Ive bought systems at auctions, and they have NO password on the Administrator account. I fix computers for home users, and somehow, they have NO password on the Administrator account. The point i was trying to make is, "how can this happen"?
And, it still does not dilute the point that any password you might put in, by default, has 0 checks to see if its secure. It still does not change the fact that things like xupiter, bonzai buddy, and gator, are out there, and the average user is completly clueless of whats on his/her machine.
Any sysadmin worth his salt of COURSE tries for secure systems, but not all systems are managed by such people. The last computer i fixed, had ~20 explorer windows open automatically shortly after bootup - while extrodinary, not too musch worse then most home users boxes. And yes, NO administrator password.
I have not really cared enough to track down how these computers manage to not have an Admin password, as I usually end up reinstalling. (i know ad aware exists, and i use it, but at this point its easier to reinstall). I stick on mozilla, and get the user used to using it(this is ALWAYS difficult), but i explain, that if you use this, I wont have to come around again.
Theres something that IS microsofts fault that will let this worm wreak havok. When you install WinXP Home, and i believe Pro, it does NOT set a password for the Administrator account, or it can be bypassed eiasly (ive seen too many boxes w/o one to think its just a random thing).
Thats right. Usually all it takes to break in to a winXP box is to hit ctrl+alt+del x 2 and your back to the normal winNT login. Then type in Administrator, no password, and unless this person knows anything about windows, and often thats not enough, your in.
Add to that that all accounts made are Administrator by default, and DONT need passwords.
What REALLY hurts windows here is not being truely multiuser on a local machine. This can be felt when you try to lock down say a web kiosk, and as you edit the Local security policy, you can watch the system lock down around you, since you CANT change it on a per user basis.
Add to this things like the viral Xupiter, and windows is chock full of holes. And leaving a winXP box in non-admin node is almost worthless, because SO many programs require admin access rendering it a pain in the ass.
While in the article, the poster mentioned its not microsofts fault, it BLATENTLY is. Windows comes SO dumbed down, i have to spend hours locking it down, turning off all the annoying services and popups, etc. Not only that, it doesnt have a default to make sure you password is at least somewhat secure. The options DO exist. From a sys admin perspective, windows is a waste of time. They NEED to have a deafult "im not a dumb user" setting you choose at startup that will among other things, make sure your system is tight and passworded.
They also need to go truly multiuser, clean up permissions w/o making them useless, and make EACH local user have a SEPERATE security policy, with an emphasis on editing it when you first install.
To put thins in perspective, in a public user setting, you leave an XP box out for use for a week, and an OSX box, i guarentee you, even the most basic setup, the OSX box will be exactly how you installed it, with a bunch of crap on the desktop.
The windows box will have every spyware app on it, stuff deleted, etc, etc.
OH, Xupiter just installed itself again, i have to go...
I would like some proof that bush is no longer vested in any way with big enrgy.
For that matter, lets look in to cheney.
Not vested means he also has no "good friends" and campaign donators in that bunch. It means he owns no stock or any company that benifits from the companies in question.
GWB and his posse is also were the ones who said there was no price fixing going on the whole time, even though now execs are coming forward ADMITTING to it.
You dont need to be a GWB fan to get your facts wrong.
enron fun
Califronia got hit in 2 huge ways at te same time. The above is just further proof of what people already knew: Enron and other energy companies bilked california out of millions? billions? This, at a time when californians were in a slide due to the.com crash. California may have made some mistakes in its deregulation, but this was blatent abuse of the system, which was allowed by the president to go on WAY too long. You dont drain that much money out of an already faltering economy and expect it to do well, and its people to be prosperous.
This brings us to internet taxes: just a bad idea.
Eventually, every state is going to want a pice of the action, and in the end, its the consumer who gets dicked once again, and it will be the end of online shopping as we know it. I already find it hard to order items from in state, as shipping and tax together mean i can get a better deal locally a lot of the time. Maybe thats what they want, but I feel regualtiong this will be stupid, and it will do nothing to help the economy in the long run.
ok, as a gut reaction, id want to say MPEG4 should be free...
but the majority of the comments here seem to come from people who must not know how businesses run.
Some people, a lot in fact, actually get PAID to write code. Yes, they make some money so they can eat and buy mt. dew. Now, the companies who pay these programmers obviusly need to generate some revenue.. you see where this is going?
OK, now that the econ lesson is over, lets move to the licensing - is it not fair to ask that people who will make a profit off of your product, then in turn give you a small amount of the proceeds for you developing that product? I know this goes against everything you all beleive is so right.. but in the end... the people who developed it might like to continue toeat. (i know this is a gross oversimplification, but hey)
No on to microsoft: what do you do when you micorsoft and a superior technology comes around that you dont own?
1. Buy it -or, if thats not an option- 2. Drive it in to the ground
MS doesnt sell stuff cheap for no reason - they sell it cheap to drive out competition. All the time, everytime. Look back at history, this is NOT different at all.
Yes, im sure the mpegla understands the benifits of releasin it for free, but if MS can charrge... why cant the for a superior product?
And dont be fooled, think in broader terms - mpeg4 has a planned ubiquity that could make it just as important to the next video revolution (ie. vidio phones etc) as the original quicktime was to desktop video.
and keep in mind - as god as any open source project is... making it robust enough to service the needs of both the content creators and viewrs, as well as be in enough distribution to command that it be used in the first place are of utmost importance. You ask the average consumer if they know what *insert oss codec project here* is and youl get crickets. Its not to say tey dont meet some of the above criteria, just not all.
A puny amount of people use quicktime compared to windows media. But, it passes because its in high distribution, and... almost ALL video you see on TV, film, etc, has passed thru quicktime.
FIrewire_b has different connectors to allow different types of cableing media, and for the higher speeds.
4.5m[3200Mbs] for 9pin copper 100m[3200Mbs] for glass optical fiber 100m[100Mbs] over standard CAT-5 (tons of uses for this) 50m[200Mbs] step index plastic optical fiber 100m[200Mbs] hard polymer clad plastic optical fiber
in other words. its now EXTREAMLY flexible, AND fuly backwards compatable.
fom apples site:
FireWire 800 The FireWire advantage can be summed up in three words: speed, speed and more speed -- at 800Mbps, it has more than two times the usable bandwidth of USB 2.0, which makes it the perfect choice for high-speed storage and serious video capture. The extra speed of FireWire 800 over USB 2.0 makes FireWire much more suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications like video and graphics, which often consume hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data per file. For instance, single hour of DV-format video consumes about 13 thousand megabytes (13 GB). Other benefits include:
Highly efficient architecture. IEEE 1394b reduces delays in arbitration, while 8B10B encoding reduces signal distortion and increases throughput. (See technology brief for details.)
Better user experience. No matter how you connect devices together, FireWire 800 just works. In fact, you can even loop your FireWire 800 chain back to your Mac for redundancy while performing live.
Backwards compatibility. Manufacturers have adopted FireWire for a broad range of devices, such as DV cameras, hard drives, digital still cameras, professional audio, printers, scanners and home entertainment. Adapter cables for the FireWire 800 9-pin connector let you use these FireWire 400 products on the FireWire 800 port.
Trailblazing features FireWire 400-based Digital Video editing enabled a revolution in desktop video production. The combination of low-cost, high-quality DV camcorders, built-in FireWire and Apple's award-winning Final Cut Pro and iMovie video editing software allows the creation of broadcast-quality video on desktop computers. FireWire 800 shares the revolutionary features of FireWire 400:
Flexible connectivity options. Connect up to 63 computers and devices on a single bus -- you can even share a camera between two Macs.
Real-time data delivery. Critical for audio and video applications where delayed or out-of-order frames are unacceptable, FireWire can guarantee isochronous delivery of data.
On-bus power. While USB 2.0 allows at most 2.5W of power -- enough for a simple, slow device like a mouse -- FireWire devices can provide or consume up to 45W of power, plenty for high-performance disk drives and rapid battery charging. That's why iPod only needs one cord for both data and power.
Plug-and-play connectivity. Simply plug in a device and it works. In Mac OS X, plugging in a DV camera launches iMovie, while connecting an iPod starts iTunes and automatically syncs your music library.
Oh, one other thing that really kills a macs performance is not so muh the cpu, or the os, but the current slow busses and ram used. This is why in certain areas, the macs performance has not gone where you would expect it. I sspect when the new motherbord revs with all the buzzwords like HyperTransport are released, much of the current performance bottlenecks will cease to be.
One thing not harped on nearly enough is how productive the UI of an application alone allows you to be. People dont shell out 30k+ and tens of hours of trianing for an Avid station for no reason. You need a UI that lets you realize your project with the maximum of flexibility, and doesnt get in your way. Editing video can be highly complex, and both FCP and Avid meet the UI + feature requirements to make them market leaders. I cant tell you how frustrating premire and other pc editing apps are to use. But you dont have to take my word for it.
Secondly, After Effects... well, for OSX, this is definitly a basterd child as of late it seems. And i dont know if al the features overlap, but Shake blows AE away as far as i can tell... I think it woul also make a far better comparison. Actually, seeing shake being used is fun to watch, if not a bit daunting.
In the end, its the tools that let you be the most productive while maintaining a feature set to let you realize whatever you invision that win the day. And productivity is not just how fast you render. But go try FCP+Maya+Shake+photoshop+dvd studio pro on a nice 23'in lcd and see if you ever go back =P
PS: Does ANYONE know a good comsumer DVD authoring package on PC tht has a decent UI, costs less then 500, and has at LEAST the capabilities of iDVD2? There is a serius drought of good PC aps to do this for anyone but pros.
One thing that sems to be missing in all of this is that Apple is a public, for profit company, releasing code in to the public domain.
While im sure the GPL et al. are great, what apple does is give themselves some protection, and try to make it so that their code doesnt get forked and messy with no way "keep up" with it. To illustrate the point, lets say rendevous is released under a "take it and do whatever the hell you like" liscense. CompanyA decides to add something, and releases a million widgets with their unpublised modification. Lets also say that this modificaiotn makes their produch not interroperate with anything else based on the standard. Now, while you may say "thats companyA's perogative", you are also probably not realizing that companyA is so often microsoft. So you see, the protection built in stops companyA form "embrace, extend, break" and gives OTHERS using the standard sort of a guarentee that they wont be left out in the cold. If i find a bug, i can be sure that my addition will work with the standard that everyone has. Its not perfect, its not the same on the outside, but, to all you detractors, it has its inherant merits, and should not be judged with tunnel vision.
1-brightness the UI is the color sceme it is to maintain contrast among the ui elements, and in my experience on a FS imac for a week, it works exceptional in ANY lighting conditions.
2-icons First, the OS was made to handle the large icons, its a neglegable amount of memory these days, and if made well, they scale wonderfully down to 16x16 thanks to OSX's exception scaling algorythems. Also, you will note that apple guidelines change slightly depending on the kind of app.. i wont repeat it hear, but bottome line is - the work. I dont know whay people are scared of good graphic design.
3-consistancy QT, iTunes,iPhoto, iDvd.. notice something in common with all these apps? Really, if you htink for a minute about it, not only are the completly consistant with each other, BUT, they are also a special kind of application. Notice, there is only ONE window containing all the functionality in the app? You wont see Word using the brushed metal interface.... but i can guarentee the next iApp will. They are simeple, single function programs, that are very good at what they do.
-Fourth point. Drop down dialogs out of captions are not as good as they seem to be. Apple suggests that ok, cancel, etc should be put on bottom of dialog. So you get two ok and two cancel buttons. Without some visible border between. -- i really have no clue what you mean.
5-taken care of in jaguar. This was a holdover from OpenStep. The icon didnt even change in 5+ years hehe.
6-if you were less then 1024x768, i wouldnt be running OSX in the first place. Ive never seen something that sounds as obtrusive as what you mention seems to be. Steve got it right- be consistant.
7- i have ONE thing to say about this... ive NEVER, ever, ever, never, ONCE used a skin for ANY application that made it more useable. And ive tried a lot of skinning.
8-Well, per your rebuttle, ill say this - tabbed interfaces are not MDI. At least not in the sence that apple refers to it. Apple is clearly against MDI as defined by the windows gui. And it, is a vastly stupid way of working (prolly my BIGGEST peeve about windows)
OSX gets some stuff wrong, but you mention most of the things they got right.
But consumers were screwed in the first place...
on
High Definition DVD
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Consmers have been screwed by hollywood already, ill break it down:
HDTV, as a potential standard, has been around for a LONG time, but the bug media players keep stonewalling, and pusing back the date the FCC would have them force adoption by, among other things, throwing a million different standards out there and not agreeing on one. I seem to remember the FCC deadline being 2002..... And now, i have to wait another year to get what will more then likely be a defective standard. The reason, is they need to FINALLY invest in an infrastruture change after forcing consumers to stuick with the relativly low bandwidth and quality TV we still have after all these years. This then creates a catch-22, as it has for years... BigMedia doesnt want to invest in something where there is no market, tv makers cant drop prices and make a "standard" box because BigMedia wont decide on a standard and wont/cant release content, and then consumers may want but have no content or way to view it.
The end result of this will be: consumers get screwed out of a GOOD standard that provides (potentially) excellent quality, and i fear it will end up with inferior quality and useability.
On to DVD: People have know for YEARS that DVD does not provide the bandwidth to do full HDTV content. Issue one, 9gb is too small, issue 2, home readrs cant get to the datarate needed to even read off a datastream at that resolution. So, once again,insted of taking an oportunity to think ahead for once, we will end up with a standard that is 2 years dead when it comes out. And consumers STILL need to buy a new player. Most just wont know they are buying obsolete technology as they have been for years.
Im completly frustrated about all this, and the FCC needs to apoint an OUTSIDE firm with no intrest in bigmedia to hammer out standards that are good for the consumer, are timely, and have potential of more then 2 years ago. I dont know why what is happening is acceptable to anyone.
One problem that MS faces is mindshare.. they are after all a VERY high profile company who is publicly traded. This of course translates in to "Everything we do has to turn a buck."
Now, Apple seems to have done this very thing and still make money, but, they have a few advatages. First, the bulk of the underpinnings of OSX are of course, on some free liscense. Second, people now expect Apple to so wild and crazy things, ever since the $1 ceo steped foot back on the Apple campus.
Microsoft, unfortunatly, probably has more conservative investors, who for MS not spewing out small upgrades, (i call it printing money) would read something crazy and revolutionary as a "sell NOW" sign.
Now, if somehow MS get sover the hurdle of not making something that directly generates revenue, you have to consider what they would actually do. The web has forever changed the windows hodgepodge. Updates to drivers, IE exploits, and the ilk can be had the minute they are ready. This brings up some interesting possibilities for MS. Lets look at microsofts key techs:
Visual Studio DirectX IE Office NT(2k, XP, whatever else)
First, a developer would need access to the following for opensourcing anything to be worthwhile: directX, parts of visual studio, fileformats from office, and at least 'some' of the core os.
Developers need hooks to the UI and other parts of the system, of course, in the long run, though some may disagree, Apple did it right - "hey, why DO people buy our product over someone elses? UI, Quicktime, Apple only apps, integration." Ok, keep our money makers next to our hearts, and open source the rest."
This is what microsoft needs to look at. What do they sell that people are buying windows for, what makes it uniqe, and will keep people buying. Take that, opensource the rest(its all VERY debatable, so, debate =).
Im rambling now, but after carefull thought, if MS needs to go opensource, its pretty much got to be the core os, dev tools, tie-ins for UI and other high level things.
Financially, it will jhurt them no matter what, buit that would be the point if this was handed down as a DOJ punishment. In the end, windows would be scads better after it happened.
Well, one thing that hasnt been hit upon is that SOMEONE is more the likely going to be making money on everyone having to have this "device" in all consumer electronics. And that someone prolly has their hands dipped deep in to trying to get this legislation passed... not naming names of course.
Actually, the worst thing is that this would cost electronics manufatures billions of dollars in hardware engeneering, software engeneering, manufacturing, basically every step. They would have to retool all their products. And that 'savings' gets passed on to the consumer. So, we, the common folk, get the royal cd up the nether regions so that the entertainment industy can make it illigal to copy anything? Yeah....
What the entertainment industry needs to do is quit whining about people who copy. Its been around forever. People will COPY YOU STUFF untill the world comes to an end. All the money they throw at content protection will backfire in their face. people dont CARE if its a perfect digital reproduction as much as they seem to think. What these folks need to do, is embrace technology - in fact, push it ahead.
Want to stop perfect reproductions? Not gonna happen 100%, but heres how to get some lost sales.
-if your going to continue to charge 18bucks a CD, at LEAST put some decent content on it. I know a lot of CDs have a video or 2, but think more like DVD. Id more likely buy a CD at 18 bucks if it had videos, interviews, PDF lyric sheets and guitar tabs, songs allready in MP3 (no bs plz thx), active links to tour dates, discography, bios... well, GIVE me my 18bucks worth, make it so that owning a CD has VALUE over having just the MP3s of the songs. And dont just put your advertising package you send to MTV on the disk (thats pretty much what ive seen in the way of 'extra' content.
-DVD/TV -> HDTV. Well, DUUH. The slow embrace of HDTV because of short sighted bean counters is going to be a thorn in everyones side soon. Why? because an industry is currently selling a bunch of equipment that is actually going to keep this technology away. Why? From a previus article... you cant, or barely can fit a full 2hr movie at full 1080 resolution on a dopuble layer, double sided DVD. Not only that, no DVD players out there in the consumer world can even read data fast enough to do HDTV off a DVD. Adding to the problem, all 'HDTVs' are apparently now defunct, as the 'final version' of the spec is just now being decided/was decided upon. And HDTV in itself could have been the holy grail for these companies... Why? People dont have access to tech to make/rip/distribute 20+gigs of data in an efficient manner. You dont NEED copy protection. If they just stayed ahead of the curve on personaly tech (DVD was about, oh 5 years late), it owuldnt be an issue. As anyone can attest, DIVXs are prolly the largest form of vidoe-media over the net well see in a loooooong time. If they embraced that and looked forward, wed be enjoying beautiful HDTVs, DVD2(or, *gulp* we might have to go back to magnetic tape), and content rich CDs for the last year.
The lesson? The content industry is killing itself, by stifling inovation on new tech, and trying like mad to not embrace the digital world. Embrace...evolve...prosper - simple formula.
But i can see it form their point of view. Do YOU want to be the one to tell everyone who has a DVD player and HDTV now that when HDTV HAS to be out (i think the FCC still has this mandated) youll have to buy NEW stuff to play HDTV content? I sure dont, cus im already an angry consumer.
Well, in talking to the guys responsible for the creative side of Zim, it seems that the biggest thing going against it is the age group that likes it the most. Apparently, Nick doesnt give a poop about anyone over 11. This is a crying shame. All us gen-x'ers grew up on You can do that on television, turcky TV, all the way up to ren and stimpy.... Nick should get rid of crap-at-night, and pander to the generation of people who have name recognition and affinity to the network since its inception. Zim, ren and stimpy, think "adult-swim". Its a shame nick has seemingly lost the collective brain cell running the show there. The other thing i gleened is that Zim is a Viacom property, and the creators have no control over it whatsoever (the show was created at the behest of nick, coming to Jhonen apparently). Chances of ever seeing a new zim episode? Pretty close to 0. Put that one in the f***ed up by viacom marketing trashbin.
And BTW, when they say the ratings were poor, keep in mind a few things:
1. People over 11 dont count apparently in Nick ratings 2. It was on at the END of regular nick programming 3. It had no consistant time slot (i STILL managed to find it whenever it was on)
I personally loved it, and if you want to see more, go buy the comics by the guys who created and wrote zim. Off the top of my head:
Johnny the homicidal maniac Squee Lenore Filler Bunny
Characters like Happy noodel boy are priceless =) GIVE ME MENTOS! I DEMAND TO BE FRESH! DO YOU DENY ME FRESHMAKER???!!
This is a horrible practice that big PC mfgs have been doing for YEARS. Compaq and HP seem to be some of the biggest offenders in my years as a PC tech.
Heres the situation. They give you one or more of the following.
- recovery partition and NO CDS (not even windows)
- CDs for OEM software and a Recovery CD. Now, the recovery CD would be all well and good, but, they usually have NO repair/reinstall on a different partition option. So you HAVE to format your HD to use this CD (who the HELL thought of this, i want to maim them).
Basically, either way your screwed. If you lose a windows system file to corruption (this seems to happen WAY too often), most of these poor customers end up reformatting their HD. And with a 'recovery partition', your still ****** most of the time .
The point is, do the increase of tech support calls and returns make up for the short sited cost savings on not putting in CDs of the system and all the OEM software you were supposedly getting (you dont really 'have' it unless you have a way to install it IMHO). No.
And for the record, when you buy an apple machine, you get restore Cd's, and you can count on their usefullness. It only takes a few CDs, but EVERYONE who has a mac has them. It helps in tech support SO much to know that everyone has at LEAST the base on CD. You get the OS, basic utilities, and Apple software. It should be a standard in the PC world, not an exception.
I used CMOS cameras, and whileits a little better, its still not a holy grail. There is still too much noise from pixle interpolation. Unfortunatly, the project i was working on had a budget of about 10k for camera/lights/etc, so i couldnt delve in to the 20k range of cameras, but i got to use a bunch of them. The difference in some of them is staggering. We have a LONG way till pro-sumer cameras catch up, unless this new tech is cheap and works as promised (hhahahahaha, scuse me). will have to wait and see...
Yes, does depend on lighting, but, on the computer, the perceived color will not shift as you might expect it too,and your channels are all messy (due to the noise of interpolation). It was so nice to have a solid color be the same RGB values across the whole swatch with no hiccups(20k camera back) vs. having a solid swatch that could vary at each pixle(and it does, a lot). All im saying is, its not necessaraly color value accurate from percieved real object to screen, but the lack of noise, and to KNOW that an evenly lit patch of color RGB(198,34,56) will be even across whatever area its supposed to be in is what you need to have. Its just more accurate. The macbeth chart was just for visual reference for the example(since most photographers know what they are).
yeah, but, the point is if you shoot something thats grey, and your color in your first generation (ie. the digital photograph) comes in not grey... your in for a world of pain as you try to color correct the rest of the image (as your blue may not be "blue", but those little RGB dots all mixed together to appear blue zoomed out)
WOW. I worked on a project trying to do some pretty accurate work with digital cameras, and I can tell you this... Until you spend around $20,000US, you will not even get close to your original. Heres an example.
The subject is a GretagMacbeth color checker (a bunch of square swatches of color with a black boarder)
With a pro-sumer camera, say around 3k, the image overall looks OK, but zoom in to any "grayscale" swatch, and you'll see that the image is still very much little RGB dots blurred together, and your grey never has all the same RGB vales as a true grey should.
As you go up to the 20k price range, a variety of tech is used to get more accurate color. The best I have seen was a back for a large format camera (can't remember the name for the life of me) that, when used in a studio setting only, could capture exact grey values for each pixel. What this means, is that if you took the captured image in to Photoshop, with no image correction, and you used the eyedropper over a grey swatch, your RGB values would read (x , x , x) over the whole swatch without a hiccup (1 pixel sample).
The camera achieved this by physically moving the CCD array so that it took something like 3 or 4 shots of the image (hence needing to be in a studio set up).
Now, a single CCD camera setup that can be used in the field, probably generating the same results as above, is going to be HUGE.
I don't know the target price range to start, but cameras using this tech, if it lives up to its promises will be HUGE in the pro photo field. Capturing a more true color vs. totally interpolated has enormous impact on color correction and manipulation images. In my experience, images for lower end cameras don't always manipulate in ways you expect because of the interpolated nature.
if your checking for replies, ive got a little good news for those with a hardware DVD decoder in their macs: the latest update to the DVD player in OSX now fully supports hardware playback on those B&W g3's! You can get it through the SofwareUpdate control panel. Works like a charm and has made some clients very happy. Odd that it didnt get more press.
I see a lot of price comparisons going on here, and while that's all well and good, people are tending to glaze over a few important facts.
1- These are workstation class machines (as far as Macs go). 2mb L3 cache per proc, 64-bit pci, 1000/100/10 NICs, superdrive, etc. Apple knows its target audience and delivers what they need.
2- Once you're up in this price range, the price is usually moot for the buyer. The people buying these machines will drop 10k for one box (for CPU, software, monitor, etc) and don't bat an eye. I mean, do you think the average consumer would shell out 600+ bucks JUST for Photoshop if they had no viable means for a Return on Investment? That's what a Mac is to the people who buy their high end machines - a way to get work done NOW. Any downtime means they don't get their RoI, and that's why these people don't usually build their own boxen, and why they will pay a premium for a Mac.
3- To respond to a few earlier posts.
--Macs are the deFacto standard for professional audio, and will only become more so. Id say 80% + market share for this. I've been to many recording studios, and without fail, they have a Mac or 2 hooked up.
--64bit pci.. Well, there are only a few kinds of cards you'll find in the average Mac. High end video, ultra160 SCSI, high end audio and special purpose accelerators (encoding, graphics effects, etc). All of these are high bandwidth tasks.
Yes, you COULD build a PC that has faster specs for less. But you'd be missing the point. Computers are tools. If you're making money with your computer, and you're in one of the businesses where Apple products excel, you're shooting yourself in the foot to go with anything else. And I imagine with OSX, that the sector where Apple products excel will only be getting bigger.
Here's a Pro Mac purchase for Graphic Design / ProSumer Video/ audio. Feel free to make up a comparable PC.
Right from the apple store... I know I could save money buying HD and ram elsewhere, but I am shooting for convenience. Make sure PC has - sound card, 64bit pci, firewire, case, motherboard, dual head support, and an OS (that has all the comparable apps)
(1 GHz PPC G4) x 2
1.5 GB dram
22" cinema display
iPod
SuperDrive
GeForce4 MX
56k modem
10/100/1000 NIC
keyboard/optical mouse
AirPort card
OSX.1
Dual channel ultra160 card
(72 GB ultra160 HD) x 2
AppleCare plan (3yr hardware replacement)
TOTAL............. $8,845.00
Now, the software....this is usually full retail, not going to look for deals.(mostly right from apple store)
DVD Studio Pro.. $999.00
FinalCut Pro3..$999.00
MS Office..$459.95
FileMaker Pro...$249.00
AfterEffects Pro..$1499.95
Illustrator...$399.00
InDesign...$699.95
Photoshop...$649.95
GoLive...$399.95
BBEdit...$119.95
Flash5...$399.95
That's enough to do most tasks......not going to look for pro audio equip or a pro video capture card (add about $3-6k for that at least)
TOTAL.........$6875.65
Time for the pro Audio and video cards
ProTools HD 1...$7995.00
Protools 192 IO... $3995.00
Can't think of a video card Mfg ATM, ill go with
Media100 for ~ 4,000
Add in some accessories
Graphics tablet..$400
Speakers...$600 (reference monitors)
17" studio display...$999 (definitely need a second display)
TOTAL....... $17,989
I'm sure im missing a few things, and this hasn't even included the supporting equipment that I would need (cameras, sound recording equip, scanners, etc, etc.)
So, for pretty much what you would have stuck inside the box, or hanging directly off of it, you have a grand total of..........
GRAND TOTAL......$33709.65
Can most people personally afford 7k+ for software alone? No. So now you see the market Macs are often used in, and the money generally tied in to them, and why people choose Macs to get work done. Fast. Efficiently. It has to be easy; it has to work, because they need to make back such a huge amount of money.
Slashdot Mirror
Ive bought systems at auctions, and they have NO password on the Administrator account. I fix computers for home users, and somehow, they have NO password on the Administrator account. The point i was trying to make is, "how can this happen"?
And, it still does not dilute the point that any password you might put in, by default, has 0 checks to see if its secure. It still does not change the fact that things like xupiter, bonzai buddy, and gator, are out there, and the average user is completly clueless of whats on his/her machine.
Any sysadmin worth his salt of COURSE tries for secure systems, but not all systems are managed by such people. The last computer i fixed, had ~20 explorer windows open automatically shortly after bootup - while extrodinary, not too musch worse then most home users boxes. And yes, NO administrator password.
I have not really cared enough to track down how these computers manage to not have an Admin password, as I usually end up reinstalling. (i know ad aware exists, and i use it, but at this point its easier to reinstall). I stick on mozilla, and get the user used to using it(this is ALWAYS difficult), but i explain, that if you use this, I wont have to come around again.
Theres something that IS microsofts fault that will let this worm wreak havok. When you install WinXP Home, and i believe Pro, it does NOT set a password for the Administrator account, or it can be bypassed eiasly (ive seen too many boxes w/o one to think its just a random thing).
Thats right. Usually all it takes to break in to a winXP box is to hit ctrl+alt+del x 2 and your back to the normal winNT login. Then type in Administrator, no password, and unless this person knows anything about windows, and often thats not enough, your in.
Add to that that all accounts made are Administrator by default, and DONT need passwords.
What REALLY hurts windows here is not being truely multiuser on a local machine. This can be felt when you try to lock down say a web kiosk, and as you edit the Local security policy, you can watch the system lock down around you, since you CANT change it on a per user basis.
Add to this things like the viral Xupiter, and windows is chock full of holes. And leaving a winXP box in non-admin node is almost worthless, because SO many programs require admin access rendering it a pain in the ass.
While in the article, the poster mentioned its not microsofts fault, it BLATENTLY is. Windows comes SO dumbed down, i have to spend hours locking it down, turning off all the annoying services and popups, etc. Not only that, it doesnt have a default to make sure you password is at least somewhat secure. The options DO exist. From a sys admin perspective, windows is a waste of time. They NEED to have a deafult "im not a dumb user" setting you choose at startup that will among other things, make sure your system is tight and passworded.
They also need to go truly multiuser, clean up permissions w/o making them useless, and make EACH local user have a SEPERATE security policy, with an emphasis on editing it when you first install.
To put thins in perspective, in a public user setting, you leave an XP box out for use for a week, and an OSX box, i guarentee you, even the most basic setup, the OSX box will be exactly how you installed it, with a bunch of crap on the desktop.
The windows box will have every spyware app on it, stuff deleted, etc, etc.
OH, Xupiter just installed itself again, i have to go...
I would like some proof that bush is no longer vested in any way with big enrgy.
For that matter, lets look in to cheney.
Not vested means he also has no "good friends" and campaign donators in that bunch. It means he owns no stock or any company that benifits from the companies in question.
GWB and his posse is also were the ones who said there was no price fixing going on the whole time, even though now execs are coming forward ADMITTING to it.
You dont need to be a GWB fan to get your facts wrong.
enron fun .com crash. California may have made some mistakes in its deregulation, but this was blatent abuse of the system, which was allowed by the president to go on WAY too long. You dont drain that much money out of an already faltering economy and expect it to do well, and its people to be prosperous.
This brings us to internet taxes: just a bad idea.
Eventually, every state is going to want a pice of the action, and in the end, its the consumer who gets dicked once again, and it will be the end of online shopping as we know it. I already find it hard to order items from in state, as shipping and tax together mean i can get a better deal locally a lot of the time. Maybe thats what they want, but I feel regualtiong this will be stupid, and it will do nothing to help the economy in the long run.
Califronia got hit in 2 huge ways at te same time. The above is just further proof of what people already knew: Enron and other energy companies bilked california out of millions? billions? This, at a time when californians were in a slide due to the
ok, as a gut reaction, id want to say MPEG4 should be free...
but the majority of the comments here seem to come from people who must not know how businesses run.
Some people, a lot in fact, actually get PAID to write code. Yes, they make some money so they can eat and buy mt. dew. Now, the companies who pay these programmers obviusly need to generate some revenue.. you see where this is going?
OK, now that the econ lesson is over, lets move to the licensing - is it not fair to ask that people who will make a profit off of your product, then in turn give you a small amount of the proceeds for you developing that product? I know this goes against everything you all beleive is so right.. but in the end... the people who developed it might like to continue toeat. (i know this is a gross oversimplification, but hey)
No on to microsoft: what do you do when you micorsoft and a superior technology comes around that you dont own?
1. Buy it
-or, if thats not an option-
2. Drive it in to the ground
MS doesnt sell stuff cheap for no reason - they sell it cheap to drive out competition. All the time, everytime. Look back at history, this is NOT different at all.
Yes, im sure the mpegla understands the benifits of releasin it for free, but if MS can charrge... why cant the for a superior product?
And dont be fooled, think in broader terms - mpeg4 has a planned ubiquity that could make it just as important to the next video revolution (ie. vidio phones etc) as the original quicktime was to desktop video.
and keep in mind - as god as any open source project is... making it robust enough to service the needs of both the content creators and viewrs, as well as be in enough distribution to command that it be used in the first place are of utmost importance. You ask the average consumer if they know what *insert oss codec project here* is and youl get crickets. Its not to say tey dont meet some of the above criteria, just not all.
A puny amount of people use quicktime compared to windows media. But, it passes because its in high distribution, and... almost ALL video you see on TV, film, etc, has passed thru quicktime.
rant off, im losin track and caffiene beckons!
FIrewire_b has different connectors to allow different types of cableing media, and for the higher speeds.
4.5m[3200Mbs] for 9pin copper
100m[3200Mbs] for glass optical fiber
100m[100Mbs] over standard CAT-5 (tons of uses for this)
50m[200Mbs] step index plastic optical fiber
100m[200Mbs] hard polymer clad plastic optical fiber
in other words. its now EXTREAMLY flexible, AND fuly backwards compatable.
fom apples site:
FireWire 800
The FireWire advantage can be summed up in three words: speed, speed and more speed -- at 800Mbps, it has more than two times the usable bandwidth of USB 2.0, which makes it the perfect choice for high-speed storage and serious video capture. The extra speed of FireWire 800 over USB 2.0 makes FireWire much more suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications like video and graphics, which often consume hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data per file. For instance, single hour of DV-format video consumes about 13 thousand megabytes (13 GB). Other benefits include:
Highly efficient architecture. IEEE 1394b reduces delays in arbitration, while 8B10B encoding reduces signal distortion and increases throughput. (See technology brief for details.)
Better user experience. No matter how you connect devices together, FireWire 800 just works. In fact, you can even loop your FireWire 800 chain back to your Mac for redundancy while performing live.
Backwards compatibility. Manufacturers have adopted FireWire for a broad range of devices, such as DV cameras, hard drives, digital still cameras, professional audio, printers, scanners and home entertainment. Adapter cables for the FireWire 800 9-pin connector let you use these FireWire 400 products on the FireWire 800 port.
Trailblazing features
FireWire 400-based Digital Video editing enabled a revolution in desktop video production. The combination of low-cost, high-quality DV camcorders, built-in FireWire and Apple's award-winning Final Cut Pro and iMovie video editing software allows the creation of broadcast-quality video on desktop computers. FireWire 800 shares the revolutionary features of FireWire 400:
Flexible connectivity options. Connect up to 63 computers and devices on a single bus -- you can even share a camera between two Macs.
Real-time data delivery. Critical for audio and video applications where delayed or out-of-order frames are unacceptable, FireWire can guarantee isochronous delivery of data.
On-bus power. While USB 2.0 allows at most 2.5W of power -- enough for a simple, slow device like a mouse -- FireWire devices can provide or consume up to 45W of power, plenty for high-performance disk drives and rapid battery charging. That's why iPod only needs one cord for both data and power.
Plug-and-play connectivity. Simply plug in a device and it works. In Mac OS X, plugging in a DV camera launches iMovie, while connecting an iPod starts iTunes and automatically syncs your music library.
Oh, one other thing that really kills a macs performance is not so muh the cpu, or the os, but the current slow busses and ram used. This is why in certain areas, the macs performance has not gone where you would expect it. I sspect when the new motherbord revs with all the buzzwords like HyperTransport are released, much of the current performance bottlenecks will cease to be.
One thing not harped on nearly enough is how productive the UI of an application alone allows you to be. People dont shell out 30k+ and tens of hours of trianing for an Avid station for no reason. You need a UI that lets you realize your project with the maximum of flexibility, and doesnt get in your way. Editing video can be highly complex, and both FCP and Avid meet the UI + feature requirements to make them market leaders. I cant tell you how frustrating premire and other pc editing apps are to use. But you dont have to take my word for it.
... well, for OSX, this is definitly a basterd child as of late it seems. And i dont know if al the features overlap, but Shake blows AE away as far as i can tell... I think it woul also make a far better comparison. Actually, seeing shake being used is fun to watch, if not a bit daunting.
Secondly, After Effects
In the end, its the tools that let you be the most productive while maintaining a feature set to let you realize whatever you invision that win the day. And productivity is not just how fast you render. But go try FCP+Maya+Shake+photoshop+dvd studio pro on a nice 23'in lcd and see if you ever go back =P
PS: Does ANYONE know a good comsumer DVD authoring package on PC tht has a decent UI, costs less then 500, and has at LEAST the capabilities of iDVD2? There is a serius drought of good PC aps to do this for anyone but pros.
One thing that sems to be missing in all of this is that Apple is a public, for profit company, releasing code in to the public domain.
While im sure the GPL et al. are great, what apple does is give themselves some protection, and try to make it so that their code doesnt get forked and messy with no way "keep up" with it. To illustrate the point, lets say rendevous is released under a "take it and do whatever the hell you like" liscense. CompanyA decides to add something, and releases a million widgets with their unpublised modification. Lets also say that this modificaiotn makes their produch not interroperate with anything else based on the standard. Now, while you may say "thats companyA's perogative", you are also probably not realizing that companyA is so often microsoft. So you see, the protection built in stops companyA form "embrace, extend, break" and gives OTHERS using the standard sort of a guarentee that they wont be left out in the cold. If i find a bug, i can be sure that my addition will work with the standard that everyone has. Its not perfect, its not the same on the outside, but, to all you detractors, it has its inherant merits, and should not be judged with tunnel vision.
1-brightness
the UI is the color sceme it is to maintain contrast among the ui elements, and in my experience on a FS imac for a week, it works exceptional in ANY lighting conditions.
2-icons
First, the OS was made to handle the large icons, its a neglegable amount of memory these days, and if made well, they scale wonderfully down to 16x16 thanks to OSX's exception scaling algorythems. Also, you will note that apple guidelines change slightly depending on the kind of app.. i wont repeat it hear, but bottome line is - the work. I dont know whay people are scared of good graphic design.
3-consistancy
QT, iTunes,iPhoto, iDvd.. notice something in common with all these apps? Really, if you htink for a minute about it, not only are the completly consistant with each other, BUT, they are also a special kind of application. Notice, there is only ONE window containing all the functionality in the app? You wont see Word using the brushed metal interface.... but i can guarentee the next iApp will. They are simeple, single function programs, that are very good at what they do.
-Fourth point. Drop down dialogs out of captions are not as good as they seem to be. Apple suggests that ok, cancel, etc should be put on bottom of dialog. So you get two ok and two cancel buttons. Without some visible border between. -- i really have no clue what you mean.
5-taken care of in jaguar. This was a holdover from OpenStep. The icon didnt even change in 5+ years hehe.
6-if you were less then 1024x768, i wouldnt be running OSX in the first place. Ive never seen something that sounds as obtrusive as what you mention seems to be. Steve got it right- be consistant.
7- i have ONE thing to say about this... ive NEVER, ever, ever, never, ONCE used a skin for ANY application that made it more useable. And ive tried a lot of skinning.
8-Well, per your rebuttle, ill say this - tabbed interfaces are not MDI. At least not in the sence that apple refers to it. Apple is clearly against MDI as defined by the windows gui. And it, is a vastly stupid way of working (prolly my BIGGEST peeve about windows)
OSX gets some stuff wrong, but you mention most of the things they got right.
Consmers have been screwed by hollywood already, ill break it down:
HDTV, as a potential standard, has been around for a LONG time, but the bug media players keep stonewalling, and pusing back the date the FCC would have them force adoption by, among other things, throwing a million different standards out there and not agreeing on one. I seem to remember the FCC deadline being 2002..... And now, i have to wait another year to get what will more then likely be a defective standard. The reason, is they need to FINALLY invest in an infrastruture change after forcing consumers to stuick with the relativly low bandwidth and quality TV we still have after all these years. This then creates a catch-22, as it has for years... BigMedia doesnt want to invest in something where there is no market, tv makers cant drop prices and make a "standard" box because BigMedia wont decide on a standard and wont/cant release content, and then consumers may want but have no content or way to view it.
The end result of this will be: consumers get screwed out of a GOOD standard that provides (potentially) excellent quality, and i fear it will end up with inferior quality and useability.
On to DVD: People have know for YEARS that DVD does not provide the bandwidth to do full HDTV content. Issue one, 9gb is too small, issue 2, home readrs cant get to the datarate needed to even read off a datastream at that resolution. So, once again,insted of taking an oportunity to think ahead for once, we will end up with a standard that is 2 years dead when it comes out. And consumers STILL need to buy a new player. Most just wont know they are buying obsolete technology as they have been for years.
Im completly frustrated about all this, and the FCC needs to apoint an OUTSIDE firm with no intrest in bigmedia to hammer out standards that are good for the consumer, are timely, and have potential of more then 2 years ago. I dont know why what is happening is acceptable to anyone.
One problem that MS faces is mindshare.. they are after all a VERY high profile company who is publicly traded. This of course translates in to "Everything we do has to turn a buck."
Now, Apple seems to have done this very thing and still make money, but, they have a few advatages. First, the bulk of the underpinnings of OSX are of course, on some free liscense. Second, people now expect Apple to so wild and crazy things, ever since the $1 ceo steped foot back on the Apple campus.
Microsoft, unfortunatly, probably has more conservative investors, who for MS not spewing out small upgrades, (i call it printing money) would read something crazy and revolutionary as a "sell NOW" sign.
Now, if somehow MS get sover the hurdle of not making something that directly generates revenue, you have to consider what they would actually do. The web has forever changed the windows hodgepodge. Updates to drivers, IE exploits, and the ilk can be had the minute they are ready. This brings up some interesting possibilities for MS. Lets look at microsofts key techs:
Visual Studio
DirectX
IE
Office
NT(2k, XP, whatever else)
First, a developer would need access to the following for opensourcing anything to be worthwhile: directX, parts of visual studio, fileformats from office, and at least 'some' of the core os.
Developers need hooks to the UI and other parts of the system, of course, in the long run, though some may disagree, Apple did it right - "hey, why DO people buy our product over someone elses? UI, Quicktime, Apple only apps, integration." Ok, keep our money makers next to our hearts, and open source the rest."
This is what microsoft needs to look at. What do they sell that people are buying windows for, what makes it uniqe, and will keep people buying. Take that, opensource the rest(its all VERY debatable, so, debate =).
Im rambling now, but after carefull thought, if MS needs to go opensource, its pretty much got to be the core os, dev tools, tie-ins for UI and other high level things.
Financially, it will jhurt them no matter what, buit that would be the point if this was handed down as a DOJ punishment. In the end, windows would be scads better after it happened.
rox my sox
:p
nuff said
I dont think the number has gone down, i think the nuber of people lying on the survey went up :p
Well, one thing that hasnt been hit upon is that SOMEONE is more the likely going to be making money on everyone having to have this "device" in all consumer electronics. And that someone prolly has their hands dipped deep in to trying to get this legislation passed... not naming names of course.
Actually, the worst thing is that this would cost electronics manufatures billions of dollars in hardware engeneering, software engeneering, manufacturing, basically every step. They would have to retool all their products. And that 'savings' gets passed on to the consumer. So, we, the common folk, get the royal cd up the nether regions so that the entertainment industy can make it illigal to copy anything? Yeah....
What the entertainment industry needs to do is quit whining about people who copy. Its been around forever. People will COPY YOU STUFF untill the world comes to an end. All the money they throw at content protection will backfire in their face. people dont CARE if its a perfect digital reproduction as much as they seem to think. What these folks need to do, is embrace technology - in fact, push it ahead.
Want to stop perfect reproductions? Not gonna happen 100%, but heres how to get some lost sales.
-if your going to continue to charge 18bucks a CD, at LEAST put some decent content on it. I know a lot of CDs have a video or 2, but think more like DVD. Id more likely buy a CD at 18 bucks if it had videos, interviews, PDF lyric sheets and guitar tabs, songs allready in MP3 (no bs plz thx), active links to tour dates, discography, bios... well, GIVE me my 18bucks worth, make it so that owning a CD has VALUE over having just the MP3s of the songs. And dont just put your advertising package you send to MTV on the disk (thats pretty much what ive seen in the way of 'extra' content.
-DVD/TV -> HDTV. Well, DUUH. The slow embrace of HDTV because of short sighted bean counters is going to be a thorn in everyones side soon. Why? because an industry is currently selling a bunch of equipment that is actually going to keep this technology away. Why? From a previus article... you cant, or barely can fit a full 2hr movie at full 1080 resolution on a dopuble layer, double sided DVD. Not only that, no DVD players out there in the consumer world can even read data fast enough to do HDTV off a DVD. Adding to the problem, all 'HDTVs' are apparently now defunct, as the 'final version' of the spec is just now being decided/was decided upon. And HDTV in itself could have been the holy grail for these companies... Why? People dont have access to tech to make/rip/distribute 20+gigs of data in an efficient manner. You dont NEED copy protection. If they just stayed ahead of the curve on personaly tech (DVD was about, oh 5 years late), it owuldnt be an issue. As anyone can attest, DIVXs are prolly the largest form of vidoe-media over the net well see in a loooooong time. If they embraced that and looked forward, wed be enjoying beautiful HDTVs, DVD2(or, *gulp* we might have to go back to magnetic tape), and content rich CDs for the last year.
The lesson? The content industry is killing itself, by stifling inovation on new tech, and trying like mad to not embrace the digital world. Embrace...evolve...prosper - simple formula.
But i can see it form their point of view. Do YOU want to be the one to tell everyone who has a DVD player and HDTV now that when HDTV HAS to be out (i think the FCC still has this mandated) youll have to buy NEW stuff to play HDTV content? I sure dont, cus im already an angry consumer.
so much for proof reading...
you CANT do that on television.
turkey TV
ok, i think those are the big ones.. no flames plz thx
Well, in talking to the guys responsible for the creative side of Zim, it seems that the biggest thing going against it is the age group that likes it the most. Apparently, Nick doesnt give a poop about anyone over 11. This is a crying shame. All us gen-x'ers grew up on You can do that on television, turcky TV, all the way up to ren and stimpy.... Nick should get rid of crap-at-night, and pander to the generation of people who have name recognition and affinity to the network since its inception. Zim, ren and stimpy, think "adult-swim". Its a shame nick has seemingly lost the collective brain cell running the show there. The other thing i gleened is that Zim is a Viacom property, and the creators have no control over it whatsoever (the show was created at the behest of nick, coming to Jhonen apparently). Chances of ever seeing a new zim episode? Pretty close to 0. Put that one in the f***ed up by viacom marketing trashbin.
And BTW, when they say the ratings were poor, keep in mind a few things:
1. People over 11 dont count apparently in Nick ratings
2. It was on at the END of regular nick programming
3. It had no consistant time slot (i STILL managed to find it whenever it was on)
I personally loved it, and if you want to see more, go buy the comics by the guys who created and wrote zim. Off the top of my head:
Johnny the homicidal maniac
Squee
Lenore
Filler Bunny
Characters like Happy noodel boy are priceless =)
GIVE ME MENTOS! I DEMAND TO BE FRESH! DO YOU DENY ME FRESHMAKER???!!
This is a horrible practice that big PC mfgs have been doing for YEARS. Compaq and HP seem to be some of the biggest offenders in my years as a PC tech.
Heres the situation. They give you one or more of the following.
- recovery partition and NO CDS (not even windows)
- CDs for OEM software and a Recovery CD. Now, the recovery CD would be all well and good, but, they usually have NO repair/reinstall on a different partition option. So you HAVE to format your HD to use this CD (who the HELL thought of this, i want to maim them).
Basically, either way your screwed. If you lose a windows system file to corruption (this seems to happen WAY too often), most of these poor customers end up reformatting their HD. And with a 'recovery partition', your still ****** most of the time .
The point is, do the increase of tech support calls and returns make up for the short sited cost savings on not putting in CDs of the system and all the OEM software you were supposedly getting (you dont really 'have' it unless you have a way to install it IMHO). No.
And for the record, when you buy an apple machine, you get restore Cd's, and you can count on their usefullness. It only takes a few CDs, but EVERYONE who has a mac has them. It helps in tech support SO much to know that everyone has at LEAST the base on CD. You get the OS, basic utilities, and Apple software. It should be a standard in the PC world, not an exception.
I use logo for ALL my programming needs. I think its what win98 was written in too. Can get much more powerfull then this.
I used CMOS cameras, and whileits a little better, its still not a holy grail. There is still too much noise from pixle interpolation. Unfortunatly, the project i was working on had a budget of about 10k for camera/lights/etc, so i couldnt delve in to the 20k range of cameras, but i got to use a bunch of them. The difference in some of them is staggering. We have a LONG way till pro-sumer cameras catch up, unless this new tech is cheap and works as promised (hhahahahaha, scuse me). will have to wait and see...
Yes, does depend on lighting, but, on the computer, the perceived color will not shift as you might expect it too,and your channels are all messy (due to the noise of interpolation). It was so nice to have a solid color be the same RGB values across the whole swatch with no hiccups(20k camera back) vs. having a solid swatch that could vary at each pixle(and it does, a lot). All im saying is, its not necessaraly color value accurate from percieved real object to screen, but the lack of noise, and to KNOW that an evenly lit patch of color RGB(198,34,56) will be even across whatever area its supposed to be in is what you need to have. Its just more accurate. The macbeth chart was just for visual reference for the example(since most photographers know what they are).
yeah, but, the point is if you shoot something thats grey, and your color in your first generation (ie. the digital photograph) comes in not grey... your in for a world of pain as you try to color correct the rest of the image (as your blue may not be "blue", but those little RGB dots all mixed together to appear blue zoomed out)
WOW. I worked on a project trying to do some pretty accurate work with digital cameras, and I can tell you this... Until you spend around $20,000US, you will not even get close to your original. Heres an example.
The subject is a GretagMacbeth color checker (a bunch of square swatches of color with a black boarder)
With a pro-sumer camera, say around 3k, the image overall looks OK, but zoom in to any "grayscale" swatch, and you'll see that the image is still very much little RGB dots blurred together, and your grey never has all the same RGB vales as a true grey should.
As you go up to the 20k price range, a variety of tech is used to get more accurate color. The best I have seen was a back for a large format camera (can't remember the name for the life of me) that, when used in a studio setting only, could capture exact grey values for each pixel. What this means, is that if you took the captured image in to Photoshop, with no image correction, and you used the eyedropper over a grey swatch, your RGB values would read (x , x , x) over the whole swatch without a hiccup (1 pixel sample).
The camera achieved this by physically moving the CCD array so that it took something like 3 or 4 shots of the image (hence needing to be in a studio set up).
Now, a single CCD camera setup that can be used in the field, probably generating the same results as above, is going to be HUGE.
I don't know the target price range to start, but cameras using this tech, if it lives up to its promises will be HUGE in the pro photo field. Capturing a more true color vs. totally interpolated has enormous impact on color correction and manipulation images. In my experience, images for lower end cameras don't always manipulate in ways you expect because of the interpolated nature.
if your checking for replies, ive got a little good news for those with a hardware DVD decoder in their macs: the latest update to the DVD player in OSX now fully supports hardware playback on those B&W g3's! You can get it through the SofwareUpdate control panel. Works like a charm and has made some clients very happy. Odd that it didnt get more press.
I see a lot of price comparisons going on here, and while that's all well and good, people are tending to glaze over a few important facts.
.. $999.00
..$999.00
...$7995.00
... $3995.00
1- These are workstation class machines (as far as Macs go). 2mb L3 cache per proc, 64-bit pci, 1000/100/10 NICs, superdrive, etc. Apple knows its target audience and delivers what they need.
2- Once you're up in this price range, the price is usually moot for the buyer. The people buying these machines will drop 10k for one box (for CPU, software, monitor, etc) and don't bat an eye. I mean, do you think the average consumer would shell out 600+ bucks JUST for Photoshop if they had no viable means for a Return on Investment? That's what a Mac is to the people who buy their high end machines - a way to get work done NOW. Any downtime means they don't get their RoI, and that's why these people don't usually build their own boxen, and why they will pay a premium for a Mac.
3- To respond to a few earlier posts.
--Macs are the deFacto standard for professional audio, and will only become more so. Id say 80% + market share for this. I've been to many recording studios, and without fail, they have a Mac or 2 hooked up.
--64bit pci.. Well, there are only a few kinds of cards you'll find in the average Mac. High end video, ultra160 SCSI, high end audio and special purpose accelerators (encoding, graphics effects, etc). All of these are high bandwidth tasks.
Yes, you COULD build a PC that has faster specs for less. But you'd be missing the point. Computers are tools. If you're making money with your computer, and you're in one of the businesses where Apple products excel, you're shooting yourself in the foot to go with anything else. And I imagine with OSX, that the sector where Apple products excel will only be getting bigger.
Here's a Pro Mac purchase for Graphic Design / ProSumer Video/ audio. Feel free to make up a comparable PC.
Right from the apple store... I know I could save money buying HD and ram elsewhere, but I am shooting for convenience. Make sure PC has - sound card, 64bit pci, firewire, case, motherboard, dual head support, and an OS (that has all the comparable apps)
(1 GHz PPC G4) x 2
1.5 GB dram
22" cinema display
iPod
SuperDrive
GeForce4 MX
56k modem
10/100/1000 NIC
keyboard/optical mouse
AirPort card
OSX.1
Dual channel ultra160 card
(72 GB ultra160 HD) x 2
AppleCare plan (3yr hardware replacement)
TOTAL............. $8,845.00
Now, the software....this is usually full retail, not going to look for deals.(mostly right from apple store)
DVD Studio Pro
FinalCut Pro3
MS Office..$459.95
FileMaker Pro...$249.00
AfterEffects Pro..$1499.95
Illustrator...$399.00
InDesign...$699.95
Photoshop...$649.95
GoLive...$399.95
BBEdit...$119.95
Flash5...$399.95
That's enough to do most tasks......not going to look for pro audio equip or a pro video capture card (add about $3-6k for that at least)
TOTAL.........$6875.65
Time for the pro Audio and video cards
ProTools HD 1
Protools 192 IO
Can't think of a video card Mfg ATM, ill go with
Media100 for ~ 4,000
Add in some accessories
Graphics tablet..$400
Speakers...$600 (reference monitors)
17" studio display...$999 (definitely need a second display)
TOTAL....... $17,989
I'm sure im missing a few things, and this hasn't even included the supporting equipment that I would need (cameras, sound recording equip, scanners, etc, etc.)
So, for pretty much what you would have stuck inside the box, or hanging directly off of it, you have a grand total of..........
GRAND TOTAL......$33709.65
Can most people personally afford 7k+ for software alone? No. So now you see the market Macs are often used in, and the money generally tied in to them, and why people choose Macs to get work done. Fast. Efficiently. It has to be easy; it has to work, because they need to make back such a huge amount of money.