There are ways to bypass the Windows Vista protection by encoding the movies using alternative codecs like X264, or DiVX, which are in fact more effective sometimes then Windows own WMV codec.
Say what? DivX isn't effective at anything. WMV9/VC-1 is a state-of-art video codec and easily beats DivX and XviD (which is a hell of a lot better than DivX). It can be directly compared to H.264. As much as I hate DRM, posting FUD and lies doesn't help anything.
Did you even read the article? DX 10.1 makes features mandatory for VIDEO CARDS, not for APPLICATIONS. That means that there is MORE choice to the developer with DX 10.1.
Since the Linux drivers share a good deal of code with the Windows drivers, it's not at all impossible that the Linux fglrx kernel module is also exploitable.
Think about it, this sounds a whole lot like some Microsoft deals in the past. They'll maintain a "free open source reference implementation", rewrite an entirely new protocol that's incompatible with the old one, and then announce that the reference is "obsolete, out of date, and worthless". Of course, considering the number of clients available and the irrelevance of the mainline client, it probably won't work. Doesn't mean they can't/won't try though.
Yes, because teaching children that "I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you, and I have more authority than you, therefore anything I say or do to you is right and you deserved it." will definitely prepare them to be upstanding citizens.
I can't believe I'm allowing myself to be goaded into answering an AC, but...
You'll get modded down as a troll because you are one.
1.) You can get full installs of Vista for less than full versions of MacOS X. False. MacOS X costs $130. The full version of Vista costs $400. End of story. Wrong. Most people won't need Vista "Ultimate". In fact, Ultimate is not $400 either. Further, Vista is not locked to hardware.
2.) You can run Vista (without Aero) just fine on older hardware. False. Vista requires more memory and processor speed for various background tasks not related to the excessive and useless graphics system it uses. If you don't have 512 MB of RAM and a 1 GHz processor in these days, maybe you ought to be looking for a new computer. Further, "excessive" and "useless" are purely opinions. Usually, Aero INCREASES performance since it offloads rendering to the GPU.
3.) There are quite a few FREE AV's out there that work fine. Irrelevant. You're upping the hardware requirements again, and you simply don't need AV software on other OSes. You don't need AV software on Windows either. Use common sense (run non-admin, don't install warez-crackz-pr0n.exe, and don't be a general moron).
4.) Build the computer, run Windows update. No different than any other OS with patches for the OS and applications. False. First off, Windows Update only updates Windows components. Various other OSes will update other software as well.
Secondly, Windows Update contains three "kinds" of updates, Important, Recommended, and Optional. Unfortunately almost all of them are titled "Update for Windows Vista (KB991234)", leaving you with no idea what they do and forcing you to individually decide whether or not to risk the patch. (In fact, it's probably an optional patch that broke the Programs control panel, given that not everyone who's "fully patched" is encountering the problem.)
Then go read the Knowledge Base article on X patch. That's what the KB number means. There's a description of the bug it targets, what files it changes, etc etc.
In any case, other OSes make updating a simple process which includes other software. Not so with Vista: it's only Windows software, and you have to individually select updates which aren't "important" but may be required to run Vista without it constantly crashing.
and believe me, by far most of the music in my collection today is purchased legally, direct from the artist.
Because, of course, artists definitely have the right to sell you music. The fact of the matter is that they don't even own the copyright on their music. When they signed with a label, they transferred all intellectual property rights to the label. So in the end NONE of your music is legal. Just a thought.
Silverlight is a scriptable video and web application framework. It's based on.NET and supports several scripting languages.
This is cool because it's a hell of a lot less proprietary than Adobe Flash and can do a lot more since it's capable of running real code and not just javascript.
Hint: WMV3/VC-1 isn't reverse-engineered anymore. Apparently the MS-hating got in the way of your vision and you missed where MS released a full reference implementation including source code and documentation. Further, since it's an ISO standard, there's no "hidden code" anywhere, ok?
In fact, On2 Truemotion VP6 (flash) is the reverse-engineered code here. Try reading, it's good for you.
No sympathy for Microsoft when it allows the deletion of a couple files which can cause a BSOD.
Here's a hint - "rm -rf/". Long as you have root/admin/whatever, you can do anything and everything. Seeing as Norton/Symantec uses kernel-mode drivers to implement scanning, the problem isn't exactly MS'. You'd expect "modprobe crappysoftware" to nuke your system, wouldn't you?
Also, claiming that being Chinese somehow automagically makes you a pirate is some pretty messed up logic.
Hilf (Milf? hehe) seems to be saying that the idea of a community-written and developed platform is dead and points out that much Linux development is done by companies like Red Hat, Novell, and SUSE. Hilf seems to be equating free software with community software, however, free software refers to freedom, more specifically, the relatively greater amount of it in "free" software. This doesn't make Hilf's statement any less of a biased propagandistic statement, but I feel that a slight clarification is necessary as nobody RTFAs.
On a last note, although the self-organizing and self-fixing quality of open source software is more or less a myth, several projects are headed by dedicated individuals. An example is cdrtools.
We don't need more DRM? Seriously, the only effect this "new method of distribution" would ever have is to make DRM even more ubiquitous than it already is, and I for one don't think that's "awesome" or "blazingly modern". Not only does DRM take away any and all fair use rights that are guaranteed by law, it brings up the interesting question of "what the fsck am I gonna do with all these crappy videos I bought now that Apple's out of business?". Of course, the MPAA would just say "buy it again", but that's another story.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/23 31237 shows that the MPAA has tried this before. Altogether, I can't say this is a very smart idea. Additionally, it would be remarkably easy to DDOS by adding fragments of DVDs to every package you ship. Lastly, how many of us have our warez shipped to us? As people wisely noticed before, this is a ridiculous invasion of privacy and all the more reason to hate the MPAA and to download movies instead of buying them.
but if I call my character Harry Potter and send him to Hogwart's then I've put someone elses expression of an idea down on paper. I need permission for the latter but not the former.
This is where you are incorrect. Copyright law specifically protects parodies as a type of fair use.
For example, Harry Potter lived in a sunny house down the lane. One day, he got a letter inviting him to a WIZARD school. It was called Hogwarts. However, all was not well, as Lord VOLDEMORT drew a sword and tried to zap him with an AVADA KEDAVRA.
There, sue me.
These new media are unnessecary for HD movies as with any halfway decent MPEG-4 scheme, you can easily fit an HD movie onto a single-layer disc. So, why are we still using MPEG-2? After all, with either option, the consumer has to buy a new DVD player... wouldn't cheaper MPEG-4 discs sell better?
85kbps is hardly faster than dial-up, and 500kbps for $35 a month? Even the local telco will provide 1.5mbps for that price (I happen to live in Ann Arbor). Am I missing something here, because anyway you look at it, it's hardly broadband. Then again, it might be kbytes, not kbits (however unlikely that is).
Say what? DivX isn't effective at anything. WMV9/VC-1 is a state-of-art video codec and easily beats DivX and XviD (which is a hell of a lot better than DivX). It can be directly compared to H.264. As much as I hate DRM, posting FUD and lies doesn't help anything.
Did you even read the article? DX 10.1 makes features mandatory for VIDEO CARDS, not for APPLICATIONS. That means that there is MORE choice to the developer with DX 10.1.
This is China. There are no copyright laws. Nice try.
Since the Linux drivers share a good deal of code with the Windows drivers, it's not at all impossible that the Linux fglrx kernel module is also exploitable.
and.... slower? dependent on a centralized server base?
Think about it, this sounds a whole lot like some Microsoft deals in the past. They'll maintain a "free open source reference implementation", rewrite an entirely new protocol that's incompatible with the old one, and then announce that the reference is "obsolete, out of date, and worthless". Of course, considering the number of clients available and the irrelevance of the mainline client, it probably won't work. Doesn't mean they can't/won't try though.
Yes, because guilty until proven innocent is such a very good system.
Yes, because teaching children that "I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you, and I have more authority than you, therefore anything I say or do to you is right and you deserved it." will definitely prepare them to be upstanding citizens.
The obvious solution to this is, of course, to ban all encrypted content and all proxies. After all, only pedophiles would use them!
Secondly, Windows Update contains three "kinds" of updates, Important, Recommended, and Optional. Unfortunately almost all of them are titled "Update for Windows Vista (KB991234)", leaving you with no idea what they do and forcing you to individually decide whether or not to risk the patch. (In fact, it's probably an optional patch that broke the Programs control panel, given that not everyone who's "fully patched" is encountering the problem.)
Then go read the Knowledge Base article on X patch. That's what the KB number means. There's a description of the bug it targets, what files it changes, etc etc. In any case, other OSes make updating a simple process which includes other software. Not so with Vista: it's only Windows software, and you have to individually select updates which aren't "important" but may be required to run Vista without it constantly crashing.
Because, of course, artists definitely have the right to sell you music. The fact of the matter is that they don't even own the copyright on their music. When they signed with a label, they transferred all intellectual property rights to the label. So in the end NONE of your music is legal. Just a thought.
Silverlight is a scriptable video and web application framework. It's based on .NET and supports several scripting languages.
This is cool because it's a hell of a lot less proprietary than Adobe Flash and can do a lot more since it's capable of running real code and not just javascript.
Hint: WMV3/VC-1 isn't reverse-engineered anymore. Apparently the MS-hating got in the way of your vision and you missed where MS released a full reference implementation including source code and documentation. Further, since it's an ISO standard, there's no "hidden code" anywhere, ok? In fact, On2 Truemotion VP6 (flash) is the reverse-engineered code here. Try reading, it's good for you.
But that would be a huge PR disaster. It would reek of corruption even to other Republicans.
Actually, the president is explicitly forbidden from pardoning himself. If he could, that would mean he'd be able to do anything and everything.
Also, claiming that being Chinese somehow automagically makes you a pirate is some pretty messed up logic.
Hilf (Milf? hehe) seems to be saying that the idea of a community-written and developed platform is dead and points out that much Linux development is done by companies like Red Hat, Novell, and SUSE. Hilf seems to be equating free software with community software, however, free software refers to freedom, more specifically, the relatively greater amount of it in "free" software. This doesn't make Hilf's statement any less of a biased propagandistic statement, but I feel that a slight clarification is necessary as nobody RTFAs.
On a last note, although the self-organizing and self-fixing quality of open source software is more or less a myth, several projects are headed by dedicated individuals. An example is cdrtools.
We don't need more DRM? Seriously, the only effect this "new method of distribution" would ever have is to make DRM even more ubiquitous than it already is, and I for one don't think that's "awesome" or "blazingly modern". Not only does DRM take away any and all fair use rights that are guaranteed by law, it brings up the interesting question of "what the fsck am I gonna do with all these crappy videos I bought now that Apple's out of business?". Of course, the MPAA would just say "buy it again", but that's another story.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/23 31237 shows that the MPAA has tried this before. Altogether, I can't say this is a very smart idea. Additionally, it would be remarkably easy to DDOS by adding fragments of DVDs to every package you ship. Lastly, how many of us have our warez shipped to us? As people wisely noticed before, this is a ridiculous invasion of privacy and all the more reason to hate the MPAA and to download movies instead of buying them.
Possibly because Theora sucks in terms of video quality? This isn't a troll - even the developers agree that it still needs a lot of work.
To feed data and retrieve it from the GPU at a reasonable rate so that the GPU isn't starved?
These new media are unnessecary for HD movies as with any halfway decent MPEG-4 scheme, you can easily fit an HD movie onto a single-layer disc. So, why are we still using MPEG-2? After all, with either option, the consumer has to buy a new DVD player... wouldn't cheaper MPEG-4 discs sell better?
85kbps is hardly faster than dial-up, and 500kbps for $35 a month? Even the local telco will provide 1.5mbps for that price (I happen to live in Ann Arbor). Am I missing something here, because anyway you look at it, it's hardly broadband. Then again, it might be kbytes, not kbits (however unlikely that is).