We can keep producing our own fully compliant Red Book CDs, or our own fully compliant DVD Video discs.
Why DVD Video? DVD Video allows 24bit 96khz PCM audio streams. DVD Audio is absolutely not needed, in fact, you would find more DVD players accepting DVD Video discs used for audio than DVD Audio.
There is also DVD media used in data mode, where we can store either raw pcm or lossless compressed audio.
We can also use the lossy formats, say, for multichannel, like ogg vorbis which handles 255 of these...
We are producing our own standalones that can play mp3s, oggs, mpcs, currently using CD in data mode, why not simply use DVDrom drives and continue the trend? There is no need for these outrageous formats anymore, its time costumers have a word.
Besides independent artists can produce and distribute using these "underground" formats, there is no need for major labels to dictate "standards" anymore, specially when such "standards" are no more, only a bunch of closed, propietary and heavily copy-controled black boxes than can and will be cracked anyway.
24 bits is a good improvement. Sampling rates beyond 48Khz are not that good. Sure its easier to build cheap filters for 96Khz and 192Khz sampling rates (as most humans cant hear much above 16khz, or nothing beyond 24khz), there is little incentive to go beyond 48Khz sampling rates, let alone above 96khz. With that reasoning, i insist we are more than fine with the original DVD Video spec, which allows PCM audio at 24bit 96Khz.
For SACD, the implications are more far fetched than you may thought. I think you better head for http://www.hydrogenaudio.com/ boards and search for SACD. You will be suprised, how much is true, how much is pure marketing tricks. And the new problems introduced by the SACD system. Sony is at it again, this format will be a complete failure, just ignore it, and ignore DVD-A as well as any other DRM compliant format, we have the power to make and use our own standards, we don't need big companies dictating our needs.
We ARE the customers, we shall receive respect.
Remember, this is all a battle for control. Big corps know they are losing control, they will fight for it.
I will copy what i said in another forum regarding the news about BMG decision to produce no more CDs without "copy protection":
This means that all BMG discs are now low quality. Only "backups" will be good and reliable.
Copy protected CDs are a guaranteed measure to prevent customers from trusting major record labels discs anymore, as a street made copy will give better quality and price, demand for such _reliable_ backups discs will only increase.
All means of copy protection are doomed to failure, and will only increase production costs, and will annoy who knows how many people.
I guess we will simply keep producing our own full quality Red Book CDs and start ignore the major brands, it could be a good thing, to promote independent artists, underground scene, and all.
Remember how Divx (copy/play controlled DVD) failed, look how SACD is doomed from the beginning, and any outragious format that they devise (unless easily cracked open) will face strong opposition from the public.
The people are starting to resort to their own formats. Divx/Xvid instead of DVD, Mp3/Ogg Vorbis instead of CD, we are even developing our own software and hardware, they are losing control, they are desperate to regain that control back, they have lost already, but they will fight, will declare the whole world illegal, the whole knowledge a sin, and freedom a crime, and put their money to buy all the politicians and fund the lawyers.
Even with Palladium, you will see how people will start thinking seriously about free software and probably hardware, when Microsoft asks regular fees to use Windows, Office, Messenger, and such things people are starting to depend on for without knowing that its exactly what they want, so later they can ask whatever they want. Its the drug dealer tactic, none the less, first for free, then you pay, then you owe, then you die...
Yes i use PSI. I have noticed that many servers will kick you fast unless you use the ssl connection. Its yet another problem to convince my dumb friends that insist on using m$ messenger. (Because the encription stuff does not come bundled, needs separate download, etc...)
I wish they started charging access for passport once and for all, it would ease things. Oh and AOL could charge for their AIM/ICQ services as well, and yahoo.
I ran a single line BBS from 93 to 98, and i was in the scene at least since 89. Speaking of multi line chat bbs, you just reminded me of an old joke we used to do to newbies in the chat, we used to say "hit ALT-H to see the Sysop menu" Oh, you wouldn't believe how many could fall for it, oh and there were variations involving +++ as well;)
Endless nights of BBS door games... Legend of the Red Dragon, indeed, among many others.
Yes, indeed these are great news! I'm really happy that Velug finally managed to pull out something good for us all:)
Oh yes, i live in Caracas, i run Freebsd in my home, i also do a little sysadmin job in another Freebsd machine on a cybercafe, and put Linux in a community FM radio (94.9FM) (only heard in parts of Caracas)
Im always trying to show the benefits of free software to my friends, and it is not easy. The same, well known issues arise again and again, but i will never give up:) Of course i don't push people to anything, in the end its their choice to give it a try. The incidents in Peru have been very inspiring for me to continue, and i hope to meet some of these fine people now finally in a position to do something positive for us all.
I can't accept the position of almost all the privately held media in Venezuela that absolutely everything out of this governement is bad and worst than the previous. This can't simply be true. Too many important people has been given now the oportunity that none of the previous corrupt politicians ever made to anyone unless a lot of cash were offered beforehand, in which case, of course was only for the benefit of the big foreign corporation interests.
Please continue to spread out the good positive news!
For people not living in Venezuela:
Most private media owners declared war to the current President, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, who apparently refused to continue maintaining special privileges for the sector. It was clearly evidenced in past Coup d'Etat (that only lasted 2 days!) when they not only closed the only non private held TV station (and all community radios), but also they self censored themselves by not showing any kind of news coverage of the events.
People who had satellite and cable TV could watch from CNN and Telemundo the events that were taking place only blocks away, but none of the local media were willing to show. One worker who later resigned in channel RCTV was literally given the order "Don't put on air any pro chavez demonstration".
Any journalist is supposed to get and show you both sides of a story, and then let you decide. In Venezuela, most news will only cover one side. As you have clearly seen, the intent for a few (used to be more priviledged than now class) is to get rid of Chavez at all costs. Simply because he is not willing to adhere to their interests.
Yes, 10 yrs ago Chavez attempted a Coup d'Etat, failed and went to prision. He later was set free, founded a political Party, and he cleanly won elections for president in 98. Truly some people were so angered by all the previous governements that made a dream of having a sort of "mesiah" that would came and clean it all. The reality showed otherwise. Trying to revert 4 decades of corruption is no small task, and it still erodes current goverment, so there have been lots of mistakes.
Mistakes that were not disguised, or denied, mistakes thas had been admited! And countless efforts have been made to settle things down, dialogue tables, international mediators (including the Carter Center), but there is a small yet powerful sector which happens to control most media which simply cares nothing and want him out.
I am still positive though. Things like Community Radio (known as Low Power FM movement in the states) and adoption of "Free Software whenever possible by the governement, are clear indications that things can be done, and ARE being done.
"The Internet, and downloading, are here to stay... Anyone who thinks otherwise should prepare themselves to end up on the slagheap of history." (Janis Ian during a live European radio interview, 9-1-98)
"Quite frankly, when I spent three months researching and writing The Internet Debacle, I wasn't planning to become part of a "cause". I assumed that the 35,000 subscribers of Performing Songwriter Magazine might read it, and a few might email me about it. I had no idea that a scant month later, the article would be posted on over 1,000 sites, translated into nine languages, and have been featured on the BBC." (Janis Ian)
What is the need to waste time with that crappy SACD format when you can have 24 bit 96Khz PCM audio on standard DVDs? I don't even see the need for the so called "DVD Audio" format when the standard DVD already has enough audio capabilities. And DVD-Rs are becoming more and more common. No need to waste time in "Yet Another Sony Deception" format. There are plenty of "24/96" sound cards for production on PCs, and some as cheap as 128$, are a good option for alternative distribution in a media that will play in all dvd players and dvd rom drives on earth.
I'm so sorry by your grief, but honestly you can't turn back in time. It happens, that in history of humanity things that used to be for granted stoped being so after certain events came in place.
No matter how much you cry, applaud or ignore these events, things like that will happen, and expect to be common place in the near future.
In my opinion, no matter how many lawyers, money or corrupt politicians the powers that be throw at the matter, eventually it becomes evident that those in the sharing scene outnumber all the combined efforts against it; and after some dark and painfully times, eventually they will have to give up and adapt or die with the most that couln't find a way to remain profitable in the new conditions.
On the other hand it can happen to be better in certain aspects and worse in others. Indie records while great in quality also had a very short limited production. On the net your copies never end, and only one is needed; but often all you get is bad quality Xing mp3 crap or bad rippings.
It also happens in this strugle that those powers that be think they have the god given rights to make it "harder" for users to share their stuff, so enter the multitude of "copycontrol" mechanisms that usually only achieve worse quality distribution with higher price and infinite annoyances for legitime users that eventually get pissed off and drop the whole "original" thing and came to engross the growing net community.
One way or another we are going to see some interesting changes in the way media is produced and distributed, but don't miss the point, its a revolutionary rather than evolutionary thing (or maybe both?).
No matter how much we rant, there is little that can be done for history to come to change.
I tried and tried to make my Roland SCC-1 sound card work well in linux, but failed. This simple isa MPU-401 compatible card uses the mpu401 module. No matter which program i try, playmidi, jazz or whatever thing that uses the/dev/sequencer device, it simply can't play the files right. Further investigation has revealed that the mpu401 module lacks the "intelligent mode" that _true_ mpu401 devices can employ, which could be a cause. The only way i could "barely" make this card sound decent "under linux", was using dos software running in dosemu and letting direct access to the card (ie, avoiding the kernel module and letting use irq/addresses directly).
Of course this card sounds perfect using true dos or windows. Everything from a 286 up to the latest AMD can make this board play midi files just fine. Linux can't. For some reason, notes get lost/muted in the way (or lag). It may be a latency issue; i guess its the braindead module kernel that nobody cared to improve anymore.
I have hopes for the kernel low latency and preemptive patches, maybe that could help.
Oh, and ALSA assumes you can't have an mpu401 device stand alone...
Well now i'm playing with Freebsd, who knows, maybe it works here...
CBR = Constant bit rate = Variable quality
VBR = Variable bit rate = Constant quality
ABR = Target bit rate = Variable but not as much quality
OGG normally uses a form of ABR, but is capable to do true CBR and true VBR as well (not sure which versions enabled for).
Also, even if you are using true CBR, there is little room for flexibility in the form of the "bit reservoir"; you can save some bits in the "easy parts" so they can be better spent in the hard parts.
Second, mp3, being open in some way or another, has the side effect of many encoders available. Different encoders produce different quality. Take 4 192kbps mp3s encoded with 4 different encoders, and you will discover quality differences as day to night.
And to use Lame properly, first, let me suggest that you *at least* use Lame 3.89b. Lame 3.70 is *too old*. If you get Lame 3.90a, even better.
Want to be on the safe side? use this single option:
lame --dm-preset standard
This will produce near 256kbps files, and its the hightest quality you can get out of mp3s.
If you think you can live with 192kbps like files, then use
lame --r3mix
Otherwise stick to the normal, don't apply options you don't know much of. Typically you *always* want -h, and -b for the desired bitrate in case of CBR, or minimun frame bitrate for audio in the case of VBR (usually 112 or 128). ABR is VBR attempting an average bitrate. And no, it is not wise to use option -B at all (let the encoder use up to 320kbps frames when using VBR).
If this topic of lossy compression is of interest for you, then you should visit:
Proyect Mayhem, channel #Project_Mayhem at irc.openprojects.org
and r3mix.net, channel #r3mix at irc.openprojects.org
Um... on side note, have you seen The Wavelet Tutorial yet? Wavelets are planned for Ogg Vorbis 2.x, stay tuned...:)
Oh, c'mon, you really think there is a large % of people actually blocking ads? It's a small group, 10% at best. Most of the crowd visiting those pages don't even know what a proxy or ad blocking software is, in fact most let spyware remain installed without they noticing.
The DOT.com crash was the result of its own demise. Some people were sold the idea of internet being the ultimate and biggest ever shopping mall, so they created an artificial sense or bubble that simply popped up when the reality check came; which was, basically, way too much more offer than real demand. Everyone knows that actually 70% of the DOT commers were in excess; it was simply a matter of time.
Now would you really check how much is asked for getting to the net on the first place, why they seem to think you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for T1 like links; when people in Sweden pay 20$ montly for 10mbps lan speed like links to their homes?
I have to pay 80US$ for 256/64 DSL with forced NAT and no real ip or higher speeds options available, since this is "residential service". Now tell me, do i give a damn if the.coms don't get their.000005 cent for an ad banner display that i am never ever going to see or click, yet steals *my* bandwidth and even attempts to identify *me* with their stupid cookies?
Their "business" models were flawed from the first place.
Liberal capitalism is darwinian by its nature; leaving everything to the market forces alone will result in collapse of the small or the weak, no matter what.
Hmm.. let's see... Recording Industry Asociation of America... The industry who's primary business is to manufacture and sell records the people in the 50's used not to produce for themselves...
CDR and CDR Writters, the tools to make such records now goes to the masses, so, bypassing such Industry becomes reality (clearly a threat).
Yup, makes sense, they are simply defending their interests using the lobby ($$$) system to manipulate laws so the little peop... er.. pirates could not make such horrendous thing as bypassing them; i mean, who is the law system for? Individuals or Corporations? Of Course! Individuals are stupid (and poor) hence only the righteous organizations with the cash... er.. knoledge to know whats better for you can dictate your conduct (heh, and they dare point to "non democratic" regimes...)
Hahahaha, just Brazil? Wake up IP land! We most people outside don't give a crap about your stupid "everything must be ruled by the holy thesis of supply and demand by market, and only market forces alone" (which includes protecting the interests of the holy multinational companies instead of the people)...
In my opinion, IP simply sucks, halts development and make lazyness; if ever, only a minuscule 5 years or so copyright/patent should be allowed, but nothing more.
Sure, your holy corporations won't make as much selling viagra over here, but they sure will have fun researching "human cloning" and other "non permited in certain countries research" and then later will sell you the byproducts of the work carried over here.
In case some of you wonders, yes, there is life outside USA borders, and, oh lord, people actually think different!
(time to start your holy market force inquisition/crusades..)
I think you people should visit the http://www.r3mix.net/ page, and specially the forums if you are really worried about the innards of mp3 encoding.
There is also a lot of information coming from the Lame Project, particular of your interest may probably be reading the mailing list which probably answers all your questions.
In your particular case, in my opinion you should try experimenting with the --r3mix switch using the latest Lame3.89beta or maybe even a Lame3.90alpha, which should give you VBR files averaging 170~220kbps. In any case reading the forums there is the best way to keep up to date with each Lame development.
In my opinion, Lame exceeds by far Fraunhofer's quality, but only if allowed to use the higher bitrates. On the other hand, Fraunhofer can't do better than average even with higher bitrates.
Ogg is on its way, but it is *still* behind the current state of mp3 encoding quality. Due to its design, it seems it has all what is needed to improve in both quality and size constraints; but its not there yet, needs a lot of testing and tweaking, a process very time consuming that needs a lot of people. I don't think its even fair to test it before the first non beta release is made, much less compare it.
But, in my view, it is extremely unfair that, even after the author agrees to change the name, he is still asked to pay a fee.
How in the world are we expected to check every possible name, or combination of a name that may be registered?
They din't simply send a cease and decist letter, they also sent him a bill. Open source developers usually don't make huge profits, and don't have a law firm guiding them in each step or checking every possible combination of a name for them.
It is not fair that they treat individuals working on their free time projects like they were part of a powerful corporation. Involving an education institution makes it even worse.
This is plain harassament of big bad ugly law firm against innocent individuals. Adobe should put a stop at this and settle with a name change only.
I he is still forced to pay, even after renaming (or removing) the whole project, then i think EFF *must* help him.
It is so sad that the law system can be so bad in many countries, where the individuals can be harassed out of the system in favor of the rich megacorps.
If you live in USA, then sure. If not, you simply can't subscribe the service. All the big DSS hacking started the same day DirectTV went on line, for USA only, leaving out the nearby countries. People living in Canada or Caribbean countries, do receive the signal; but they cant subscribe it, legally at least. Some use fake USA addresses, some buy "test" cards; but the ultimate goal is to have a 100% software based emulator. Unlike cards or hardware devices, which can be burned/damaged, emulators are simply reset/updated and they are working back again.
This is not new (or news for that matter). There is a really strong community behind this, reverse engineering all the "News Datacom" tricks, who, themselves counterattack by fixing the bugs found by this "community" and disabling the new attempts.
Its is not a cheap hobby either. Not only you have to upgrade constantly to follow the war, but in equipment it usually means easily a first 2000 US$ investment. If the card gets upgraded, then all your tools/devices must upgrade too (and there are many lost hours of downtime, due to ECMs, new tricks, whatever).
There is no real loss, or stealing for that matter, if you can't legally pay for the service in the first place. Remember the US crypto law? this law prohibits equipment like this to be exported outside USA, so DTV must obey and deny any outsider attempt to subscribe (since they are not supposed to have this crypto equipment on their hands).
Also this is not like breaking into phone communications, you are simply putting use of a publicy broadcast signal (TV! not private talks) falling in your head, outside of USA soil where you would otherwise do absolutely nothing with it.
At least the free available emulators kill the smugler "test" card resell business:) But the next News Datacom move will probably put them back on business (with the next gen cards that will make the current emu obsolete). Its been the same since DTV day 0, again, nothing new here.
Well, maybe the distributed server with the emu software, which is an interesting thing *if* you are into the scene.
Perhaps you know it, probably you dont. But one of the real problems USA has regarding fuel is, the ever shrinking refinery capacity. It has gotten to the point, where USA can't satisfy anymore the 100% of its own internal demand of procesed fuels, and its only getting worse. Apparently, is not that atractive business to run refineries, so one after another, they have been closing; without any replacements put back in place. Furthermore, the current ones in operation are already at max capacity; and this wont help USA citizens to get good prices on anything but crude oil. Sure, you can burn crude oil and produce energy; but its not very efficient and pollutes a lot more. Think about it.
GAS prices comes mostly from three factors: The oil, the transport, and the taxes. In USA, about 40% of the price comes from the transport (oil from middle east, remember?) and about 40% goes for taxes. In European countries, citizens pay much more in taxes (up to 80% in UK!) than transport. And the oil itself, usually accounts to about only 20% of the total price. There is not much gain in the refinement; which is the reason why US refineries have been decreasing.
What can you do with more crude oil? For most people, you have to transform it in a more energy efficient form of fuel, such as gasoline, or diesel or whatever; and the USA have an extra issue, which is its reduced refinement capacity; they have to depend in other countries for a small (but growing) percentage of the refinement (so, more transport, taxes, etc).
Yes it is a dormant crisis, but perhaps some are seeing it approach. The research of alternate fuels can never be bad, and, a true fact is: The United States of America; having less than 8% of the world population, is at least responsible of 25% of the pollution of the whole planet. No point arguing about it, climate changes are already in process, and its only getting worse... For all.
Ok; who would encode a press conference in 128kbps stereo!?!? This thing is 35,950,052 long! Insane...
C'mon ppl, can anyone with the whole thing reencode it to a smaller size? Maybe something like "lame --mp3input --preset phone -v -q 0 feltenpr.mp3" could do...
Geez, next time they will use.ogg or something...:)
Sure, and cdrecord would be as well, and all Open source OSes; heck, the whole computer is now a Circumvention Device; youll need a license to run one...
Ok; so answer me a question. Does this means that all ancient characters should be mapped so that historians could use them as well? Why only chinese ancient then? What about glyphs and all the ancient cultures?
If you are really tired of the high pitched noise of your monitor; then LCD will kill it forever. This will also prevent those evil ppl that listen to these noises to reconstruct what you see on your screen:)
Well, as Vorbis Video is still not here, like others, i believe Mpeg1 is the most open, standard and crossplattform of all the available codecs. It is not top quality; but a least does not require too much complex machines and there is a player for everyone.
Sure mpeg1 is not very suited for modem streaming; but at least it can be saved with ease. Something like mpeg1 video at 160x120 23.976 fps (lowest available); with mpeg audio layer II at 32 kbps mono (toolame encoder to the rescue:) could do fine with 512 something kbps or less, maybe 256kbps.
I suggest you check out the Tsunami mpeg encoder for good quality mpeg1 encodes. Be sure to use a high soften block noise setting and other useful tweaks that improve quality. Oh, and Variable bit rate is there too:)
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Why DVD Video? DVD Video allows 24bit 96khz PCM audio streams. DVD Audio is absolutely not needed, in fact, you would find more DVD players accepting DVD Video discs used for audio than DVD Audio.
There is also DVD media used in data mode, where we can store either raw pcm or lossless compressed audio.
We can also use the lossy formats, say, for multichannel, like ogg vorbis which handles 255 of these...
We are producing our own standalones that can play mp3s, oggs, mpcs, currently using CD in data mode, why not simply use DVDrom drives and continue the trend? There is no need for these outrageous formats anymore, its time costumers have a word.
Besides independent artists can produce and distribute using these "underground" formats, there is no need for major labels to dictate "standards" anymore, specially when such "standards" are no more, only a bunch of closed, propietary and heavily copy-controled black boxes than can and will be cracked anyway.
24 bits is a good improvement. Sampling rates beyond 48Khz are not that good. Sure its easier to build cheap filters for 96Khz and 192Khz sampling rates (as most humans cant hear much above 16khz, or nothing beyond 24khz), there is little incentive to go beyond 48Khz sampling rates, let alone above 96khz. With that reasoning, i insist we are more than fine with the original DVD Video spec, which allows PCM audio at 24bit 96Khz.
For SACD, the implications are more far fetched than you may thought. I think you better head for http://www.hydrogenaudio.com/ boards and search for SACD. You will be suprised, how much is true, how much is pure marketing tricks. And the new problems introduced by the SACD system. Sony is at it again, this format will be a complete failure, just ignore it, and ignore DVD-A as well as any other DRM compliant format, we have the power to make and use our own standards, we don't need big companies dictating our needs.
We ARE the customers, we shall receive respect. Remember, this is all a battle for control. Big corps know they are losing control, they will fight for it.
I will copy what i said in another forum regarding the news about BMG decision to produce no more CDs without "copy protection":
This means that all BMG discs are now low quality. Only "backups" will be good and reliable.
Copy protected CDs are a guaranteed measure to prevent customers from trusting major record labels discs anymore, as a street made copy will give better quality and price, demand for such _reliable_ backups discs will only increase.
All means of copy protection are doomed to failure, and will only increase production costs, and will annoy who knows how many people.
I guess we will simply keep producing our own full quality Red Book CDs and start ignore the major brands, it could be a good thing, to promote independent artists, underground scene, and all.
Remember how Divx (copy/play controlled DVD) failed, look how SACD is doomed from the beginning, and any outragious format that they devise (unless easily cracked open) will face strong opposition from the public.
The people are starting to resort to their own formats. Divx/Xvid instead of DVD, Mp3/Ogg Vorbis instead of CD, we are even developing our own software and hardware, they are losing control, they are desperate to regain that control back, they have lost already, but they will fight, will declare the whole world illegal, the whole knowledge a sin, and freedom a crime, and put their money to buy all the politicians and fund the lawyers.
Even with Palladium, you will see how people will start thinking seriously about free software and probably hardware, when Microsoft asks regular fees to use Windows, Office, Messenger, and such things people are starting to depend on for without knowing that its exactly what they want, so later they can ask whatever they want. Its the drug dealer tactic, none the less, first for free, then you pay, then you owe, then you die...
(Note: Term "free" used as in Freedom of Speech).
Yes i use PSI. I have noticed that many servers will kick you fast unless you use the ssl connection. Its yet another problem to convince my dumb friends that insist on using m$ messenger. (Because the encription stuff does not come bundled, needs separate download, etc...)
I wish they started charging access for passport once and for all, it would ease things. Oh and AOL could charge for their AIM/ICQ services as well, and yahoo.
I ran a single line BBS from 93 to 98, and i was in the scene at least since 89. Speaking of multi line chat bbs, you just reminded me of an old joke we used to do to newbies in the chat, we used to say "hit ALT-H to see the Sysop menu" Oh, you wouldn't believe how many could fall for it, oh and there were variations involving +++ as well ;)
Endless nights of BBS door games... Legend of the Red Dragon, indeed, among many others.
Yes, indeed these are great news! I'm really happy that Velug finally managed to pull out something good for us all :)
Oh yes, i live in Caracas, i run Freebsd in my home, i also do a little sysadmin job in another Freebsd machine on a cybercafe, and put Linux in a community FM radio (94.9FM) (only heard in parts of Caracas)
Im always trying to show the benefits of free software to my friends, and it is not easy. The same, well known issues arise again and again, but i will never give up :) Of course i don't push people to anything, in the end its their choice to give it a try. The incidents in Peru have been very inspiring for me to continue, and i hope to meet some of these fine people now finally in a position to do something positive for us all.
I can't accept the position of almost all the privately held media in Venezuela that absolutely everything out of this governement is bad and worst than the previous. This can't simply be true. Too many important people has been given now the oportunity that none of the previous corrupt politicians ever made to anyone unless a lot of cash were offered beforehand, in which case, of course was only for the benefit of the big foreign corporation interests.
Please continue to spread out the good positive news!
For people not living in Venezuela:
Most private media owners declared war to the current President, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, who apparently refused to continue maintaining special privileges for the sector. It was clearly evidenced in past Coup d'Etat (that only lasted 2 days!) when they not only closed the only non private held TV station (and all community radios), but also they self censored themselves by not showing any kind of news coverage of the events.
People who had satellite and cable TV could watch from CNN and Telemundo the events that were taking place only blocks away, but none of the local media were willing to show. One worker who later resigned in channel RCTV was literally given the order "Don't put on air any pro chavez demonstration".
Any journalist is supposed to get and show you both sides of a story, and then let you decide. In Venezuela, most news will only cover one side. As you have clearly seen, the intent for a few (used to be more priviledged than now class) is to get rid of Chavez at all costs. Simply because he is not willing to adhere to their interests.
Yes, 10 yrs ago Chavez attempted a Coup d'Etat, failed and went to prision. He later was set free, founded a political Party, and he cleanly won elections for president in 98. Truly some people were so angered by all the previous governements that made a dream of having a sort of "mesiah" that would came and clean it all. The reality showed otherwise. Trying to revert 4 decades of corruption is no small task, and it still erodes current goverment, so there have been lots of mistakes.
Mistakes that were not disguised, or denied, mistakes thas had been admited! And countless efforts have been made to settle things down, dialogue tables, international mediators (including the Carter Center), but there is a small yet powerful sector which happens to control most media which simply cares nothing and want him out.
I am still positive though. Things like Community Radio (known as Low Power FM movement in the states) and adoption of "Free Software whenever possible by the governement, are clear indications that things can be done, and ARE being done.
"The Internet, and downloading, are here to stay... Anyone who thinks otherwise should prepare themselves to end up on the slagheap of history." (Janis Ian during a live European radio interview, 9-1-98)
FALLOUT - a follow up to The Internet Debacle
"Quite frankly, when I spent three months researching and writing The Internet Debacle, I wasn't planning to become part of a "cause". I assumed that the 35,000 subscribers of Performing Songwriter Magazine might read it, and a few might email me about it. I had no idea that a scant month later, the article would be posted on over 1,000 sites, translated into nine languages, and have been featured on the BBC." (Janis Ian)
http://www.janisian.com
What is the need to waste time with that crappy SACD format when you can have 24 bit 96Khz PCM audio on standard DVDs? I don't even see the need for the so called "DVD Audio" format when the standard DVD already has enough audio capabilities. And DVD-Rs are becoming more and more common. No need to waste time in "Yet Another Sony Deception" format. There are plenty of "24/96" sound cards for production on PCs, and some as cheap as 128$, are a good option for alternative distribution in a media that will play in all dvd players and dvd rom drives on earth.
I'm so sorry by your grief, but honestly you can't turn back in time. It happens, that in history of humanity things that used to be for granted stoped being so after certain events came in place.
No matter how much you cry, applaud or ignore these events, things like that will happen, and expect to be common place in the near future.
In my opinion, no matter how many lawyers, money or corrupt politicians the powers that be throw at the matter, eventually it becomes evident that those in the sharing scene outnumber all the combined efforts against it; and after some dark and painfully times, eventually they will have to give up and adapt or die with the most that couln't find a way to remain profitable in the new conditions.
On the other hand it can happen to be better in certain aspects and worse in others. Indie records while great in quality also had a very short limited production. On the net your copies never end, and only one is needed; but often all you get is bad quality Xing mp3 crap or bad rippings.
It also happens in this strugle that those powers that be think they have the god given rights to make it "harder" for users to share their stuff, so enter the multitude of "copycontrol" mechanisms that usually only achieve worse quality distribution with higher price and infinite annoyances for legitime users that eventually get pissed off and drop the whole "original" thing and came to engross the growing net community.
One way or another we are going to see some interesting changes in the way media is produced and distributed, but don't miss the point, its a revolutionary rather than evolutionary thing (or maybe both?).
No matter how much we rant, there is little that can be done for history to come to change.
Too bad it also eats _all_ of your free memory for lunch...
Lopster should also be able to get in those new style winmx servers that seem to connect each other without much central intervention.
I tried and tried to make my Roland SCC-1 sound card work well in linux, but failed. This simple isa MPU-401 compatible card uses the mpu401 module. No matter which program i try, playmidi, jazz or whatever thing that uses the /dev/sequencer device, it simply can't play the files right. Further investigation has revealed that the mpu401 module lacks the "intelligent mode" that _true_ mpu401 devices can employ, which could be a cause. The only way i could "barely" make this card sound decent "under linux", was using dos software running in dosemu and letting direct access to the card (ie, avoiding the kernel module and letting use irq/addresses directly).
Of course this card sounds perfect using true dos or windows. Everything from a 286 up to the latest AMD can make this board play midi files just fine. Linux can't. For some reason, notes get lost/muted in the way (or lag). It may be a latency issue; i guess its the braindead module kernel that nobody cared to improve anymore.
I have hopes for the kernel low latency and preemptive patches, maybe that could help.
Oh, and ALSA assumes you can't have an mpu401 device stand alone...
Well now i'm playing with Freebsd, who knows, maybe it works here...
Ok, we got many things (using lame style names):
CBR = Constant bit rate = Variable quality
VBR = Variable bit rate = Constant quality
ABR = Target bit rate = Variable but not as much quality
OGG normally uses a form of ABR, but is capable to do true CBR and true VBR as well (not sure which versions enabled for).
Also, even if you are using true CBR, there is little room for flexibility in the form of the "bit reservoir"; you can save some bits in the "easy parts" so they can be better spent in the hard parts.
Second, mp3, being open in some way or another, has the side effect of many encoders available. Different encoders produce different quality. Take 4 192kbps mp3s encoded with 4 different encoders, and you will discover quality differences as day to night.
And to use Lame properly, first, let me suggest that you *at least* use Lame 3.89b. Lame 3.70 is *too old*. If you get Lame 3.90a, even better.
Want to be on the safe side? use this single option:
lame --dm-preset standard
This will produce near 256kbps files, and its the hightest quality you can get out of mp3s.
If you think you can live with 192kbps like files, then use
lame --r3mix
Otherwise stick to the normal, don't apply options you don't know much of. Typically you *always* want -h, and -b for the desired bitrate in case of CBR, or minimun frame bitrate for audio in the case of VBR (usually 112 or 128). ABR is VBR attempting an average bitrate. And no, it is not wise to use option -B at all (let the encoder use up to 320kbps frames when using VBR).
If this topic of lossy compression is of interest for you, then you should visit:
Proyect Mayhem, channel #Project_Mayhem at irc.openprojects.org
and
r3mix.net, channel #r3mix at irc.openprojects.org
Um... on side note, have you seen The Wavelet Tutorial yet? Wavelets are planned for Ogg Vorbis 2.x, stay tuned... :)
Oh, c'mon, you really think there is a large % of people actually blocking ads? It's a small group, 10% at best. Most of the crowd visiting those pages don't even know what a proxy or ad blocking software is, in fact most let spyware remain installed without they noticing.
.coms don't get their .000005 cent for an ad banner display that i am never ever going to see or click, yet steals *my* bandwidth and even attempts to identify *me* with their stupid cookies?
The DOT.com crash was the result of its own demise. Some people were sold the idea of internet being the ultimate and biggest ever shopping mall, so they created an artificial sense or bubble that simply popped up when the reality check came; which was, basically, way too much more offer than real demand. Everyone knows that actually 70% of the DOT commers were in excess; it was simply a matter of time.
Now would you really check how much is asked for getting to the net on the first place, why they seem to think you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for T1 like links; when people in Sweden pay 20$ montly for 10mbps lan speed like links to their homes?
I have to pay 80US$ for 256/64 DSL with forced NAT and no real ip or higher speeds options available, since this is "residential service". Now tell me, do i give a damn if the
Their "business" models were flawed from the first place.
Liberal capitalism is darwinian by its nature; leaving everything to the market forces alone will result in collapse of the small or the weak, no matter what.
Please leave Japanese animation *out* of american hands, all they do is cut, censor and destroy the original content...
Hmm.. let's see... Recording Industry Asociation of America... The industry who's primary business is to manufacture and sell records the people in the 50's used not to produce for themselves...
CDR and CDR Writters, the tools to make such records now goes to the masses, so, bypassing such Industry becomes reality (clearly a threat).
Yup, makes sense, they are simply defending their interests using the lobby ($$$) system to manipulate laws so the little peop... er.. pirates could not make such horrendous thing as bypassing them; i mean, who is the law system for? Individuals or Corporations? Of Course! Individuals are stupid (and poor) hence only the righteous organizations with the cash... er.. knoledge to know whats better for you can dictate your conduct (heh, and they dare point to "non democratic" regimes...)
Hmm any suprise here?
Hahahaha, just Brazil? Wake up IP land! We most people outside don't give a crap about your stupid "everything must be ruled by the holy thesis of supply and demand by market, and only market forces alone" (which includes protecting the interests of the holy multinational companies instead of the people)...
In my opinion, IP simply sucks, halts development and make lazyness; if ever, only a minuscule 5 years or so copyright/patent should be allowed, but nothing more.
Sure, your holy corporations won't make as much selling viagra over here, but they sure will have fun researching "human cloning" and other "non permited in certain countries research" and then later will sell you the byproducts of the work carried over here.
In case some of you wonders, yes, there is life outside USA borders, and, oh lord, people actually think different!
(time to start your holy market force inquisition/crusades..)
There is also a lot of information coming from the Lame Project, particular of your interest may probably be reading the mailing list which probably answers all your questions.
In your particular case, in my opinion you should try experimenting with the --r3mix switch using the latest Lame3.89beta or maybe even a Lame3.90alpha, which should give you VBR files averaging 170~220kbps. In any case reading the forums there is the best way to keep up to date with each Lame development.
In my opinion, Lame exceeds by far Fraunhofer's quality, but only if allowed to use the higher bitrates. On the other hand, Fraunhofer can't do better than average even with higher bitrates.
Ogg is on its way, but it is *still* behind the current state of mp3 encoding quality. Due to its design, it seems it has all what is needed to improve in both quality and size constraints; but its not there yet, needs a lot of testing and tweaking, a process very time consuming that needs a lot of people. I don't think its even fair to test it before the first non beta release is made, much less compare it.
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How in the world are we expected to check every possible name, or combination of a name that may be registered?
They din't simply send a cease and decist letter, they also sent him a bill. Open source developers usually don't make huge profits, and don't have a law firm guiding them in each step or checking every possible combination of a name for them.
It is not fair that they treat individuals working on their free time projects like they were part of a powerful corporation. Involving an education institution makes it even worse.
This is plain harassament of big bad ugly law firm against innocent individuals. Adobe should put a stop at this and settle with a name change only.
I he is still forced to pay, even after renaming (or removing) the whole project, then i think EFF *must* help him.
It is so sad that the law system can be so bad in many countries, where the individuals can be harassed out of the system in favor of the rich megacorps.
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This is not new (or news for that matter). There is a really strong community behind this, reverse engineering all the "News Datacom" tricks, who, themselves counterattack by fixing the bugs found by this "community" and disabling the new attempts.
Its is not a cheap hobby either. Not only you have to upgrade constantly to follow the war, but in equipment it usually means easily a first 2000 US$ investment. If the card gets upgraded, then all your tools/devices must upgrade too (and there are many lost hours of downtime, due to ECMs, new tricks, whatever).
There is no real loss, or stealing for that matter, if you can't legally pay for the service in the first place. Remember the US crypto law? this law prohibits equipment like this to be exported outside USA, so DTV must obey and deny any outsider attempt to subscribe (since they are not supposed to have this crypto equipment on their hands).
Also this is not like breaking into phone communications, you are simply putting use of a publicy broadcast signal (TV! not private talks) falling in your head, outside of USA soil where you would otherwise do absolutely nothing with it.
At least the free available emulators kill the smugler "test" card resell business
Well, maybe the distributed server with the emu software, which is an interesting thing *if* you are into the scene.
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GAS prices comes mostly from three factors: The oil, the transport, and the taxes. In USA, about 40% of the price comes from the transport (oil from middle east, remember?) and about 40% goes for taxes. In European countries, citizens pay much more in taxes (up to 80% in UK!) than transport. And the oil itself, usually accounts to about only 20% of the total price. There is not much gain in the refinement; which is the reason why US refineries have been decreasing.
What can you do with more crude oil? For most people, you have to transform it in a more energy efficient form of fuel, such as gasoline, or diesel or whatever; and the USA have an extra issue, which is its reduced refinement capacity; they have to depend in other countries for a small (but growing) percentage of the refinement (so, more transport, taxes, etc).
Yes it is a dormant crisis, but perhaps some are seeing it approach. The research of alternate fuels can never be bad, and, a true fact is: The United States of America; having less than 8% of the world population, is at least responsible of 25% of the pollution of the whole planet. No point arguing about it, climate changes are already in process, and its only getting worse... For all.
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C'mon ppl, can anyone with the whole thing reencode it to a smaller size? Maybe something like "lame --mp3input --preset phone -v -q 0 feltenpr.mp3" could do...
Geez, next time they will use
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Sure mpeg1 is not very suited for modem streaming; but at least it can be saved with ease. Something like mpeg1 video at 160x120 23.976 fps (lowest available); with mpeg audio layer II at 32 kbps mono (toolame encoder to the rescue :) could do fine with 512 something kbps or less, maybe 256kbps.
I suggest you check out the Tsunami mpeg encoder for good quality mpeg1 encodes. Be sure to use a high soften block noise setting and other useful tweaks that improve quality. Oh, and Variable bit rate is there too :)
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