Not that iTunes is necessarily for forever, but with millions and millions sold, i doubt they could just "pull the plug" on everybody without making a lot of people react. The songs may be DRM'ed, but you still purchased (own) them, I can't see them anytime soon taking it away from you. It would be seen by the average person as the same thing as them coming to your home and taking your CDs away from you.
As for not being compatible with the next OS'es, that makes no sense. There are no reasons why AAC could not be played, it's a pretty standard format, and implementing their own DRM with it should be pretty trivial to them. I can't see them alienate all their supporters/customers either, making themselves a bad name, and loosing all their business in the process. It's more likely that longhorn wouldn't support win32 than that (it does, I know). That probably make people turn to competitor's portable players as well. Just not gonna happen.
Technically speaking it's most likely different from that (I'm not a lawyer) but I'm sure you get the idea. Unless they have some clause saying "we may at any point decide to just call it quits" or something like that. The most probable way for something like that to happen is Apple going out of business and I doubt that's going to happen soon (more like the inverse).
And if that ever happens, then I'm sure we'll see some DRM-stripping programs all over the net, or some sort of exchange/credit program for real CDs or something like that (hard to predict).
All 3 offer everything I need, but Oracle is like twice the price of SQL Server - or 4x if you're looking at the standard ed (not considering we already have the licenses). And SQL Server performs pretty good (has the top of the TPC-C price/perf - if that matters to you). Same story for DB2, but it's "only" 50% more expensive instead. I'm not a big microsoft fan, but mssql works really well, it's simple, performs well,... Never had any problems with it really.
And (the enterprise ed) includes OLAP, Data Mining and enterprise reporting. For Oracle/DB2, it costs extra.
Also, another big factor for me is - the SQL server developer edition is only like 50$, so having development servers is really cheap (I run one for developping on a old beige box PC loaded with ram and it works great). Not sure if Oracle/DB2 have similar offerings.
Anyways. Unless I'd have specific needs for Oracle or DB2, I just can't see myself spend the extra $ (a lot of it), plus have to "port" everything to it.
Which makes me wonder - how do they rank up against Oracle/SQL Server? (I'm primarily a SQL Server user, followed by PostgreSQL and the odd once in a while MySQL - Access when I'm stuck fixing someone else's crappy work). Any good speed/features/pricing/... reviews out there?
It would also be nice to hear about people who did the switch to DB2 (or other alternatives to Oracle), their main issues and everything.
Yes, but Napster being a suscription service wants you to pay for the rest of your life - just like for phone/cable/... Not just 3 years (altough the comparison is still good). I sure don't want to pay 15$ USD a month for the next 50+ years. That's around 10k$ (depending on how long you'd live, and price may go up). That's a lot of songs off iTunes. Not to mention that when napster dies (with such a business model, I bet it will), you're left with nothing at all to listen to and have to to turn to buying CDs or iTunes then.
The iPod is not so much popular from iTunes as I've seen, but mostly as a mp3 player (and then the odd few songs off iTunes) anyways.
iTunes is just an opportunity to buy the odd song you like for 99 cents when you feel like it, to complement your existing mp3 collection. It would take me more than lifetime to spend that same 10k$ with a 1$ price now and then (how often is there some good, new songs?). And you get to play those few songs for the rest of your life (hopefully) without having to "rent" it for the rest of your life.
Even if I was just starting off a music collection from scratch, napster still seems expensive to me. There are other alternatives too, like buying used CDs, buying your favourites songs off iTunes first (or some people download the mp3's, until they buy the CD - they like having the actual album/cover art/...)
As for the players, not that I'm a big iPod fan, but the userbase is huge, making use of that would have made more sense than forcing people to buy yet another player. I have a iRiver iHP-120 and play my self-ripped mp3's on it, but there's no way I'm going to use napster even if my player supports it (I sort of wish I could buy the odd song off iTunes really).
And they tend to do other nasty things like prevent running regedit and other system tools/AV, process hiding, using filenames that look like system processes, and a whole host of nasty tricks.
It wouldn't be surprising if they started attacting other things like norton's expiry dates/licenses as well, or plain corrupting some registry entries necessary for apps to run. (How long before they replace legit windows keys with the FCKGW ones so people can't get updates anymore?) I won't be surprised either when they start coming up with more advanced techniques against other antispyware apps, or tools like HijackThis. It's pretty much inevitable.
As most lusers run as admins (and use IE, to make things worse), they could do a LOT of evil things if they get imaginative. But that won't make the lusers learn or anything. They'll just keep putting up with it and do nothing.
It would help (making voltage constant, remove noise/spikes,...) but having a ground is still quite important. Surge suppressors (and UPS'es) need it to give proper protection. GFCI's require them as well (actually, I do have a grounded plug: the GFCI in the bathroom).
The real fix is getting some new wiring instead, and it would be cheaper than a power conditionner - especially if you can do some of the work yourself.
That's completely legal. Most old houses are like that. Mine is, not a single grounded outlet (just renting it, so I can't just rewire it). It's not that uncommon really. Add a few quick power outages or browouts, then you get dead UPS'es and power supplies. In average I have to replace a UPS and 2 or 3 power supplies a year (and they're good ones too).
Other than that, next thing on the list would be HD's (had really really bad luck with western digitals, but my maxtors just won't die).
I never really found the previous "new" versions of windows to be overly bloated (especially if you use the "classic" look, disable unecessary services and such). I ran XP Pro on a old 633MHz system last year (for the kids) and it was almost as fast as a PC 3x the speed (yes, again, minimal background stuff, like system restore off and such). 2003 isn't really slow or bloated either imho (relatively, anyhow).
But for once I think it's gonna be slow and bloated . Just remember what they used to say about minimum specs, and now the fact that I'd have to upgrade *all* my video cards basically. I want an OS that lets me get the job done (some coding, checking email, play music/videos, type some documents,...) - not some n00b'ish animated, 3D GUI that requires a 200$ video card and only gets in the way and makes my work slower. I don't want new weird GUIs, the "old" win2k style one does all I need... Last thing I want is skins, and much less 3D/animated stuff, sucking all my CPU cycles and filling my HD.
What I'd want is new features. A more stable, maintainable, functionnal PC. More/better system utilities/tools, no bundled IE/OE junk anymore,...
I think a *LOT* of people will not upgrade to LH, or perhaps move to Linux instead.
Not sure what it will be based onto, but the old install process is quite outdated. The first file copy stage (press F6 in the next half second to load your storage drivers from a *floppy*) really deserves to go for something more "modern".
As for replacing ghosting, I'm not sure what they'll replace it with, but the mix of ghosting and unattended installs works OK for me anyhow. Not sure what will really change, or if it will actually be any better.
While I saw no reason to pick a out of state area code, I do find it nice to have a "local" number others can call in all major cities across the country. Most people can call me for free what way.
E911 isn't run (here at least) by the telco. My VoIP provider does know where I actually live, and can route the call accordingly, doesn't matter what area code number I chose.
As for wrong numbers expensive - the most I pay for a minute of long distance is 1.9 cents. I can't see that get expensive anytime.
But all cars (or even all those in a model) with the same engine and transmission but different tunings?
AFAIK They're already doing that, but to a lesser extent. You can get it reprogrammed to get more HP, and some things are programmed depending on the regions you live in (different temperature ranges).
All cars sharing the same parts to a somewhat greater extent is plausible, but not all of them. It would be stupid for them to use a heavy chevy truck transmission on a mini or vice versa. Perhaps they could use a range of "generic/standardized" parts for the engines/transmissions and such, but even then I doubt we'll see that anytime soon.
I've developped for most of my life on dos/windows (older stuff before; atari 1040stfm, trs-80's,...). I've also programmed a lot for other platforms (microcontrollers (PIC Chips, Atmels, and a motorola), in karel for a GM robot, PLCs,...) but it was always inside windows. I have no idea what kind of IDE I'd use to do any of that in Linux.
After seeing this screenshot I have to disagree. I'm very comfy around windows/KDE interfaces (Haven't played as much with Gnome but it looks ok), but this looks like quite a mess to me. Hopefully the screenshot isn't very representative of what your desktop usually looks like. Quite a mess if you ask me.
I saw that "news" on another site too. I see no reason why this is newsworthy. There's thousands of patches out for windows, and lots more will be out soon. Anything special about these? (of course I didn't RTFA).
But it does a change from the daily MSN search article at least, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Them limiting the characters indeed is a bad thing (making cracking passwords somewhat easier). But I'm a lot more worried about the reasons why it does so. Do they just use it as-is, plaintext inside a SQL query ala SELECT * from Passwords WHERE login="your_login" AND pwd="your_password"? That's a very scary thing. SQL injection galore, and that also means passwords stored in plaintext along your username and personnal info. Someone could get access to all the data. I use salted SHA1 hashes of the passwords (at least) on all my login pages, and even then that's pretty minimal. And if they use plaintext like that, the chances of them using SSL (or being security minded in any way at all) is pretty low. And with people sharing passwords between many sites (as you can only remember so many easily) it wouldn't be nice if someone got a hold of your "common" passwords.
For most fields on a form, it is a sql injection attack risk, however, for passwords, it's much less of a concern: no half decent app uses/transmits plaintext passwords, but hashes instead. It doesn't matter what you type, once it's hashed it's just a bunch of numbers, and poses no SQL injection risk whatsoever.
I've tried that too, but the sound on the other end wasn't actually that good imho, but it's the only way I managed to have perfect sound sync.
Now if I only had some free time, I've been meaning to try pre-amplifiying the signal with an op amp, and using simple voltage dividers at the other end (to lessen the noise, line loss and stuff), or perhaps trying a unbalanced line setup or something along those lines.
I guess the main reason why I haven't really bothered to do it, is it would be almost easier to just run some speaker wire, the "classic" whole-house-audio way (with a cheap second hand amp driving those speakers, and perhaps a switch or 2). No messing around with etching pc boards, shielding/balancing lines, and all that time consuming stuff.
It all depends on your VoIP providers I suppose. My VoIP cost 15$ canadian per month (basic fee), plus 1.9 cents a minute for long distance (unlimited local, E911 and all). And I use skype "on the side", it cuts in the long distance bills a bit.
Skype coverage? By that I assume you mean POTS coverage? Just check their calling rates, it should show which countries you can call to.
From their FAQ:
Can I call all numbers in all countries?
SkypeOut offers calls to all standard fixed and mobile numbers in the world at extremely competitive prices. It might not be possible to access some premium service numbers or other special numbers in some countries.
AFAIK, it is legal to record on POTS as long as you ask the other party first (like all technical support/marketing companies do for "quality purposes")
VoIP isn't quite under the same regulations as POTS either (but that probably depends on which country you live in).
Although I don't use it on Linux or Mac OS X, Skype works pretty well, voice quality is good, and the NAT traversal is nice - not so much with me, but it saves me from guiding technology-challenged family members and friends through opening ports in their firewall/router, having them read the screen out loud for you can't guess what options are on the screen (quite a pain).
But the nicest thing I did is buy a Skype box (the kind that plugs in your RJ11 and phone "passing thru" the POTS, and the USB port plugs to your PC, allowing you to use a real phone on skype - including having the phone ring (don't have to leave your 5.1 channel set of speakers on in case the "phone" would ring, no need turn monitor on and fumble with all that to take the call). It lets one dial out skype contacts easily too (my 53yo mom can make skype calls with it without having the slightest idea of how it all works).
It's great overall, however it's a bit more complicated, especially given that my "POTS" line is actually coming from a VoIP box. So I have an extra digit to dial on all numbers (1 then the number) for the VoIP box, and the Skype box has some buttons too. Not really hard, just slightly inconvenient, but great savings and features.
I wonder if those USB Skype box thingies will also work with Linux or Mac OS X, they're worth it (unlike the USB Skype phones with a short cord that looks like from a dollar store).
Same here. KT133 (non A) forced me to look for something else as it was way too problematic (very unstable, BSODs, crackling audio, file copy errors, lockups, USB only half working,...) They were so unusable that there should have been a class action lawsuit, or refunds or replacements for something else. That was the most grossly defective computer part I ever bought (not talking about DOA but just "not working as it should"), and nothing was ever done about it.
I've used a lot of SiS boards too, and they've been FAR better. You just couldn't get me to buy anything VIA based anymore. I buy nForce chipset based boards instead now.
There alerady are cards like thatfor satellite: DVB-S cards. Software wise, there is VDR (for linux).
Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv
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TiVo to Offer SDK
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I much prefer satellite PVRs as well on some points.
-Analog captures are of much lower quality (sound as well, not just video)
-Better TV out than most vid cards
-Really fast setup (no PC to assemble, OS/drivers/updates to install, software, config,...)
IT just works out of the box as expected. No codecs to install, remote to configure for every app, no paches to apply, no crashes...
Otherwise, I use a DVB-S card to capture.
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Not that iTunes is necessarily for forever, but with millions and millions sold, i doubt they could just "pull the plug" on everybody without making a lot of people react. The songs may be DRM'ed, but you still purchased (own) them, I can't see them anytime soon taking it away from you. It would be seen by the average person as the same thing as them coming to your home and taking your CDs away from you.
As for not being compatible with the next OS'es, that makes no sense. There are no reasons why AAC could not be played, it's a pretty standard format, and implementing their own DRM with it should be pretty trivial to them. I can't see them alienate all their supporters/customers either, making themselves a bad name, and loosing all their business in the process. It's more likely that longhorn wouldn't support win32 than that (it does, I know). That probably make people turn to competitor's portable players as well. Just not gonna happen.
Technically speaking it's most likely different from that (I'm not a lawyer) but I'm sure you get the idea. Unless they have some clause saying "we may at any point decide to just call it quits" or something like that. The most probable way for something like that to happen is Apple going out of business and I doubt that's going to happen soon (more like the inverse).
And if that ever happens, then I'm sure we'll see some DRM-stripping programs all over the net, or some sort of exchange/credit program for real CDs or something like that (hard to predict).
All 3 offer everything I need, but Oracle is like twice the price of SQL Server - or 4x if you're looking at the standard ed (not considering we already have the licenses). And SQL Server performs pretty good (has the top of the TPC-C price/perf - if that matters to you). Same story for DB2, but it's "only" 50% more expensive instead. I'm not a big microsoft fan, but mssql works really well, it's simple, performs well, ... Never had any problems with it really.
And (the enterprise ed) includes OLAP, Data Mining and enterprise reporting. For Oracle/DB2, it costs extra.
Also, another big factor for me is - the SQL server developer edition is only like 50$, so having development servers is really cheap (I run one for developping on a old beige box PC loaded with ram and it works great). Not sure if Oracle/DB2 have similar offerings.
Anyways. Unless I'd have specific needs for Oracle or DB2, I just can't see myself spend the extra $ (a lot of it), plus have to "port" everything to it.
Which makes me wonder - how do they rank up against Oracle/SQL Server? (I'm primarily a SQL Server user, followed by PostgreSQL and the odd once in a while MySQL - Access when I'm stuck fixing someone else's crappy work). Any good speed/features/pricing/... reviews out there?
It would also be nice to hear about people who did the switch to DB2 (or other alternatives to Oracle), their main issues and everything.
Yes, but Napster being a suscription service wants you to pay for the rest of your life - just like for phone/cable/... Not just 3 years (altough the comparison is still good). I sure don't want to pay 15$ USD a month for the next 50+ years. That's around 10k$ (depending on how long you'd live, and price may go up). That's a lot of songs off iTunes. Not to mention that when napster dies (with such a business model, I bet it will), you're left with nothing at all to listen to and have to to turn to buying CDs or iTunes then.
The iPod is not so much popular from iTunes as I've seen, but mostly as a mp3 player (and then the odd few songs off iTunes) anyways.
iTunes is just an opportunity to buy the odd song you like for 99 cents when you feel like it, to complement your existing mp3 collection. It would take me more than lifetime to spend that same 10k$ with a 1$ price now and then (how often is there some good, new songs?). And you get to play those few songs for the rest of your life (hopefully) without having to "rent" it for the rest of your life.
Even if I was just starting off a music collection from scratch, napster still seems expensive to me. There are other alternatives too, like buying used CDs, buying your favourites songs off iTunes first (or some people download the mp3's, until they buy the CD - they like having the actual album/cover art/...)
As for the players, not that I'm a big iPod fan, but the userbase is huge, making use of that would have made more sense than forcing people to buy yet another player. I have a iRiver iHP-120 and play my self-ripped mp3's on it, but there's no way I'm going to use napster even if my player supports it (I sort of wish I could buy the odd song off iTunes really).
And they tend to do other nasty things like prevent running regedit and other system tools/AV, process hiding, using filenames that look like system processes, and a whole host of nasty tricks.
It wouldn't be surprising if they started attacting other things like norton's expiry dates/licenses as well, or plain corrupting some registry entries necessary for apps to run. (How long before they replace legit windows keys with the FCKGW ones so people can't get updates anymore?) I won't be surprised either when they start coming up with more advanced techniques against other antispyware apps, or tools like HijackThis. It's pretty much inevitable.
As most lusers run as admins (and use IE, to make things worse), they could do a LOT of evil things if they get imaginative. But that won't make the lusers learn or anything. They'll just keep putting up with it and do nothing.
It would help (making voltage constant, remove noise/spikes, ...) but having a ground is still quite important. Surge suppressors (and UPS'es) need it to give proper protection. GFCI's require them as well (actually, I do have a grounded plug: the GFCI in the bathroom).
The real fix is getting some new wiring instead, and it would be cheaper than a power conditionner - especially if you can do some of the work yourself.
That's completely legal. Most old houses are like that. Mine is, not a single grounded outlet (just renting it, so I can't just rewire it). It's not that uncommon really. Add a few quick power outages or browouts, then you get dead UPS'es and power supplies. In average I have to replace a UPS and 2 or 3 power supplies a year (and they're good ones too).
Other than that, next thing on the list would be HD's (had really really bad luck with western digitals, but my maxtors just won't die).
I never really found the previous "new" versions of windows to be overly bloated (especially if you use the "classic" look, disable unecessary services and such). I ran XP Pro on a old 633MHz system last year (for the kids) and it was almost as fast as a PC 3x the speed (yes, again, minimal background stuff, like system restore off and such). 2003 isn't really slow or bloated either imho (relatively, anyhow).
...) - not some n00b'ish animated, 3D GUI that requires a 200$ video card and only gets in the way and makes my work slower. I don't want new weird GUIs, the "old" win2k style one does all I need... Last thing I want is skins, and much less 3D/animated stuff, sucking all my CPU cycles and filling my HD.
...
But for once I think it's gonna be slow and bloated . Just remember what they used to say about minimum specs, and now the fact that I'd have to upgrade *all* my video cards basically. I want an OS that lets me get the job done (some coding, checking email, play music/videos, type some documents,
What I'd want is new features. A more stable, maintainable, functionnal PC. More/better system utilities/tools, no bundled IE/OE junk anymore,
I think a *LOT* of people will not upgrade to LH, or perhaps move to Linux instead.
Not sure what it will be based onto, but the old install process is quite outdated. The first file copy stage (press F6 in the next half second to load your storage drivers from a *floppy*) really deserves to go for something more "modern".
As for replacing ghosting, I'm not sure what they'll replace it with, but the mix of ghosting and unattended installs works OK for me anyhow. Not sure what will really change, or if it will actually be any better.
While I saw no reason to pick a out of state area code, I do find it nice to have a "local" number others can call in all major cities across the country. Most people can call me for free what way.
E911 isn't run (here at least) by the telco. My VoIP provider does know where I actually live, and can route the call accordingly, doesn't matter what area code number I chose.
As for wrong numbers expensive - the most I pay for a minute of long distance is 1.9 cents. I can't see that get expensive anytime.
But all cars (or even all those in a model) with the same engine and transmission but different tunings?
AFAIK They're already doing that, but to a lesser extent. You can get it reprogrammed to get more HP, and some things are programmed depending on the regions you live in (different temperature ranges).
All cars sharing the same parts to a somewhat greater extent is plausible, but not all of them. It would be stupid for them to use a heavy chevy truck transmission on a mini or vice versa. Perhaps they could use a range of "generic/standardized" parts for the engines/transmissions and such, but even then I doubt we'll see that anytime soon.
I've developped for most of my life on dos/windows (older stuff before; atari 1040stfm, trs-80's, ...). I've also programmed a lot for other platforms (microcontrollers (PIC Chips, Atmels, and a motorola), in karel for a GM robot, PLCs, ...) but it was always inside windows. I have no idea what kind of IDE I'd use to do any of that in Linux.
After seeing this screenshot I have to disagree. I'm very comfy around windows/KDE interfaces (Haven't played as much with Gnome but it looks ok), but this looks like quite a mess to me. Hopefully the screenshot isn't very representative of what your desktop usually looks like. Quite a mess if you ask me.
I saw that "news" on another site too. I see no reason why this is newsworthy. There's thousands of patches out for windows, and lots more will be out soon. Anything special about these? (of course I didn't RTFA).
But it does a change from the daily MSN search article at least, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Them limiting the characters indeed is a bad thing (making cracking passwords somewhat easier). But I'm a lot more worried about the reasons why it does so. Do they just use it as-is, plaintext inside a SQL query ala SELECT * from Passwords WHERE login="your_login" AND pwd="your_password"? That's a very scary thing. SQL injection galore, and that also means passwords stored in plaintext along your username and personnal info. Someone could get access to all the data. I use salted SHA1 hashes of the passwords (at least) on all my login pages, and even then that's pretty minimal. And if they use plaintext like that, the chances of them using SSL (or being security minded in any way at all) is pretty low. And with people sharing passwords between many sites (as you can only remember so many easily) it wouldn't be nice if someone got a hold of your "common" passwords.
For most fields on a form, it is a sql injection attack risk, however, for passwords, it's much less of a concern: no half decent app uses/transmits plaintext passwords, but hashes instead. It doesn't matter what you type, once it's hashed it's just a bunch of numbers, and poses no SQL injection risk whatsoever.
Are you trying to say that toner really tastes like sushi? Not that I'd know, I never tried eating toner.
I've tried that too, but the sound on the other end wasn't actually that good imho, but it's the only way I managed to have perfect sound sync.
Now if I only had some free time, I've been meaning to try pre-amplifiying the signal with an op amp, and using simple voltage dividers at the other end (to lessen the noise, line loss and stuff), or perhaps trying a unbalanced line setup or something along those lines.
I guess the main reason why I haven't really bothered to do it, is it would be almost easier to just run some speaker wire, the "classic" whole-house-audio way (with a cheap second hand amp driving those speakers, and perhaps a switch or 2). No messing around with etching pc boards, shielding/balancing lines, and all that time consuming stuff.
It all depends on your VoIP providers I suppose. My VoIP cost 15$ canadian per month (basic fee), plus 1.9 cents a minute for long distance (unlimited local, E911 and all). And I use skype "on the side", it cuts in the long distance bills a bit.
Skype coverage? By that I assume you mean POTS coverage? Just check their calling rates, it should show which countries you can call to.
From their FAQ:
Can I call all numbers in all countries? SkypeOut offers calls to all standard fixed and mobile numbers in the world at extremely competitive prices. It might not be possible to access some premium service numbers or other special numbers in some countries.
AFAIK, it is legal to record on POTS as long as you ask the other party first (like all technical support/marketing companies do for "quality purposes") VoIP isn't quite under the same regulations as POTS either (but that probably depends on which country you live in).
Although I don't use it on Linux or Mac OS X, Skype works pretty well, voice quality is good, and the NAT traversal is nice - not so much with me, but it saves me from guiding technology-challenged family members and friends through opening ports in their firewall/router, having them read the screen out loud for you can't guess what options are on the screen (quite a pain).
But the nicest thing I did is buy a Skype box (the kind that plugs in your RJ11 and phone "passing thru" the POTS, and the USB port plugs to your PC, allowing you to use a real phone on skype - including having the phone ring (don't have to leave your 5.1 channel set of speakers on in case the "phone" would ring, no need turn monitor on and fumble with all that to take the call). It lets one dial out skype contacts easily too (my 53yo mom can make skype calls with it without having the slightest idea of how it all works).
It's great overall, however it's a bit more complicated, especially given that my "POTS" line is actually coming from a VoIP box. So I have an extra digit to dial on all numbers (1 then the number) for the VoIP box, and the Skype box has some buttons too. Not really hard, just slightly inconvenient, but great savings and features.
I wonder if those USB Skype box thingies will also work with Linux or Mac OS X, they're worth it (unlike the USB Skype phones with a short cord that looks like from a dollar store).
Same here. KT133 (non A) forced me to look for something else as it was way too problematic (very unstable, BSODs, crackling audio, file copy errors, lockups, USB only half working, ...) They were so unusable that there should have been a class action lawsuit, or refunds or replacements for something else. That was the most grossly defective computer part I ever bought (not talking about DOA but just "not working as it should"), and nothing was ever done about it.
I've used a lot of SiS boards too, and they've been FAR better. You just couldn't get me to buy anything VIA based anymore. I buy nForce chipset based boards instead now.
There alerady are cards like thatfor satellite: DVB-S cards. Software wise, there is VDR (for linux).
I much prefer satellite PVRs as well on some points. -Analog captures are of much lower quality (sound as well, not just video) -Better TV out than most vid cards -Really fast setup (no PC to assemble, OS/drivers/updates to install, software, config, ...)
IT just works out of the box as expected. No codecs to install, remote to configure for every app, no paches to apply, no crashes...
Otherwise, I use a DVB-S card to capture.
Hurry! Grab www.googleworlddomination.com