I had one in '93, and mine cost a goddamn mint and minutes were $0.45 a piece.
You must have had a bag phone or DynaTAC, right? It seemed like flip phones (the first handheld phones other than the DynaTAC) didn't become available until 1991.
Many young people do not wear watches, they use their cellphone as a watch.
So instead of looking at their watch to see who is on the phone, they look at their cellphone to see what time it is.
And Bluetooth is good on batteries, but no so good that I want a device with a tiny, non-rechargable battery to do Bluetooth. You'll be opening your watch weekly.
Those years of huge foreclosure are the years in which people were abandoning their Upper Midwest homes and heading to Texas and Southern states. They couldn't sell them because the housing market was flooded so they just let the bank take them back. I remember the phenomenon clearly. I wonder if it's possible to remove that and just look at people who didn't relocate, leaving their homes behind?
I find it interesting that in inflation adjusted dollars, the foreclosure rate was much lower in the 90s than in the 50s. And then if you adjust for population growth too, it's way way down.
I'm surprised that the peak didn't come earlier, because as you say, the interest rates were huge in the late 70s to early, early 80s.
You do have to admit the spec on a house is much higher now. Sizes have doubled, and houses had linoleum on the floor and Formica on the counters, now they are tile on the floor and granite or other solid surface on the counters.
And the house I grew up it didn't even have a master bath! Nor the house my father grew up in.
Nowadays there is a master bath with two sinks, wall separating the vanities from the toilet, and sometimes they even have a tub and a shower in the same bathroom!
House spec is way up. That accounts for part of that increase. People want to live in larger houses, they could buy the smaller and cheaper ones but aren't.
A) They won't be going to space in the sense that astronauts (and especially some cosmonauts) have been. It's just a few minutes of staying at a considerable height...
B) The virgin spaceship is not a rocket. Takeoff should not be a bad experience.
A) At the considerable height they will be at, they're in space. No, they will not be there long and they will not orbit.
B) The Virgin spaceship is a rocket. It is rocket-powered. It has significant thrust on takeoff, and the thrust is unmodulated, so it will be many Gs pushing them in to their seats. At ignition, it is horizontal, not vertical, so they save one 1G pushing them back against their seat. But since they are trying to reach space, the pilot pulls back on the stick and goes vertical very rapidly, at which point the experience is no different than being in any other rocket.
The current test units are quiet. Not 'quiet', but quiet. The units have the final design. They're built just like production units, in fact they're basically just the first production units off the line with a different ROM. And additionally, reviewer tests of production units will be available in a few week, significantly before release. So we'll know for certain production units are quiet a while before they hit customers hands.
Also: "Also Adding the HD-DVD drive to your size comparison doesn't make sense as it assumes every person with a 360 wants/ needs one."
is incorrect.
Your statement implies that because not every 360 customer wants an HD-DVD drive, my size comparison is invalid. That isn't true. My size comparison including the HD-DVD drive is valid for those who want the HD-DVD drive. The other comparison (which 360 still loses) is valid for those who do not want the HD-DVD drive.
And for the record, the 360 is not a big truck, it's a series of tubes.
I cringed at the scene too. But it was more because he said he was "making a new one (logic board)". You cannot make a new logic board with a soldering iron.
But you sure can fix one. I've fixed them. Manufacturers rework them all the time. There about a dozen components on a PC motherboard that cannot be removed and replaced. The rest can be, if you know how.
Honestly though, the tough part of fixing your logic board wouldn't be the soldering, it'd be diagnosing it. When components were discrete, and only a few logic gates were in each chip, you could trace the path of a problem around the board. Nowadays, he'd need a $50K logic analyzer and a $5K oscilliscope to find the problem before he could fix it with the $70 Hakko soldering station that he had.
But for those of us who use a lot less power, the cost of putting switching converts at each point of use would not be cost-effective. We'd pay a lot more for motherboards, and never make it because we never used enough power to make up the cost in savings.
Additional note, this is was S-100 systems did back in the day. It ran into the same problems. Cards cost a lot because each one had to have its own regulator on it.
You also spread the heat generation around, instead of putting it in one spot where a single fan can hit it.
I'm not saying Google is wrong, but I think for regular users it doesn't make sense. Perhaps rack-mounted equipment should go to this standard.
Anyway, Google buys a lot of equipment, they could go to Foxconn and ask for 100,000 of a motherboard that works this way, and they'd barely pay any premium.
So why don't they move ahead and tell us how it works out? Maybe the world will follow.
MS sold additional maps for Halo 2. MS sold cars for PGR2 on Xbox years ago. They have sold two packs of cars on PGR3 for 360. They sold an upgrade for GRAW for $15 that is basically mandatory if you want to play online, because if you don't buy it you can't play in games hosted by people who bought the upgrade, even if they don't use any maps that came with the upgrade.
They sold a Santa outfit for the main character in Kameo.
They sell custom player icons for a few bucks. These icons are mostly ads for games.
They are readying new technology for October that allows developers to see you consumables in game. So they can sell you something, have it wear out and SELL IT TO YOU AGAIN.
I can understand not knowing the last part, but the rest just shows you aren't paying any attention. If you were looking at everything that is going on, MS would have made your hit list long before Sony.
But the descriptions you hear all the time about how one gram can kill a bazillion people assumes that each person gets exactly a lethal dose and no more.
In reality, this is difficult to do. Plutonium, for example, is not soluble in water and is very heavy. So distributing it through the water supply would be very difficult.
If you drop a bit in the water supply, it'll just sink to the bottom in the first eddy it reaches and sit there, killing only things that come near it instead of the intended targets. It might kill nothing except a few rats.
I do think Americans should value mpg more. But we don't require it in this country, so people don't.
When I needed an AWD car (so I wouldn't have to chain up in Tahoe), I could have bought an SUV cheap. I would have gotten 30% worse mpg, but even at $2.50 a gallon, I'll never get back the extra $15K I spent to avoid that. I can afford to spend more to get better mpg, but I can't expect all Americans to do it. They aren't in the financial position I am.
I've been paying attention too. I first saw HDVS in 1988. I never saw Hi-Vision, the first Japanese analog broadcast standard.
No, there was never a 1080P analog broadcast standard in the US. There never was any serious attention paid to delivering HDTV over the air in the US until digital compression came around. This is because it was expected to take 5 regular channels to send one HD channel. At this point it became a war between compressed 720p and compressed 1080i.
Both were considered the best that could be done correctly on a single 6MHz (14mbps) channel. Both contain the same amount of info, and it's not by accident.
As to your cable conspiracy, the FCC left cable alone. They didn't mandate must-carry for digital local channels. Additionally, note that cable uses the FCC-endorsed ATSC standard and that HD was not even available over cable until after it was available OTA. The FCC was in no way waiting for cable to take up the slack.
You're right that content providers decided they'd rather do 4 SD channels than one HD channel. Because of this the FCC put in place some crazy rule that says that if content providers provide additional content on those alternate channels that are not on the main channel, they must return the revenue derived from that content. I don't know if the rule is even enforced, but because of it, the alternate channels in my area are all either PBS, commercial-free content (often just weather radar or rolling news) or identical to the main channel except in format.
This was because these providers were not charged for this additional bandwidth and the FCC didn't want the TV stations essentially reselling it and competing against the FCC in bandwidth sales. This came into play after a few broadcasters opined that they would put data on the additional channels instead of TV and sell it to pager or data providers like the Microsoft "spot" watches.
HDMI and HDCP are not FCC mandated, and they are not required to view OTA ATSC content. Even barring of recording is not in place since there is no broadcast flag now. Oddly, the broadcast flag never even barred recording technically, it merely said that any device capable of receiving the broadcast flag must preserve it if it exports the content outside the box.
Yes, there is plenty of protection on BluRay/HD-DVD and you'll maybe have trouble recording HBO. But neither of those fall under the FCC's mandates nor the public airwaves.
ATSC 1080P only goes up to 30FPS. I'm not talking about ATSC. ATSC is how you receive HDTV over the air, not how you put it into your TV. I'm talking about HDTV in general. There are plenty of 1920x1080x60fps displays out there. I'm writing this on a Dell 24" I got for $600 that does 1920x1200x60fps.
As few "true" 1080P (meaning 1920x1080x60fps) displays there are on the market, I have 4 friends that have dedicated HDTVs that do this. More (like me) have computer monitors that fit the bill. My own personal HDTV though is only 1368x768x60fps though, so no 1080p for me (or really full-rez 1080i).
The problem with showing real 1080p isn't processor requirements, it's bandwidth. Just getting the data in is a bear. 1920x1080x60fps has 12x the data of a DVD. That's a lot.
Honestly, if you ask me, the reason TVs didn't take real 1080p up until now is because they wanted to sell you one now that didn't do it so they could sell you one that did do it later.
Roll call: One of my friends has a Westinghouse 42" (3 input!) 1080P direct-view LCD. He paid $1500. One of my friends has ordered a Westinghouse 42" (3 input!) 1080P direct-view LCD. She ordered it for $1550, but it is so backordered she may never receive it. Two of my friends have Sharp 44" 1080P direct-view LCDs. Each paid about $3200 a year ago. One of my friends has a Sony 60A2000 (3 input!) 1080P rear-projection SXRD (LCoS) HDTV. He paid about $3400. It's down to $3100 already some places.
I have a Sony 55" (I forget model number) 2 digital input 768p (accepts 1080i) rear-projection LCD HDTV. I paid $3200 almost two years ago now. I also have a Dell 2405FPW 24" 1900x1200x60fps (1200P?) direct-view LCD. It accepts 1200P on DVI and VGA and 1080i on component. I paid $614 a few months back.
Many other friends have HDTVs capable of accepting less than 1080P.
In short, a couple months ago if you said there were very few real 1080P HDTVs, you'd have been right. But no longer. Now there are lots on the market and given how the HDTV market is growing, it won't be long before half of all HDTVs in place accept real 1080P.
Why do I care if it supports FLAC? Apple provides a compressor and decompressor for ALAC, and you can freely convert between lossless formats without fear.
Yeah, true enough, but last I checked, due to DRM issues, it's hard to get from ALAC to other formats, Could be wrong.
I don't use DRMed content of any sort. There currently is no DRMed ALAC content at all, although I keep hearing rumors of it. Apple lets you burn DRMed content to CD, and then rerip it. If they let you do that with DRMed ALAC, you'd have a perfect copy. Somehow I don't think they'll let you do that.
Better audio output? Prove it.
You have to listen to the both to hear it. Several articles I googled (pretty sure it was on the CNET article as you linked) stated that the audio output quality was better.
That's a cop out. That's not proof. The CNET article just says the music had almost no perceptible hiss (faint praise, if you ask me), it says nothing about versus any iPod (for any rated spec, actually). And saying a lot of people say it is better on the internet means nothing. People say stuff on the internet, for all kinds of reasons. Some believe things to be true that aren't, some are just lying for reasons I don't understand.
I've listened to many players, including the iPod, and including Cowons (but not the X5). I can say that the iPod is more than good enough and virtually all the others are also good enough that you won't hear any difference between them in any but the most attentive listening. And you'll notice MP3 (and AAC, etc.) sound like crap long before you notice differences between the players themselves.
The Cowon only uses it's USB host for cameras and such, yes. Basically like the IPod, it's for accessing USB mass sotrage devices, didn't realize the iPod had that.
Apple charges extra for the camera connector. About $30. Typical Apple.
If I remember correctly, doesn't the CNet article state that the iAudio X5 meets and/or beats it's reported battery life, but the iPod does not?
No, it doesn't compare specs to other devices. The iAudio X5 did 14.4 hours (rated 14), the X5L did 27.2 hours (rated 35). It is not mentioned in there, but I have personal info that the iPod exceeds its rated life under normal test conditions. Not by much, but by 0.4 hours or more. For all 3, this is on a new battery. They all will do worse on older batteries.
While the screen resolution is a bit low, due to it's small size (still slightly bigger than the iPod if I remember correctly), it's not that bad. The size is the biggest pain in both cases.
It's not a bit low, it's one quarter what the iPod is. Also, it's 2", the 5G iPod display is 2.5".
As to toughness, an iPod will easily survive the drops you say as long as the drive is not spinning at the time. Same with the iAudio. Although Apple toughened up the front of the 5G iPod to scratches after the first release, I'm sure both the front of the 5G iPod and the display of the 5G iPod are more prone to scraching than the iAudio. I do not treat my iPod well, it slides around inside my car all the time, and it's been lost down the crack between the seat and the center console countless times. I even put it in my pocket with my change last week. That was pretty stupid, it didn't like that. But it still works well. As to stepping on your player, people ran over the Nano with cars. I never saw a test of the Mini that way, but I have to imagine it would take to being run over better than the Nano.
I agree, iTunes is a CPU hog at idle. I cannot comprehend why this must be so. Still, it's a heck of a lot better than WinAmp, so I put up with it. I'm not thrilled how it has been modified to satisfy the labels over time (reduced music sharing capabilities, etc.).
Another thing for the Cowon, the disk transfer rate in the CNET review is listed as 14MB/sec. The 5G iPod cannot match that. It's pretty fast, but I don't think it even tops 10MB/sec.
Why do I care if it supports FLAC? Apple provides a compressor and decompressor for ALAC, and you can freely convert between lossless formats without fear.
Better audio output? Prove it.
I don't need a simple hard drive interface, it'd be tougher for it to be simpler than iTunes, and I already like Apple's menu organizational structure (the one they paid Creative $100M for), so I don't feel the need to rearrange my menus by rearranging my files.
What does the Cowon do with USB host? Hard-drive based iPods have USB host. But the only thing Apple uses it for is to suck pictures off your digital camera over USB. Does Cowon do something cooler with it? I have to imagine there are cooler things that Apple doesn't bother with.
The Cowon X5 is rated at 14 hours. The 30G Apple 5G ipod is rated at 14 hours. The 60G Apple 5G iPod is rated at 20 hours. There's an X5L which has much longer battery life, but it's a lot thicker, being 50% thicker than the 60G 5g iPod, and that doesn't even include the screen which appears to protrude another 2mm.
Is the better screen quality you are referring to the 262,144 colors? With a good dither scheme in place, you'll never see the difference between 65,536 colors and 262,144. And without a good dither scheme, both will look poor on color and greyscale ramps. I just don't see this as an issue personally. What will be easy to notice is that the screen on the 5G iPod is 320x240 and the screen on the Cowon X5 is 160x128. The iPod has almost 4x the pixels. I thought watching video was annoying staring at a 320x240 screen, 160x128 would really be annoying.
It doesn't appear the X5 charges off of USB like the 5G iPod does it? I guess that's what the dock is for. This would annoy me highly on the go, as I use my laptop as a charger and AC adapter for my iPod when I go on vacation. It wouldn't be as bothersome in regular use as once you go through the slight extra trouble of hooking up the dock, it works fine from then on as long as you can get home to it each night.
The X5 looks pretty stylish. However, I think I'd be a tad embarassed when people saw my device said "color sound" on it. That can be solved by keeping it in my pocket though. One thing that can't be solved is that I am left handed and the Cowon is inherently right handed with the placement of that tiny joystick.
The display remote is simultaneously pretty fancy and also large enough that I'd probaly never use it. It's about 1/4 the size of the main unit. That means I'd never clip it to my shirt, and if I'm going to bring it in and out of my pocket, I might as well bring the whole thing in and out. A college student who keeps his player in his backpack would probably feel differently though. Oh, I see it costs extra. That's fine, since I wouldn't use it, I wouldn't buy it. No harm, no foul.
It does not appear to be an inherently tougher build. It might be more scratch resistant on the front though, I can't tell from the pics.
It's nice Cowon sells things like a port breakout at very reasonable prices. A lot cheaper than iPod accessories.
There is a 1080P in ATSC that is only 1920x1080x30fps. But HDTV encompasses more than just ATSC, and there are plenty of HDTVs out there now that do 1920x1080x60fps. I'd like demo material for that. Sounds like you can't help me there.
I did Google for h.264 1080p and didn't find any useful content. I did find discussion of how MacBooks (I didn't even have MacBook in the search) can only play 1920x1080 content at about 24fps. Only the faster MacBooks (2.0GHz?) can play 30fps. None can play 60fps.
So, if you have a standard MacBook, why did you crap on the video chip in my Mini, knowing you have the same one?
Kinda interesting how sure you are that I must be able to play 1920x1080x24fps at full frame rate, despite seemingly not having any experience with 1.66GHz Core Duos. Sure enough to make "bullshit" in the first sentence of your reply.
First of all, what kind of machine? Pro? Perhaps you noticed it has more than a 1.66GHz Core Duo in it, unlike my Mac Mini?
Second of all, can I get some of your 1080p demo material? I've never seen an H.264 Quicktime movie that was 1920x1080x60fps, and I'd love to have it to benchmark the equipment I have access to.
There is no graphics acclerator currently on the Mac that accelerates H.264 playback. The top tier are capable, but it doesn't seem to be used, perhaps in Leopard.
Your Macbook not only doesn't have a 1920x1080 display, but it also has a more CPU than a Mac Mini Core Duo. Additionally, if your Macbook is really a Macbook (and not a Pro), it has the same graphics chip I have.
I had some other joker call me out on this before. Most movie trailers are 24fps and 2.35:1. My Mac Mini will play those fine. At 2.35:1, the trailers are no larger than 1920x818. A 1.85:1 trailer is 25% larger, and my machine cannot play those without losing frames. It would fall a long way short of playing true 1080P content, which would be 1920x1080x60fps. Your machine would too.
MPEG-4 playback is a lot less CPU intensive and MPEG-2 is near-trivial now.
From the "info" you posted, it's clear you are successfully ignoring HDTV. Posting incorrect info isn't helping either. Please add "posting info about HDTV" to your list of things not to do.
And yes, the video encodings can be very CPU intensive.
I have a dual-core Intel Core Duo Mac Mini that cannot play full-screen 1920x1080 H.264 video, even at 24fps. So yes, the encodings are very CPU intensive.
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I had one in '93, and mine cost a goddamn mint and minutes were $0.45 a piece.
You must have had a bag phone or DynaTAC, right? It seemed like flip phones (the first handheld phones other than the DynaTAC) didn't become available until 1991.
Many young people do not wear watches, they use their cellphone as a watch.
So instead of looking at their watch to see who is on the phone, they look at their cellphone to see what time it is.
And Bluetooth is good on batteries, but no so good that I want a device with a tiny, non-rechargable battery to do Bluetooth. You'll be opening your watch weekly.
Those years of huge foreclosure are the years in which people were abandoning their Upper Midwest homes and heading to Texas and Southern states. They couldn't sell them because the housing market was flooded so they just let the bank take them back. I remember the phenomenon clearly. I wonder if it's possible to remove that and just look at people who didn't relocate, leaving their homes behind?
I find it interesting that in inflation adjusted dollars, the foreclosure rate was much lower in the 90s than in the 50s. And then if you adjust for population growth too, it's way way down.
I'm surprised that the peak didn't come earlier, because as you say, the interest rates were huge in the late 70s to early, early 80s.
You do have to admit the spec on a house is much higher now. Sizes have doubled, and houses had linoleum on the floor and Formica on the counters, now they are tile on the floor and granite or other solid surface on the counters.
And the house I grew up it didn't even have a master bath! Nor the house my father grew up in.
Nowadays there is a master bath with two sinks, wall separating the vanities from the toilet, and sometimes they even have a tub and a shower in the same bathroom!
House spec is way up. That accounts for part of that increase. People want to live in larger houses, they could buy the smaller and cheaper ones but aren't.
Can anyone get it to work on FF on Mac OS X?
Are the extensions supposedly platform independent? Because if I go to the extensions menu from Mac OS X it offers up NoScript, it just doesn't work.
A) At the considerable height they will be at, they're in space. No, they will not be there long and they will not orbit.
B) The Virgin spaceship is a rocket. It is rocket-powered. It has significant thrust on takeoff, and the thrust is unmodulated, so it will be many Gs pushing them in to their seats. At ignition, it is horizontal, not vertical, so they save one 1G pushing them back against their seat. But since they are trying to reach space, the pilot pulls back on the stick and goes vertical very rapidly, at which point the experience is no different than being in any other rocket.
The current test units are quiet. Not 'quiet', but quiet. The units have the final design. They're built just like production units, in fact they're basically just the first production units off the line with a different ROM. And additionally, reviewer tests of production units will be available in a few week, significantly before release. So we'll know for certain production units are quiet a while before they hit customers hands.
Also:
"Also Adding the HD-DVD drive to your size comparison doesn't make sense as it assumes every person with a 360 wants/ needs one."
is incorrect.
Your statement implies that because not every 360 customer wants an HD-DVD drive, my size comparison is invalid. That isn't true. My size comparison including the HD-DVD drive is valid for those who want the HD-DVD drive. The other comparison (which 360 still loses) is valid for those who do not want the HD-DVD drive.
And for the record, the 360 is not a big truck, it's a series of tubes.
I cringed at the scene too. But it was more because he said he was "making a new one (logic board)". You cannot make a new logic board with a soldering iron.
But you sure can fix one. I've fixed them. Manufacturers rework them all the time. There about a dozen components on a PC motherboard that cannot be removed and replaced. The rest can be, if you know how.
Honestly though, the tough part of fixing your logic board wouldn't be the soldering, it'd be diagnosing it. When components were discrete, and only a few logic gates were in each chip, you could trace the path of a problem around the board. Nowadays, he'd need a $50K logic analyzer and a $5K oscilliscope to find the problem before he could fix it with the $70 Hakko soldering station that he had.
It's external on 360.
360 + 360 power supply is a lot larger than PS3.
360 + 360 power supply + HD-DVD drive is about double the size of the PS3. And a lot louder.
They're right that this would save them money.
But for those of us who use a lot less power, the cost of putting switching converts at each point of use would not be cost-effective. We'd pay a lot more for motherboards, and never make it because we never used enough power to make up the cost in savings.
Additional note, this is was S-100 systems did back in the day. It ran into the same problems. Cards cost a lot because each one had to have its own regulator on it.
You also spread the heat generation around, instead of putting it in one spot where a single fan can hit it.
I'm not saying Google is wrong, but I think for regular users it doesn't make sense. Perhaps rack-mounted equipment should go to this standard.
Anyway, Google buys a lot of equipment, they could go to Foxconn and ask for 100,000 of a motherboard that works this way, and they'd barely pay any premium.
So why don't they move ahead and tell us how it works out? Maybe the world will follow.
MS sold additional maps for Halo 2. MS sold cars for PGR2 on Xbox years ago. They have sold two packs of cars on PGR3 for 360. They sold an upgrade for GRAW for $15 that is basically mandatory if you want to play online, because if you don't buy it you can't play in games hosted by people who bought the upgrade, even if they don't use any maps that came with the upgrade.
They sold a Santa outfit for the main character in Kameo.
They sell custom player icons for a few bucks. These icons are mostly ads for games.
They are readying new technology for October that allows developers to see you consumables in game. So they can sell you something, have it wear out and SELL IT TO YOU AGAIN.
I can understand not knowing the last part, but the rest just shows you aren't paying any attention. If you were looking at everything that is going on, MS would have made your hit list long before Sony.
Plutonium is toxic, that's true.
But the descriptions you hear all the time about how one gram can kill a bazillion people assumes that each person gets exactly a lethal dose and no more.
In reality, this is difficult to do. Plutonium, for example, is not soluble in water and is very heavy. So distributing it through the water supply would be very difficult.
If you drop a bit in the water supply, it'll just sink to the bottom in the first eddy it reaches and sit there, killing only things that come near it instead of the intended targets. It might kill nothing except a few rats.
http://www.llnl.gov/csts/publications/sutcliffe/
Cars with 14 secs 0-60 don't sell in the US.
u el_co.html there)
It's more about what people buy than what can be engineered.
And don't get too excited about your SUV. Your SUV getting 25mpg (Imperial) is only 21.2mpg US.
So you're only the same as the US average you crap on. Well, if the average really were 21mpg. Which apparently it is (see updated link http://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/11/average_f
I do think Americans should value mpg more. But we don't require it in this country, so people don't.
When I needed an AWD car (so I wouldn't have to chain up in Tahoe), I could have bought an SUV cheap. I would have gotten 30% worse mpg, but even at $2.50 a gallon, I'll never get back the extra $15K I spent to avoid that. I can afford to spend more to get better mpg, but I can't expect all Americans to do it. They aren't in the financial position I am.
I've been paying attention too. I first saw HDVS in 1988. I never saw Hi-Vision, the first Japanese analog broadcast standard.
No, there was never a 1080P analog broadcast standard in the US. There never was any serious attention paid to delivering HDTV over the air in the US until digital compression came around. This is because it was expected to take 5 regular channels to send one HD channel. At this point it became a war between compressed 720p and compressed 1080i.
Both were considered the best that could be done correctly on a single 6MHz (14mbps) channel. Both contain the same amount of info, and it's not by accident.
As to your cable conspiracy, the FCC left cable alone. They didn't mandate must-carry for digital local channels. Additionally, note that cable uses the FCC-endorsed ATSC standard and that HD was not even available over cable until after it was available OTA. The FCC was in no way waiting for cable to take up the slack.
You're right that content providers decided they'd rather do 4 SD channels than one HD channel. Because of this the FCC put in place some crazy rule that says that if content providers provide additional content on those alternate channels that are not on the main channel, they must return the revenue derived from that content. I don't know if the rule is even enforced, but because of it, the alternate channels in my area are all either PBS, commercial-free content (often just weather radar or rolling news) or identical to the main channel except in format.
This was because these providers were not charged for this additional bandwidth and the FCC didn't want the TV stations essentially reselling it and competing against the FCC in bandwidth sales. This came into play after a few broadcasters opined that they would put data on the additional channels instead of TV and sell it to pager or data providers like the Microsoft "spot" watches.
HDMI and HDCP are not FCC mandated, and they are not required to view OTA ATSC content. Even barring of recording is not in place since there is no broadcast flag now. Oddly, the broadcast flag never even barred recording technically, it merely said that any device capable of receiving the broadcast flag must preserve it if it exports the content outside the box.
Yes, there is plenty of protection on BluRay/HD-DVD and you'll maybe have trouble recording HBO. But neither of those fall under the FCC's mandates nor the public airwaves.
The guys on the 1up Yours podcast predicted it 3 weeks ago.
I'm not happy with the release date or price. It won't kill all competiton at these prices. Probably still succeed though.
You say the "SMP" model, and then describe hyperthreading.
This system already uses the SMP model, but it doesn't have hyperthreading. If it did, it would have 16 virtual cores!
Personally I'm not in the market for 4 (real) cores let alone 8.
FB-DIMMs is the best system outside of AMDs NUMA for feeding lots of cores. Maybe Apple was right to use FB-DIMMs.
ATSC 1080P only goes up to 30FPS. I'm not talking about ATSC. ATSC is how you receive HDTV over the air, not how you put it into your TV. I'm talking about HDTV in general. There are plenty of 1920x1080x60fps displays out there. I'm writing this on a Dell 24" I got for $600 that does 1920x1200x60fps.
As few "true" 1080P (meaning 1920x1080x60fps) displays there are on the market, I have 4 friends that have dedicated HDTVs that do this. More (like me) have computer monitors that fit the bill. My own personal HDTV though is only 1368x768x60fps though, so no 1080p for me (or really full-rez 1080i).
The problem with showing real 1080p isn't processor requirements, it's bandwidth. Just getting the data in is a bear. 1920x1080x60fps has 12x the data of a DVD. That's a lot.
Honestly, if you ask me, the reason TVs didn't take real 1080p up until now is because they wanted to sell you one now that didn't do it so they could sell you one that did do it later.
Roll call:
One of my friends has a Westinghouse 42" (3 input!) 1080P direct-view LCD. He paid $1500.
One of my friends has ordered a Westinghouse 42" (3 input!) 1080P direct-view LCD. She ordered it for $1550, but it is so backordered she may never receive it.
Two of my friends have Sharp 44" 1080P direct-view LCDs. Each paid about $3200 a year ago.
One of my friends has a Sony 60A2000 (3 input!) 1080P rear-projection SXRD (LCoS) HDTV. He paid about $3400. It's down to $3100 already some places.
I have a Sony 55" (I forget model number) 2 digital input 768p (accepts 1080i) rear-projection LCD HDTV. I paid $3200 almost two years ago now.
I also have a Dell 2405FPW 24" 1900x1200x60fps (1200P?) direct-view LCD. It accepts 1200P on DVI and VGA and 1080i on component. I paid $614 a few months back.
Many other friends have HDTVs capable of accepting less than 1080P.
In short, a couple months ago if you said there were very few real 1080P HDTVs, you'd have been right. But no longer. Now there are lots on the market and given how the HDTV market is growing, it won't be long before half of all HDTVs in place accept real 1080P.
Why do I care if it supports FLAC? Apple provides a compressor and decompressor for ALAC, and you can freely convert between lossless formats without fear.
Yeah, true enough, but last I checked, due to DRM issues, it's hard to get from ALAC to other formats, Could be wrong.
I don't use DRMed content of any sort. There currently is no DRMed ALAC content at all, although I keep hearing rumors of it. Apple lets you burn DRMed content to CD, and then rerip it. If they let you do that with DRMed ALAC, you'd have a perfect copy. Somehow I don't think they'll let you do that.
Better audio output? Prove it.
You have to listen to the both to hear it. Several articles I googled (pretty sure it was on the CNET article as you linked) stated that the audio output quality was better.
That's a cop out. That's not proof. The CNET article just says the music had almost no perceptible hiss (faint praise, if you ask me), it says nothing about versus any iPod (for any rated spec, actually). And saying a lot of people say it is better on the internet means nothing. People say stuff on the internet, for all kinds of reasons. Some believe things to be true that aren't, some are just lying for reasons I don't understand.
I've listened to many players, including the iPod, and including Cowons (but not the X5). I can say that the iPod is more than good enough and virtually all the others are also good enough that you won't hear any difference between them in any but the most attentive listening. And you'll notice MP3 (and AAC, etc.) sound like crap long before you notice differences between the players themselves.
The Cowon only uses it's USB host for cameras and such, yes. Basically like the IPod, it's for accessing USB mass sotrage devices, didn't realize the iPod had that.
Apple charges extra for the camera connector. About $30. Typical Apple.
If I remember correctly, doesn't the CNet article state that the iAudio X5 meets and/or beats it's reported battery life, but the iPod does not?
No, it doesn't compare specs to other devices. The iAudio X5 did 14.4 hours (rated 14), the X5L did 27.2 hours (rated 35). It is not mentioned in there, but I have personal info that the iPod exceeds its rated life under normal test conditions. Not by much, but by 0.4 hours or more. For all 3, this is on a new battery. They all will do worse on older batteries.
While the screen resolution is a bit low, due to it's small size (still slightly bigger than the iPod if I remember correctly), it's not that bad. The size is the biggest pain in both cases.
It's not a bit low, it's one quarter what the iPod is. Also, it's 2", the 5G iPod display is 2.5".
As to toughness, an iPod will easily survive the drops you say as long as the drive is not spinning at the time. Same with the iAudio. Although Apple toughened up the front of the 5G iPod to scratches after the first release, I'm sure both the front of the 5G iPod and the display of the 5G iPod are more prone to scraching than the iAudio. I do not treat my iPod well, it slides around inside my car all the time, and it's been lost down the crack between the seat and the center console countless times. I even put it in my pocket with my change last week. That was pretty stupid, it didn't like that. But it still works well. As to stepping on your player, people ran over the Nano with cars. I never saw a test of the Mini that way, but I have to imagine it would take to being run over better than the Nano.
I agree, iTunes is a CPU hog at idle. I cannot comprehend why this must be so. Still, it's a heck of a lot better than WinAmp, so I put up with it. I'm not thrilled how it has been modified to satisfy the labels over time (reduced music sharing capabilities, etc.).
Another thing for the Cowon, the disk transfer rate in the CNET review is listed as 14MB/sec. The 5G iPod cannot match that. It's pretty fast, but I don't think it even tops 10MB/sec.
Mod me down, I deserve it, I didn't RTFA.
But before you flame me, know I already now realize it's not a flippy.
This could be cool.
As a data format, this sucks.
To get all the data off, you have to flip it over in the middle.
It's fine as a movie format I guess, unless you want to view content off both sides.
It's no match for a real 3-layer disc, like a BluRay may be someday.
This isn't any more exciting than the flippie DVD-A/CDs. Those were huge bust-outs, and there's no reason to think this will be any different.
(I hate doing this, seriously)
- 6490_7-31383684.html
e Action=VIEWPROD&ProdID=48
Why do I care if it supports FLAC? Apple provides a compressor and decompressor for ALAC, and you can freely convert between lossless formats without fear.
Better audio output? Prove it.
I don't need a simple hard drive interface, it'd be tougher for it to be simpler than iTunes, and I already like Apple's menu organizational structure (the one they paid Creative $100M for), so I don't feel the need to rearrange my menus by rearranging my files.
What does the Cowon do with USB host? Hard-drive based iPods have USB host. But the only thing Apple uses it for is to suck pictures off your digital camera over USB. Does Cowon do something cooler with it? I have to imagine there are cooler things that Apple doesn't bother with.
The Cowon X5 is rated at 14 hours. The 30G Apple 5G ipod is rated at 14 hours. The 60G Apple 5G iPod is rated at 20 hours. There's an X5L which has much longer battery life, but it's a lot thicker, being 50% thicker than the 60G 5g iPod, and that doesn't even include the screen which appears to protrude another 2mm.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Cowon_iAudio_X5_20GB/4505
Now to some more subjective comments.
Is the better screen quality you are referring to the 262,144 colors? With a good dither scheme in place, you'll never see the difference between 65,536 colors and 262,144. And without a good dither scheme, both will look poor on color and greyscale ramps. I just don't see this as an issue personally. What will be easy to notice is that the screen on the 5G iPod is 320x240 and the screen on the Cowon X5 is 160x128. The iPod has almost 4x the pixels. I thought watching video was annoying staring at a 320x240 screen, 160x128 would really be annoying.
It doesn't appear the X5 charges off of USB like the 5G iPod does it? I guess that's what the dock is for. This would annoy me highly on the go, as I use my laptop as a charger and AC adapter for my iPod when I go on vacation. It wouldn't be as bothersome in regular use as once you go through the slight extra trouble of hooking up the dock, it works fine from then on as long as you can get home to it each night.
The X5 looks pretty stylish. However, I think I'd be a tad embarassed when people saw my device said "color sound" on it. That can be solved by keeping it in my pocket though. One thing that can't be solved is that I am left handed and the Cowon is inherently right handed with the placement of that tiny joystick.
The display remote is simultaneously pretty fancy and also large enough that I'd probaly never use it. It's about 1/4 the size of the main unit. That means I'd never clip it to my shirt, and if I'm going to bring it in and out of my pocket, I might as well bring the whole thing in and out. A college student who keeps his player in his backpack would probably feel differently though. Oh, I see it costs extra. That's fine, since I wouldn't use it, I wouldn't buy it. No harm, no foul.
It does not appear to be an inherently tougher build. It might be more scratch resistant on the front though, I can't tell from the pics.
It's nice Cowon sells things like a port breakout at very reasonable prices. A lot cheaper than iPod accessories.
http://onlinestore.cowonamerica.com/index.asp?Pag
I think your advantage list falls short of what it promises. This doesn't look like a bad player though.
I've got lots of it.
There is a 1080P in ATSC that is only 1920x1080x30fps. But HDTV encompasses more than just ATSC, and there are plenty of HDTVs out there now that do 1920x1080x60fps. I'd like demo material for that. Sounds like you can't help me there.
I did Google for h.264 1080p and didn't find any useful content. I did find discussion of how MacBooks (I didn't even have MacBook in the search) can only play 1920x1080 content at about 24fps. Only the faster MacBooks (2.0GHz?) can play 30fps. None can play 60fps.
So, if you have a standard MacBook, why did you crap on the video chip in my Mini, knowing you have the same one?
Kinda interesting how sure you are that I must be able to play 1920x1080x24fps at full frame rate, despite seemingly not having any experience with 1.66GHz Core Duos. Sure enough to make "bullshit" in the first sentence of your reply.
First of all, what kind of machine? Pro? Perhaps you noticed it has more than a 1.66GHz Core Duo in it, unlike my Mac Mini?
Second of all, can I get some of your 1080p demo material? I've never seen an H.264 Quicktime movie that was 1920x1080x60fps, and I'd love to have it to benchmark the equipment I have access to.
I solder SMT stuff all the time.
It's difficult to do it without flux, and even if you can do it, the results look like hell.
If you use flux and you do it right, the results will look identical to the original reflow-soldered work.
I'd love to see you solder some 0201s or a high-density connector without flux sometime.
There is no graphics acclerator currently on the Mac that accelerates H.264 playback. The top tier are capable, but it doesn't seem to be used, perhaps in Leopard.
Your Macbook not only doesn't have a 1920x1080 display, but it also has a more CPU than a Mac Mini Core Duo. Additionally, if your Macbook is really a Macbook (and not a Pro), it has the same graphics chip I have.
I had some other joker call me out on this before. Most movie trailers are 24fps and 2.35:1. My Mac Mini will play those fine. At 2.35:1, the trailers are no larger than 1920x818. A 1.85:1 trailer is 25% larger, and my machine cannot play those without losing frames. It would fall a long way short of playing true 1080P content, which would be 1920x1080x60fps. Your machine would too.
MPEG-4 playback is a lot less CPU intensive and MPEG-2 is near-trivial now.
Yeah, what a joke.
From the "info" you posted, it's clear you are successfully ignoring HDTV. Posting incorrect info isn't helping either. Please add "posting info about HDTV" to your list of things not to do.
And yes, the video encodings can be very CPU intensive.
I have a dual-core Intel Core Duo Mac Mini that cannot play full-screen 1920x1080 H.264 video, even at 24fps. So yes, the encodings are very CPU intensive.