
"2. To level the playing field a bit. There are mega teams like Discovery, T-Mobile, etc. that can afford to throw money at a problem. There are smaller teams that can't. By imposing some limits on the technology it allows these smaller teams to compete."
That part is always interesting. It seems like making the machines simpler makes it easier for the "small" guy to get involved. But, just like in NASCAR, F1, and Pro Stock drag racing, where they have imposed limits to try and bring budgets down, the opposite seems to happen. I'll use Pro Stock drag racing as an example: The Pro Stock class was created to allow teams with smaller budgets to race with the big guys so what they did was eliminate power adders (superchargers, turbos, nitrous) and allow for HUGE motors (>800 cubic inches). Well obviously everyone went with the largest motor they could legally have. What happens when you make the rules so narrow is...the teams with money start dumping huge amounts into R&D for the most incremental of improvements. Over time this has driven out the little guy for which the class was created.
The same things happen in F1 alot. They went to a two race rule where your engine had to last two races otherwise you were penalized. Rather than making the components with less expensive/more durable parts the rich teams went crazy with R&D trying to get their same motors to last through the two races.
Long story short...big gains, whatever they may be, are usually relatively inexpensive. It's that last 1/10th of a mph or the last gram of weight that costs all the money.
To answer your question, you will have to reactivate every time you restore your sysprepped image unless...you create the image using a Volume Licensed version of WinXP
"2) Guns protecting "the people" from the government"
I'll give you that a gun isn't much of a match to all the military's power. However, with around 180 million adults in the US and anywhere from 30%-50% of households having a firearm, that gives you a LOT of armed citizens. Unless a nuke was dropped the citizens of the US would be able to properly defend themselves from an overreaching government just by sheer volume alone.
Imagine if Chinese farmers had guns instead of pick forks to rise up with. I would guess that the Chinese government would be having a heck of a time controlling all the uprisings that happen in that country every day.
What average consumer is EVER going to go through all that crap just to get decent call service. I have Vonage and my girlfriend complains sometimes but I'm saving almost $40 a month so I'll listen to some griping every now and then. I admit, I do need to check the setup...I'm sure it could be better. Right now my Vonage supplied Linksys box sits behind my WRT54g. Maybe if I assign the vonage box a static IP and put it in the WRT's DMZ, that may help. Not sure...still need to do more research. I sure as hell am not going to go the extent you have though, as impressive as it is.
Before the xbox came out with its triggers, I perfected those analog buttons with Gran Turismo 3. At the time I thought it was a great innovation. I noticed a lot of my friends were unable to take advantage of them but they were greatly appreciated by me at the time.
That can't really be considered a pro since none of the current games they are showing proves that.
"Hi-def"
That can't really be considered a pro solely in its favor with the Xbox (as you mentioned) having the same capability. There won't be any 1080p games on this set of consoles. Maybe a Pong remake could run at that res.
"Massive back catalog of PS1 and PS2 games"
I never understood this. I buy new systems to play new games. Granted I may feel a bit nostalgic every now and then but I would rather plug in my old system than have Sony, MS or whomever put all this time and money into making games BC when it could be used in a more productive manner...like in the 360's case, giving it a quieter DVD drive.
So far that means only one Pro which is still up in the air. Great Job SONY!! This extra year you got is real evident.
Not sure how you go modded "Off topic"?!? You are right on. For your everyday grocey getter, sound isn't an issue. However, the sound of the vehicle (especially sports cars) is part of what the vehicle is...it's soul almost. There have been better, faster cars than Ferrari through history but what keeps people so enamored with them is their SOUND. Nothing sounds like a Ferrari and it will be a long time before a speaker can stir up the same emotion as all those valves and cams and pistons doing their magic.
I was just talking with a friend the other day about this very subject. I dread the day when we are all electric. Cars will be so boring then. Whether you prefer the sound of a classic V-8 or a high rpm 4/6 cylinder it's all for one reason...it stirs something inside of us. Personally, I wouldn't love my GTI as much if it wasn't for the sweet sound my Vr6 makes when I stomp the Go pedal.
I found a little command line tool for windoes that will create a full size FAT32 partition. I wanted to format a 60gb usb hard drive for my 360. Unfortunately, it seems the 360 can't read NTFS partitions. The name escapes me at the moment but I found it on Sourceforge.
You can have all the knowledge in the world available to you but it won't get you far without practice or experience. Plus, some people are just dumb.
If someone was given an auto service manual that explained how to take an engine out, to a T, a majority wouldn't be able to complete the task. Some people just can't turn a wrench...
From the documentary on PBS I watched about this exact thing, the resolution was pretty horrible. I'm not quite sure when this documentary was filmed though.
The particular patient they covered eventually had the capability to "excite" between 80-100 receptors in her brain meaning a total of 80-100 possible dots. In reality, it was still to crude to be made useful. She maybe was able to see a corner of a picture hanging on the wall, highlighted by a few dots but anything...3d, I guess, was a total mess.
Anyway, it was all very interesting and seeing the amount of time required to get the person calibrated was impressive.
Unfortunately, this patient had her hopes set a bit higher than her result. You could tell she was not too happy.
Only 12Mb for HD? Seems rather low to me...just the video I thought required around 15Mb/s, if not more? Then, what about the audio? I think I'll pass on AT&T's lightspeed.
How do you reconcile the fact that "unlimited" has become "limited to 100G" ??
I guess the same way Pennzoil does with their coolant made for all cars. You see, ALL to Pennzoil means ALL cars except Volkswagen's (in my case). Not sure what other cars are not compatible.
Maybe if I start a company, I can change the meaning of copyright infringement.
Like the other guy said, why was this modded as a troll? I was about to make the same statement.
Why should I have to go looking for this product. Shouldn't something like this be "built in" by now? I mean, it is 2006. I'm kind of a linux newb and something like Suspend2 I probably wouldn't have discovered for a long while. Anyway, as an anecdote I have had problems resuming from suspend on some older Dell laptops when trying to resume from hibernation while redocking the machine. Other than that, it has been a great feature for me.
I think the point is that they could. Sure, it's not practical but these are baby steps to getting an Xbox360 to function like the old Xbox was capable of. Like all the "hacking" that has occured so far on the 360, this is just a link in the chain. So far people have figured out how to burn and play demo cd's, stream music from a Mac, play backed up games by hacking the DVD firmware, and some others I'm probably missing. It's their way of sticking it to the man I guess.
Google doesn't always come out with "new" products, but it often implements them in new and fresh ways.
I'm generalizing a bit here but it is a bit funny that if you replaced Google with Microsoft, people would complain that they never come out with anything "new". I'll give you that their implementation may not always be fresh but I just wanted to point out the double standard.
Or just take the close buttons out all together. If your using a mouse (instead of a touchpad) the quickest way to close a tab in Opera is to hold your right mouse button and make a upper case L shape. You can do this anywhere on the current page.
Just to add my.02, I switched to Opera and haven't looked back. They both are efficient browsers that do their job well. What sold me on Opera were the mouse gestures. I understand there are programs that will give you this functionality but I found them to be buggy and each program had different command strokes (pluse it's one more piece of software running in the background). Talk about intuitiveness and efficiency, gestures will really speed up your browsing. I can manipulate tabs with great ease now that I am familiar with all the different commands.
I will second the other poster. You don't know much about live. A majority of the games are player hosted, which can be good or bad. In Halo 2, when you join a Matchmaking game, it will pick 8 (or 16 depending on the type of game) players also waiting for a Matchmaking game and decide who has the best connection and assign that person as host. Over time, they have built a database of people with good connections and they are more likely to be selected as host in the future. OTOH, Call of Duty 2 has the absolutely worst "net code" to date for a console game. I'm not sure what is going on but the lag is unbearable. They claim to be releasing a patch but it has been 5 months now with nothing. The new Ghost Recon is another player hosted game which runs GREAT with a full 16 player room.
Battlefield 2's servers are hosted by EA. While they had some growing pains in the beginning, they fixed the issues and the game ran very smoothly with a full 24 person room. As a matter of fact, I don't know of any game that Microsoft actually hosts the games themeselves. They provide the backend for the friends list and there is a certain structure that develepors need to adhere to but they provide very little when it comes to bandwidth or hosting services. The 360 changed that slightly now that MS offers large downloads (demos, trailers, little arcade games) through their live service.
If you're interested Bungie has done a great writeup on how they managed to get Halo 2 to play on LIVE. It was very interesting to read all the details that go behind connecting players and some of the logic required to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.bluesky-web.com/numbers-mean-little.htm /
Some excerpts:
Another parameter 1080i advocates use to advance their cause is resolution. Resolution is the ability to preserve the separate components of fine detail in a picture, so that they may be discerned by the viewer. But picture quality is not dependent on resolution alone. Numerous studies of perceived picture quality reveal that it is dependent on brightness, color reproduction, contrast, and resolution. Color reproduction is identical in all HDTV scanning formats, and may thus be disregarded as a factor. A typical study assigns the following weights to brightness, contrast, and resolution:
Contrast 64% Resolution 21% Brightness 15%
Resolution, then, is only a factor, and not the largest factor, in the determination of the subjective quality of a television picture. This was well illustrated in an industry meeting of professional video engineers that took place a few years ago. At that meeting, two direct-view (cathode ray tube) monitors of the same size, shape, and brand were fed the same HDTV signal. One of these monitors was priced in the $40,000 range, while the other was priced in the $4000 range. The $40,000 monitor unsurprisingly had a picture tube of far higher resolution capability than the lesser priced monitor, but the lesser monitor, because of its larger pixel "dots", had the higher contrast ratio, the relationship between the lightest and darkest parts of the picture. With a single exception, the engineers preferred the pictures displayed on the lower-definition monitor. While they seem at first glance to contradict intuition, the results of this demonstration are consistent with all the published literature on the subject.
and...
"Television pictures move, so when we consider resolution, dynamic resolution is typically a more important factor than static resolution."
and...
Finally, let's take a closer look at the display. The resolution of any type of display is dependent on its dot pitch, which effectively defines the physical size of the dots, or screen pixels: the higher the resolution, the smaller each dot must be. We see this when considering computer monitors or printers: a 600 dot-per-inch printer makes a sharper image than a 300 dot-per-inch printer, and a 0.28 dot-pitch monitor makes a higher resolution image than a 0.50 dot-pitch monitor, and of course the higher resolution printer and monitor cost more than their lower-resolution counterparts.
In order to fully resolve a 1080i picture, a display screen must have about 6 million dots, and for 720P, the figure is about 2.75 million dots. The larger the number of dots required, the smaller each dot must be, and the smaller the dot, the less light it generates. The full resolution of 720P may be displayed using dots three times larger than 1080i for a given screen size, and this gives the HDTV viewer a brighter picture with a higher contrast ratio. As an added bonus, the lower resolution display is less expensive to make.
We saw previously that the real vertical resolution of 720P pictures is better than that of 1080i pictures. It is also true that the additional horizontal resolution that 1080i boasts cannot be displayed on any currently available consumer HDTV display of any technology. Fortunately for the viewer, it is not necessary to the enjoyment of HDTV. An instructive illustration is the much-admired digital cinema, where micromirror projectors are used to project theatrical features onto screens that may be 50 feet or more wide. The horizontal resolution capability of these projectors is 1280 pixels, the same as that of 720P, and we have not heard anyone complain that digital cinema has inadequate horizontal resolution.
Micromirror projection is one of several advanced display
It's only funny if you say it to yourself in a Samuel L Jackson voice. Or outloud, that works too but your coworkers may think you're a bit weird.
I hate all these motherfuckin scrooges on this motherfuckin forum! How is that?
I would consider it a 4 billion dollar loss-LEADER. They just wanted their foot in the door and that costs money, especially when you're trying to compete with an incumbant as powerful as Sony was. I won't be surprised if the 360 turns into a cash cow for them with all their "micropayments" (arggghhhh) and arcade games. I myself have spent a good amount of money (+/- $100) on the marketplace.
Hmm...I stand corrected. I need to apologize for all the people I've silently cursed. My "RTFA" gripe still stands though. ;-)
At the risk of being off-topic I have to point this out because it kills me. What you just said is "That and the fact that there are more jobs And For All I Know".
Leave the "A" off!! I also hate it when people say..."Yes, I read RTFA". Just sounds silly when you're reading it in your head. Sorry, end rant.
That part is always interesting. It seems like making the machines simpler makes it easier for the "small" guy to get involved. But, just like in NASCAR, F1, and Pro Stock drag racing, where they have imposed limits to try and bring budgets down, the opposite seems to happen. I'll use Pro Stock drag racing as an example: The Pro Stock class was created to allow teams with smaller budgets to race with the big guys so what they did was eliminate power adders (superchargers, turbos, nitrous) and allow for HUGE motors (>800 cubic inches). Well obviously everyone went with the largest motor they could legally have. What happens when you make the rules so narrow is...the teams with money start dumping huge amounts into R&D for the most incremental of improvements. Over time this has driven out the little guy for which the class was created.
The same things happen in F1 alot. They went to a two race rule where your engine had to last two races otherwise you were penalized. Rather than making the components with less expensive/more durable parts the rich teams went crazy with R&D trying to get their same motors to last through the two races.
Long story short...big gains, whatever they may be, are usually relatively inexpensive. It's that last 1/10th of a mph or the last gram of weight that costs all the money.
To answer your question, you will have to reactivate every time you restore your sysprepped image unless...you create the image using a Volume Licensed version of WinXP
I'll give you that a gun isn't much of a match to all the military's power. However, with around 180 million adults in the US and anywhere from 30%-50% of households having a firearm, that gives you a LOT of armed citizens. Unless a nuke was dropped the citizens of the US would be able to properly defend themselves from an overreaching government just by sheer volume alone.
Imagine if Chinese farmers had guns instead of pick forks to rise up with. I would guess that the Chinese government would be having a heck of a time controlling all the uprisings that happen in that country every day.
What average consumer is EVER going to go through all that crap just to get decent call service. I have Vonage and my girlfriend complains sometimes but I'm saving almost $40 a month so I'll listen to some griping every now and then. I admit, I do need to check the setup...I'm sure it could be better. Right now my Vonage supplied Linksys box sits behind my WRT54g. Maybe if I assign the vonage box a static IP and put it in the WRT's DMZ, that may help. Not sure...still need to do more research. I sure as hell am not going to go the extent you have though, as impressive as it is.
Before the xbox came out with its triggers, I perfected those analog buttons with Gran Turismo 3. At the time I thought it was a great innovation. I noticed a lot of my friends were unable to take advantage of them but they were greatly appreciated by me at the time.
That can't really be considered a pro since none of the current games they are showing proves that.
"Hi-def"
That can't really be considered a pro solely in its favor with the Xbox (as you mentioned) having the same capability. There won't be any 1080p games on this set of consoles. Maybe a Pong remake could run at that res.
"Massive back catalog of PS1 and PS2 games"
I never understood this. I buy new systems to play new games. Granted I may feel a bit nostalgic every now and then but I would rather plug in my old system than have Sony, MS or whomever put all this time and money into making games BC when it could be used in a more productive manner...like in the 360's case, giving it a quieter DVD drive.
So far that means only one Pro which is still up in the air. Great Job SONY!! This extra year you got is real evident.
I was just talking with a friend the other day about this very subject. I dread the day when we are all electric. Cars will be so boring then. Whether you prefer the sound of a classic V-8 or a high rpm 4/6 cylinder it's all for one reason...it stirs something inside of us. Personally, I wouldn't love my GTI as much if it wasn't for the sweet sound my Vr6 makes when I stomp the Go pedal.
I found a little command line tool for windoes that will create a full size FAT32 partition. I wanted to format a 60gb usb hard drive for my 360. Unfortunately, it seems the 360 can't read NTFS partitions. The name escapes me at the moment but I found it on Sourceforge.
If someone was given an auto service manual that explained how to take an engine out, to a T, a majority wouldn't be able to complete the task. Some people just can't turn a wrench...
Really? Then why am I paying 80+ dollars a month for my cable tv?
The particular patient they covered eventually had the capability to "excite" between 80-100 receptors in her brain meaning a total of 80-100 possible dots. In reality, it was still to crude to be made useful. She maybe was able to see a corner of a picture hanging on the wall, highlighted by a few dots but anything...3d, I guess, was a total mess.
Anyway, it was all very interesting and seeing the amount of time required to get the person calibrated was impressive.
Unfortunately, this patient had her hopes set a bit higher than her result. You could tell she was not too happy.
Only 12Mb for HD? Seems rather low to me...just the video I thought required around 15Mb/s, if not more? Then, what about the audio? I think I'll pass on AT&T's lightspeed.
I guess the same way Pennzoil does with their coolant made for all cars. You see, ALL to Pennzoil means ALL cars except Volkswagen's (in my case). Not sure what other cars are not compatible.
Maybe if I start a company, I can change the meaning of copyright infringement.
Why should I have to go looking for this product. Shouldn't something like this be "built in" by now? I mean, it is 2006. I'm kind of a linux newb and something like Suspend2 I probably wouldn't have discovered for a long while. Anyway, as an anecdote I have had problems resuming from suspend on some older Dell laptops when trying to resume from hibernation while redocking the machine. Other than that, it has been a great feature for me.
I think the point is that they could. Sure, it's not practical but these are baby steps to getting an Xbox360 to function like the old Xbox was capable of. Like all the "hacking" that has occured so far on the 360, this is just a link in the chain. So far people have figured out how to burn and play demo cd's, stream music from a Mac, play backed up games by hacking the DVD firmware, and some others I'm probably missing. It's their way of sticking it to the man I guess.
I'm generalizing a bit here but it is a bit funny that if you replaced Google with Microsoft, people would complain that they never come out with anything "new". I'll give you that their implementation may not always be fresh but I just wanted to point out the double standard.
Don't hurt me. ;-)
Or just take the close buttons out all together. If your using a mouse (instead of a touchpad) the quickest way to close a tab in Opera is to hold your right mouse button and make a upper case L shape. You can do this anywhere on the current page.
Just to add my .02, I switched to Opera and haven't looked back. They both are efficient browsers that do their job well. What sold me on Opera were the mouse gestures. I understand there are programs that will give you this functionality but I found them to be buggy and each program had different command strokes (pluse it's one more piece of software running in the background). Talk about intuitiveness and efficiency, gestures will really speed up your browsing. I can manipulate tabs with great ease now that I am familiar with all the different commands.
Battlefield 2's servers are hosted by EA. While they had some growing pains in the beginning, they fixed the issues and the game ran very smoothly with a full 24 person room. As a matter of fact, I don't know of any game that Microsoft actually hosts the games themeselves. They provide the backend for the friends list and there is a certain structure that develepors need to adhere to but they provide very little when it comes to bandwidth or hosting services. The 360 changed that slightly now that MS offers large downloads (demos, trailers, little arcade games) through their live service.
If you're interested Bungie has done a great writeup on how they managed to get Halo 2 to play on LIVE. It was very interesting to read all the details that go behind connecting players and some of the logic required to do so.
As stated in above posts, it did not go down like that.