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>> Haha! And I bet that CAD software was the most expensive thing on the
>> whole PC, by a mile... ;-)
>
> Yeh, I think it is about 10x the price of the laptop itself :-)
Only 10x? Bargin!
that *I* usually work with...
>> Maybe that's it then. Maybe the reason I still see all broadcast
>> signals in 4:3 aspect is because the receiver is resizing them?
>
> I would definitely check the settings on the receiver.
Mkay...
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> Oh, wait - what laptop do you have?
Some HP one, with Intel T9600 CPU and nVidia FX770M, it's quite nifty and
surprisingly the battery lasts for 4 or 5 hours if you're not doing anything
particularly CPU or GPU intensive.
I think mine was about 1500 GBP, although I think our IT guy has some scam
going with the supplier, because his prices always seem to be way more than
I find them for on other websites ;-)
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scott wrote:
>> Oh, wait - what laptop do you have?
>
> Some HP one, with Intel T9600 CPU and nVidia FX770M, it's quite nifty
> and surprisingly the battery lasts for 4 or 5 hours if you're not doing
> anything particularly CPU or GPU intensive.
Yeah, I'm still quite surprised at how well the batteries on my laptop
last. It's always been my experience that the battery specs on the
packet are nonesense and the battery *actually* lasts about 20 minutes.
But my current laptop _really will_ run for over an hour without needing
charge.
(And, since it's the first laptop I've seen with a *working* glidepad,
you can ACTUALLY USE IT ON YOUR LAP! Amazing...)
>
> I think mine was about 1500 GBP.
I'm glad I was already sitting down. :-)
Man, 10x that... that's expensive! Hell, it's almost worth stealing the
laptop just for the software that's stored on it! ;-)
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> Man, 10x that... that's expensive! Hell, it's almost worth stealing the
> laptop just for the software that's stored on it! ;-)
Yeh good luck with that, assuming you managed to get past the hard drive
encryption somehow, the software won't run without a license. It picks up
the license from the network (you can "borrow" it for up to 14 days if you
want), so you'd either need to hack my VPN account too, or get physical
access to our site somehow. Anyway, once we knew it was stolen I'd
definitely notice if that machine had picked up the license, and then I'd
ask IT to block it :-)
Easier to just download the software from bitTorrent along with a crack...
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On 4/26/2010 3:19 AM, Invisible wrote:
> I mean, if you're going to force everybody to buy a new TV, new
> receiver, new type of disk and a new machine to play it, why it increase
> the resolution *significantly*? Why only increase it by a small amount?
> I don't understand that.
Partly bandwidth related. The UHF/VHF frequency space has only a certain
amount of bandwidth per channel. Now, while a HD broadcast in 1080p at
an "acceptable" compression ratio might fit nicely within the allotted
bandwidth for a channel, doubling the horizontal and vertical
resolution, for example quadruples the number of pixels on the screen.
Eventually, the video would need to be compressed to the point where the
image would be nothing more than a macroblock-fest.
> (And hell, half the equipment and content that says "HD" on it isn't
> even full resolution anyway... Why allow half a dozen resolutions when
> it would have been far simpler for the designers and less misleading for
> the public if they allow only one resolution?)
We're in a transitional period right now. Give it time. What really irks
me is the way the cable company has been handling content. They have
allotted no fewer than 4 channels per local station, which is, IMO
completely unnecessary, and (if the channels aren't just aliases, and
some aren't: they're analog variants!) it's a horrible waste of
bandwidth. I can understand simulcasting the analog variant for those
who do not have HD equipment, but do not want to rent a box.
> Hell, when I was at uni ten years ago we had computers exceeding these
> resolutions. With Windows NT 4.0, Service Pack 4. Has technology not
> moved on since then? It's not like there's any technical challenge to
> using a higher resolution, after all...
In both the digital flat panel and the CRT's case there is some
technical challenge to higher resolutions: Eventually the frequencies
involved get so high that capacitance becomes VERY important, and
circuit design becomes exceptionally tricky, to the point where traces
at certain distances from each other (whether on the same layer, or
overlapped in different layers of the board) will essentially act as a
low-pass filter killing the signal.
> PS. I am similarly baffled by the current fashion for "widescreen" TVs.
> Given that 99.998% of all video content ever created is in 4:3 aspect,
> what the hell is the advantage of buying a TV with a 16:9 aspect?? I
> don't understand.
Movies.
Going back to why movies went widescreen (they used to be displayed at a
square ratio, even!) has to do with how the human visual field works, we
have a wider angle of view on the horizontal axis than we do on the
vertical.
--
~Mike
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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:19:45 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> Given that 99.998% of all video content ever created is in 4:3 aspect,
Most of what's created today 16:9 or some other widescreen format. Older
stuff? Maybe not "99.998%", but certainly a majority of the content ever
created by mankind is likely a 4:3 aspect. Except movies.
> what the hell is the advantage of buying a TV with a 16:9 aspect?? I
> don't understand.
If you watch more modern content, then you can better utilize the space
for a larger system. Me, I use my 16:9 projection system mostly for
watching HDTV and movies, so 99.998% of what I watch is actually 16:9.
Jim
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>> I mean, if you're going to force everybody to buy a new TV, new
>> receiver, new type of disk and a new machine to play it, why it increase
>> the resolution *significantly*? Why only increase it by a small amount?
>> I don't understand that.
>
> Partly bandwidth related. The UHF/VHF frequency space has only a certain
> amount of bandwidth per channel. Now, while a HD broadcast in 1080p at
> an "acceptable" compression ratio might fit nicely within the allotted
> bandwidth for a channel, doubling the horizontal and vertical
> resolution, for example quadruples the number of pixels on the screen.
> Eventually, the video would need to be compressed to the point where the
> image would be nothing more than a macroblock-fest.
Quadrupling the number of pixels doesn't necessarily mean that the
*compressed* signal takes more bandwidth. I'm sure I'm not the first
person to notice that using higher resolutions tends to make the video
more compressible. (Although, sure, I imagine there's a limit to how far
you can feasibly go.)
Then again, since we replaced our old CRT with a shiny new LCD, suddenly
I notice that just about *everything* on TV has DCT artifacts all over
it. (I guess the CRT was too blurry to show this.) It's quite annoying.
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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Partly bandwidth related.
Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day when
the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in realtime?
When do you think that day will be?
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On 4/26/2010 4:49 AM, Invisible wrote:
> I especially love how I have a widescreen TV, but you have to manually
> flip between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect. Even though it's connected by a
> digital link, so you'd think it could *detect* which kind of signal it's
> receiving...
Heck, the device producing the signal even does this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen_signaling
There is a slight issue, of course with HD signals, since they're only
intended for the 16:9 aspect ratio, if a program was originally intended
for the 4:3 ratio, it will be "pillar-boxed", but the signal is still
16:9, so you must manually change the TV's widescreen mode if you want
to fill the screen.
> That being the case, it's not entirely easy to tell whether you're
> watching a widescreen broadcast, or a normal one with the top cut off.
> (Unless of course you configure the TV to show black bars at the side -
> but it's my mum's TV, and she always complains when I configure it that
> way.)
I don't care for the stretching, though when viewing 4:3 full-screen on
my TV it's not as severe as some, the only reason I do stretch it,
though is because my TV is an old-school CRT projector and prone to
burn-in. If it weren't for that, I'd display 4:3 in its native format.
Perhaps your mother has the same concerns?
--
~Mike
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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:15:28 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
>
> Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day when
> the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in realtime?
>
> When do you think that day will be?
About five years ago.
Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?
--
FE
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