Damn, if you think DVD and VHS are close to the same quality, you must be watching on a 10 year old 19" TV with the built-in speakers.
I don't have a GREAT system, just a 27", an old Dolby Pro-logic receiver and some 15 year old crappy radio shack speakers, but even so, the difference between VHS and DVD is *very* noticable (when the studio does a good job with the transfer).
Also, the special features are at least as appealing to me; there's HOURS of extra stuff on some movies. Maybe only appealing to fans of the movie, but that's the market here.
Plus, I'm tired of spending $$ buying new copies of the same movies because the tapes have worn out. Lesse, I have 2 copies of the original Star Wars trilogy (both now in bad shape), plus a copy of the special edition (which will go to hell in 5 years), not to mention my CED disc of Ep4. All told I've spent over $150 on the first 4 episodes. Had I been able to buy them on DVD, I would have saved a lot of money, even if they weren't any better quality.
(I'm not buying PM until it comes out on DVD. Maybe not even then; it wasn't a very good movie)
That's not the problem. The problem is that the greedy studios will use this opportunity to NOT RELEASE the movie in "non-degrading" format, so you won't have the choice.
This was one of the biggest gripes about DIVX; the studios figured a digital disc was a digital disc, and DIVX gave them a cash cow rather than a one-time sale, so many movies were never released on DVD until after DIVX died (like Di$ney stuff).
This would DEFINITELY get me to buy a recorder though. I bought DVD *because* the discs last forever. I got tired of buying the same tapes that I'd already bought because they'd gotten unviewable.
The speed limit only went up to 70 like 18 months ago, so it's not because the new cars are so much safer (although I'm not debating that point). I heard an interview with a cop a few months after they upped the limit, and he was talking about this phenomenon. He guessed at the reason (since he spends all day on the road all day, and talks to people involved with accidents every day, I assume it's an EDUCATED guess) was that "Most people were driving 70 when the speed limit was 55. Now that the limit is 70, people are STILL pretty much driving 70, maybe 75; it's just a speed people are comfortable with. But there's less people on the highways driving SLOW." Basically he was saying that problems occurred on expressways when cars were doing radically different speeds. This seems pretty obvious to me. On surface streets I'm sure more accidents are caused by running traffic signals, bonehead maneuvers, etc.
Yes, as long as you don't subscribe to any mailing lists. About 90% of my mail comes from mailing lists. I think this is pretty funny, considering that hotmail.com was the first domain to go into my kill filter. I have it killed at my provider; I don't even receive them. Nonetheless, I am glad to see another major email service using the blackhole list.
I think he means put it on vibrate. I agree; I don't want to hear your phone ringing. The day they make me carry a phone OR a pager is the day I change jobs. I might carry one if I got $50 every time it went off.
Actually the Kodak takes CompactFlash, not SmartMedia, so there isn't any reasonable limit to the amount of storage. Simple has a 128MB type I modules. If you get one of the cameras that take type II modules (unfortunately apparently not the newly released DC290) you can use the IBM Microdrive, giving you 340 MB. Samsung says they'll have a 1GB type I module sometime next year. However, as someone else pointed out, it's storage, not RAM.
I have an Al CD with all his albums MP3'd and a 56 meg MPG of Saga.
However, the MP3's were ripped from MY original Al CD's, and the MPG came from my own videotape of TRL, and I'm not making copies. What I've done is legal; if I gave away copies, it wouldn't be. Of course it doesn't make sense. There are lawyers involved.
The USPS got a bad rap in the past, but I think they've cleaned up a lot, at the same time that the others have been getting lots worse. Just scan deja for horror stories. I've read of FedEx leaving laptops sitting on the porch in the rain when it said "Adult Signature" - UPS leaving packages labeled "controlled contents" containing assault rifles at the front stoop of a gun dealer, etc. Most of these people have had no problems with USPS.
I used to work for a local PC clone shop, and we received on average 40 packages from UPS a day. They usually lost about one package a month; just no idea where it went. Most times it would show up again, but weeks later.
I've started using USPS whenever I can, and have had no problems.
I just bought an ATI Expert 128 (or something like that) for a machine I was building, and it claims to have DVD decode onboard. They didn't send the software ( you have to register to get it) so I didn't try it out. BTW I bought an IDE DVD drive for that machine for $100, so they're getting affordable.
Well, it's using some extra. Since I started running this, I haven't shut off my machine. It used to only run maybe 12 hours a day. Same with a couple of machines at work (all Windows machines; I don't shut off my Linux boxes). I bet others have been doing the same.
I agree that DLT and AIC are awesome if you can afford them (anyone backing up a network had better figure out a way to afford them), but for personal use, I prefer Travan over DAT. Maybe it's just that my experience is with HP drives, but when we were using HP DAT's, we had to clean them daily, and even then sometimes they wouldn't get through a whole backup without blinking the "Error, I need cleaning" light. I've had numerous file restore failures and had to revert to older copies of the backups. Yes, we were using HP tapes too. Since then we have gone to DLT's and they're great. For my personal machine backup, I've had IOMega TR1 (400/800M), Seagate TR4 (4/8G) and now have an Aiwa NS20 TR5 (10/20G) drive. I've never had a single failure over hundreds of backups and dozens of restores. The Aiwa finishes a 5.6G backup in an hour, validates while writing, has hardware compression, and costs Oh yeah, I use GNU Tar to backup 6GB of data that lives on an 8GB drive, and I have no problems. I'm not spanning tapes, though; that might be an issue if there's a bug.
Indeed, I've had numerous problems with DATs. Believe it or not, in lieu of springing for DLT or AIC, I lean toward Travan right now. Since I stopped buying crappy media (I only use Imation cartridges now) I have yet to have a single restore failure, and I've got tapes that were recorded 10 years ago (admittedly not Travan, but they fit in my Travan drive) that I can still restore just fine. Of course, insist on the SCSI versions of these drives.
I'm trying out an Aiwa if it comes in today; $230 for 4/8GB, hardware compression, and read-while-write verify. Less that $100 if you don't get these two features. The 10/20GB unit is only another $50, but I didn't want to trash all my old tapes (TR5 drive can't write TR4 media)
I agree. I remember when "Reboot" was first showing on TV. A bunch of my friends were all going nuts over it. I watched a couple of episodes and said "So what? The plot stinks." Maybe I watched the wrong episodes, but I don't think so.
I'm all for the advancement of CGI, but movies are to tell stories, not to show off SGI's latest box.
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Yay! How about direct digital to DVD! I think Disney is doing that for A Bug's Life (although they're still their clueless old self about not putting any extras on the disc).
One could hope that they'll use IOMega's marketing department, and SyQuest's technology, but I'm sure there's no chance. More likely they take SyQuest out back and bury it; I'm pretty sure IOMega doesn't know good technology even when they buy it.
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Damn, if you think DVD and VHS are close to the same quality, you must be watching on a 10 year old 19" TV with the built-in speakers.
I don't have a GREAT system, just a 27", an old Dolby Pro-logic receiver and some 15 year old crappy radio shack speakers, but even so, the difference between VHS and DVD is *very* noticable (when the studio does a good job with the transfer).
Also, the special features are at least as appealing to me; there's HOURS of extra stuff on some movies. Maybe only appealing to fans of the movie, but that's the market here.
Plus, I'm tired of spending $$ buying new copies of the same movies because the tapes have worn out. Lesse, I have 2 copies of the original Star Wars trilogy (both now in bad shape), plus a copy of the special edition (which will go to hell in 5 years), not to mention my CED disc of Ep4. All told I've spent over $150 on the first 4 episodes. Had I been able to buy them on DVD, I would have saved a lot of money, even if they weren't any better quality.
(I'm not buying PM until it comes out on DVD. Maybe not even then; it wasn't a very good movie)
That's not the problem. The problem is that the greedy studios will use this opportunity to NOT RELEASE the movie in "non-degrading" format, so you won't have the choice.
This was one of the biggest gripes about DIVX; the studios figured a digital disc was a digital disc, and DIVX gave them a cash cow rather than a one-time sale, so many movies were never released on DVD until after DIVX died (like Di$ney stuff).
This would DEFINITELY get me to buy a recorder though. I bought DVD *because* the discs last forever. I got tired of buying the same tapes that I'd already bought because they'd gotten unviewable.
The speed limit only went up to 70 like 18 months ago, so it's not because the new cars are so much safer (although I'm not debating that point). I heard an interview with a cop a few months after they upped the limit, and he was talking about this phenomenon. He guessed at the reason (since he spends all day on the road all day, and talks to people involved with accidents every day, I assume it's an EDUCATED guess) was that "Most people were driving 70 when the speed limit was 55. Now that the limit is 70, people are STILL pretty much driving 70, maybe 75; it's just a speed people are comfortable with. But there's less people on the highways driving SLOW." Basically he was saying that problems occurred on expressways when cars were doing radically different speeds. This seems pretty obvious to me. On surface streets I'm sure more accidents are caused by running traffic signals, bonehead maneuvers, etc.
Yes, as long as you don't subscribe to any mailing lists. About 90% of my mail comes from mailing lists.
I think this is pretty funny, considering that hotmail.com was the first domain to go into my kill filter. I have it killed at my provider; I don't even receive them.
Nonetheless, I am glad to see another major email service using the blackhole list.
I think he means put it on vibrate. I agree; I don't want to hear your phone ringing.
The day they make me carry a phone OR a pager is the day I change jobs. I might carry one if I got $50 every time it went off.
Actually the Kodak takes CompactFlash, not SmartMedia, so there isn't any reasonable limit to the amount of storage. Simple has a 128MB type I modules. If you get one of the cameras that take type II modules (unfortunately apparently not the newly released DC290) you can use the IBM Microdrive, giving you 340 MB. Samsung says they'll have a 1GB type I module sometime next year. However, as someone else pointed out, it's storage, not RAM.
I have an Al CD with all his albums MP3'd and a 56 meg MPG of Saga.
However, the MP3's were ripped from MY original Al CD's, and the MPG came from my own videotape of TRL, and I'm not making copies. What I've done is legal; if I gave away copies, it wouldn't be. Of course it doesn't make sense. There are lawyers involved.
Now I just gotta get the Al DVD!
(yeah, I'm a fan)
The USPS got a bad rap in the past, but I think they've cleaned up a lot, at the same time that the others have been getting lots worse. Just scan deja for horror stories. I've read of FedEx leaving laptops sitting on the porch in the rain when it said "Adult Signature" - UPS leaving packages labeled "controlled contents" containing assault rifles at the front stoop of a gun dealer, etc. Most of these people have had no problems with USPS.
I used to work for a local PC clone shop, and we received on average 40 packages from UPS a day. They usually lost about one package a month; just no idea where it went. Most times it would show up again, but weeks later.
I've started using USPS whenever I can, and have had no problems.
I just bought an ATI Expert 128 (or something like that) for a machine I was building, and it claims to have DVD decode onboard. They didn't send the software ( you have to register to get it) so I didn't try it out.
BTW I bought an IDE DVD drive for that machine for $100, so they're getting affordable.
Well, it's using some extra. Since I started running this, I haven't shut off my machine. It used to only run maybe 12 hours a day. Same with a couple of machines at work (all Windows machines; I don't shut off my Linux boxes). I bet others have been doing the same.
I agree that DLT and AIC are awesome if you can afford them (anyone backing up a network had better figure out a way to afford them), but for personal use, I prefer Travan over DAT. Maybe it's just that my experience is with HP drives, but when we were using HP DAT's, we had to clean them daily, and even then sometimes they wouldn't get through a whole backup without blinking the "Error, I need cleaning" light. I've had numerous file restore failures and had to revert to older copies of the backups. Yes, we were using HP tapes too. Since then we have gone to DLT's and they're great.
For my personal machine backup, I've had IOMega TR1 (400/800M), Seagate TR4 (4/8G) and now have an Aiwa NS20 TR5 (10/20G) drive. I've never had a single failure over hundreds of backups and dozens of restores. The Aiwa finishes a 5.6G backup in an hour, validates while writing, has hardware compression, and costs Oh yeah, I use GNU Tar to backup 6GB of data that lives on an 8GB drive, and I have no problems. I'm not spanning tapes, though; that might be an issue if there's a bug.
Indeed, I've had numerous problems with DATs. Believe it or not, in lieu of springing for DLT or AIC, I lean toward Travan right now. Since I stopped buying crappy media (I only use Imation cartridges now) I have yet to have a single restore failure, and I've got tapes that were recorded 10 years ago (admittedly not Travan, but they fit in my Travan drive) that I can still restore just fine.
Of course, insist on the SCSI versions of these drives.
I'm trying out an Aiwa if it comes in today; $230 for 4/8GB, hardware compression, and read-while-write verify. Less that $100 if you don't get these two features. The 10/20GB unit is only another $50, but I didn't want to trash all my old tapes (TR5 drive can't write TR4 media)
I agree. I remember when "Reboot" was first showing on TV. A bunch of my friends were all going nuts over it. I watched a couple of episodes and said "So what? The plot stinks." Maybe I watched the wrong episodes, but I don't think so.
I'm all for the advancement of CGI, but movies are to tell stories, not to show off SGI's latest box.
Yay! How about direct digital to DVD! I think Disney is doing that for A Bug's Life (although they're still their clueless old self about not putting any extras on the disc).
One could hope that they'll use IOMega's marketing department, and SyQuest's technology, but I'm sure there's no chance. More likely they take SyQuest out back and bury it; I'm pretty sure IOMega doesn't know good technology even when they buy it.