Eh, no, Blu-Rays typically have better sound than HD DVDs. You knew this, right?
They support the same specifications and the same codecs. They sound identical. If a studio decides to use a different audio codec, that's up to them. (many HDDVDs actually use the "superior" Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD codecs, whereas many Bluray releases don't)
Blu-Ray has significantly higher bandwidth than does HD DVD
Which is still more than enough for HDTV Video, even more now that Sony have backed away from their bone-headed decision to encode early Bluray movies in MPEG2. (Not that there would be a noticeable difference however) You stop noticing artefacts at half that bitrate.
You miss the point: There is no reason to use the corporate practices of Sony and Microsoft to decide which format to support. So all of your comment, apart from being factually wrong anyway, is rather irrelevant.
As to your "last points":
It sounds better
Utter Bullcrap
it holds more data
Considering that this format war is mainly about video distribution, all that matters is that both have plenty capacity to store Hi-Def films. For maximising capacity, the trend seems to be going towards more and more layers anyway, so expect neck-a-neck continuous improvement and lots and lots of incompatibilities.
moves away from the dvd forum monopoly
I for one welcome our Blu-ray Association overlords.
[Lack of region coding isn't] a big deal for me or 99.99999999999999999999999999% of the world.
Last I checked, 99% of DVDs do have single region coding. It's the only DRM specifically designed to prevent perfectly legal use, and allows studios to rip off customers. It's just that they don't fuck US customers quite so hard.
In the middle-ages, bible translations were forbidden by the church. They were essentially keeping the teachings secret.
Even today Catholics are not allowed to question the interpretation of the teachings by a religious authority.
It's a smooth transition. Very smooth. There are cults which have open beliefs, and we all know of various religions which have done their fair share of social pressure, intimidation and government infiltration.
Wouldn't creating a colossal international copyright-managing-bureaucracy-manufacturing super Organisation, demanding standard fees for registering any copyrighted work, severely hinder the efforts of open-source projects?
And in what way would such a system change the way traditional software companies operate by keep their source-code to themselves and not allowing any modification? After all, paying fees for registering shouldn't be a problem for a profitable company.
We got an NES in the house when I was three. It was a Christmas present for my older bro. I remember playing a lot of Super Mario, Mega Man 2, and Super Mario 3, and they're still some of my favourites. I think it was a year after that I got a GameBoy.
I'd say the deciding factor was the Playstation 3. Sony used it's place in the gaming market to push Bluray and it seems to have just about pulled off. I still thin it's too early to call it over though, as sales are still terribly low for HD movies. A lot can change.
It's less of a problem now IMO though. When we start to see more dual format players and HD-Players finally stop being mainly PS3 sales, we could see a shift towards HDDVD. Sure, format wars are a bummer, but it won't be a major problem, just as audio codec format wars aren't a major showstopper.
Come on, gelatin is just a cocktail of animal proteins, which are in the meat as much as anything else. If you don't want to eat gelatin, I suggest you give up on meat too. Gelatine also contains many essential amino acids, so it aint that bad if you aren't getting them from other means.
When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring agent in a hand-turned ice-cream maker and it was yuumm.
Just curious, but did you ever check what was in those packs of flavouring agent? Also, you were probably eating it immediately after being made. When you keep the home-made kind in the freezer for the day after, it's painful. And people have been putting gelatine in ice cream long before anyone from your home made it.
BTW, the olden-days were notorious for putting all kinds of dangerous shit in their food. At least in the modern day we can more or less trust that additives have been tested and the nasty ones are kept out.
This is (regrettably) already possible with DVB-C. You can put on your own proprietary decryption module and only sell licenses to selected manufacturers. BSkyB is most notorious for this practice.
This RFID in passports is such a bad idea that it is all but unimagineable that any other country will do it.
Yet all EU members have them, after bowing to presure from the US government. It seems a little igorant to threaten other counties citizens to not allow them to enter the US without a biometric passport, yet they themselves are years behind and 9/11 was on internal flights, which still don't all require identification.
True, but if you scanned your own personal book and maybe proofread it after OCR, then you could store it easily on your computer and easily email it to your friend.
Ever scanned a whole book on a consumer-grade A4 scanner? Not a very fun way to spend a Saturday morning, I can assure you.
The so called xbox/ps/nintendo "console war" has been going on hot and heavy for what, 7+ years now?
No it hasn't. The last generation's war began when the PS2 launched in 2000, and was decided by 2003 already, when it became apparent that neither the XBOX or the GameCube would be able to dent the PS2's market.
And simply put, whichever console wins gets the best games. There might be a few gems now and then, but the market leader simply has the upper hand in securing exclusive deals and developers interest. This leads to more consumer interest and the positive feedback means a virtuous circle for the market leader, and a vicious circle for it's competitors.
Saying that the gaming market is different from 3 years ago would be quite an understatement. And in this decisive period in the market, not everyone will be "pretty damned happy", and certain companies are a far cry from having "nailed it".
Well, nowadays Audio and Video are part of "web pages". Should we require plug-ins for basic image files as well? After all, a lot of websites do without them, and we're not talking about an image viewer here.
Not a lot of money really goes into iTunes, although they do reap a hell of a lot out of it. Apple don't sell their "recommendations" either, so there's no easy advertising.
That's one of the main reasons the record companies feel threatened. This new era of music distribution doesn't work as easily as it used to, when the record companies could pour millions into an album, and therefore get a guaranteed success.
Whilst what you say may be true for most "random articles", the articles with any real scientific depth (check for example the featured articles) will rarely tolerate "citation needed" brackets for very long, and mainly cite either scientific literature, or reputable news sources.
Maybe you get a good article, edited by experts, with proper citations that will lead you to material you can use. Maybe you get a page written by an idiot, that links to misinformation.
That's something the reader should decide for himself, and for somebody writing a scholarly paper, that should be the least of their qualities. You can find an lot of fraud and pseudo-science in libraries as well. Anybody can print something on paper and get an ISBN number, just as anybody can spew out crap on a web page.
The Castlevania music has consistently been superb for every incarnation of the series. I even bought the Curse of Darkness soundtrack CD, without buying the game, because it had become pretty mediocre on the PS2. I'm hoping they'll bring a new, proper 3D Castlevania to Wii, and maybe take a page from Metroid Prime's book. (The PS2 games gave you one new dimension (depth) and took away another: height. Castlevania used to be about platforming, but on the PS2, the scariest thing you get to see is a staircase without a rail and a balcony.)
Slashdot Mirror
In the middle-ages, bible translations were forbidden by the church. They were essentially keeping the teachings secret. Even today Catholics are not allowed to question the interpretation of the teachings by a religious authority.
It's a smooth transition. Very smooth. There are cults which have open beliefs, and we all know of various religions which have done their fair share of social pressure, intimidation and government infiltration.
Wouldn't creating a colossal international copyright-managing-bureaucracy-manufacturing super Organisation, demanding standard fees for registering any copyrighted work, severely hinder the efforts of open-source projects?
And in what way would such a system change the way traditional software companies operate by keep their source-code to themselves and not allowing any modification? After all, paying fees for registering shouldn't be a problem for a profitable company.
Well, not if the unit for resolution (magapixels) already takes that into account.
We got an NES in the house when I was three. It was a Christmas present for my older bro. I remember playing a lot of Super Mario, Mega Man 2, and Super Mario 3, and they're still some of my favourites. I think it was a year after that I got a GameBoy.
I'd say the deciding factor was the Playstation 3. Sony used it's place in the gaming market to push Bluray and it seems to have just about pulled off. I still thin it's too early to call it over though, as sales are still terribly low for HD movies. A lot can change.
It's less of a problem now IMO though. When we start to see more dual format players and HD-Players finally stop being mainly PS3 sales, we could see a shift towards HDDVD.
Sure, format wars are a bummer, but it won't be a major problem, just as audio codec format wars aren't a major showstopper.
Wrong. The DMCA criminalizes circumventing copy protection. Plain and simple, with only a handful of pretty obscure exemptions.
Come on, gelatin is just a cocktail of animal proteins, which are in the meat as much as anything else. If you don't want to eat gelatin, I suggest you give up on meat too. Gelatine also contains many essential amino acids, so it aint that bad if you aren't getting them from other means.
Just curious, but did you ever check what was in those packs of flavouring agent?
Also, you were probably eating it immediately after being made. When you keep the home-made kind in the freezer for the day after, it's painful.
And people have been putting gelatine in ice cream long before anyone from your home made it.
BTW, the olden-days were notorious for putting all kinds of dangerous shit in their food. At least in the modern day we can more or less trust that additives have been tested and the nasty ones are kept out.
This is (regrettably) already possible with DVB-C. You can put on your own proprietary decryption module and only sell licenses to selected manufacturers. BSkyB is most notorious for this practice.
Or a Pasport sleeve lined with tin foil?
Ever scanned a whole book on a consumer-grade A4 scanner? Not a very fun way to spend a Saturday morning, I can assure you.
And you'll be mighty pissed that you just blew $400 on a POS you won't get round to using.
No it hasn't. The last generation's war began when the PS2 launched in 2000, and was decided by 2003 already, when it became apparent that neither the XBOX or the GameCube would be able to dent the PS2's market.
And simply put, whichever console wins gets the best games. There might be a few gems now and then, but the market leader simply has the upper hand in securing exclusive deals and developers interest. This leads to more consumer interest and the positive feedback means a virtuous circle for the market leader, and a vicious circle for it's competitors.
Saying that the gaming market is different from 3 years ago would be quite an understatement. And in this decisive period in the market, not everyone will be "pretty damned happy", and certain companies are a far cry from having "nailed it".
Well, nowadays Audio and Video are part of "web pages".
Should we require plug-ins for basic image files as well? After all, a lot of websites do without them, and we're not talking about an image viewer here.
Not a lot of money really goes into iTunes, although they do reap a hell of a lot out of it. Apple don't sell their "recommendations" either, so there's no easy advertising. That's one of the main reasons the record companies feel threatened. This new era of music distribution doesn't work as easily as it used to, when the record companies could pour millions into an album, and therefore get a guaranteed success.
Quote of the century!
That's something the reader should decide for himself, and for somebody writing a scholarly paper, that should be the least of their qualities. You can find an lot of fraud and pseudo-science in libraries as well. Anybody can print something on paper and get an ISBN number, just as anybody can spew out crap on a web page.
Check out "Wily's Mosh Pit" on OCRemix. That song has to be the coolest sound from the entire game.
The Castlevania music has consistently been superb for every incarnation of the series. I even bought the Curse of Darkness soundtrack CD, without buying the game, because it had become pretty mediocre on the PS2.
I'm hoping they'll bring a new, proper 3D Castlevania to Wii, and maybe take a page from Metroid Prime's book. (The PS2 games gave you one new dimension (depth) and took away another: height. Castlevania used to be about platforming, but on the PS2, the scariest thing you get to see is a staircase without a rail and a balcony.)