Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/11/22 04:15:
> That's interesting. I was in some shop the other day, and they had a 
> huge LCD with "HD Ready" splashed all over it, and huge cardboard signs 
> saying "WOW! LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE!" And I remember thinking "...I 
> can't see any difference."
> 
> I mean, let's face it, HD is only 4x the imagine resolution. If you 
> compare the two side by side you'd probably notice. But if you just look 
> at an HD TV, there really isn't much to notice. The picture is very 
> slightly more crisp, but that's about it.
Do you mean 4x the total numbet of pixels, or 4x the number of LINES?
4x the pixels == double the pixels per lines and double the lines.
4x the lines is more like 16x the resolution!

> 
> Certainly it hardly seems worth paying £7,000 just for a very slightly 
> more crisp picture. I could buy a *car* for that amount of money! Hell, 
> I could almost buy a copy of *Oracle* for that!
You are slightly outdated! HD prices have come down a LOT in just 2 years.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when you look at waterfalls, dust, 
rain, snow, etc, and think: "If only I had a fractalized, vector based 
particle-system modeler with collision detection!"

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Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/11/22 07:55:
> scott wrote:
>>> Must take some serious MPEG compression to fit that onto a disk - 
>>> even a bluray disk has only finite storage capacity.
>>
>> 50 GB max IIRC.
> 
> Well, let me see...
> 
> 1,920 pixels x 1,080 pixels = 2,073,600 pixels / frame
> 
> 3 bytes / pixel x 2,073,600 pixels / frame = 6,220,800 bytes / frame
> 
> 25 frames / second x 6,220,800 bytes / frame = 155,520,000 bytes / second
> 
> Approx 148.31 MB / second. (Woah, that's some transfer rate!)
> 
> 8.69 GB / minute.
> 
> 512.40 GB / hour. So only 10x bigger than the disk. ;-)
> 
Now, each non-key frame only contains the difference from the preceding one. 
Normaly, every frame is compressed. The end result is that you have compression 
ratio well over 10, it can get in the 20 to 50 time.
They probably use MPEG2, it gives you about twice the compression of regular 
MPEG (MPEG1), with a slightly beter quality.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when you think it's a failing of the 
universe that the large software companies like Corel or Fractal Design do NOT 
export to POV primitives.
George Erhard

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Alain wrote:
> They probably use MPEG2, it gives you about twice the compression of 

I believe they do. At least for standard def DVD.

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And lo on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:50:12 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> scott wrote:
>>> That's interesting. I was in some shop the other day, and they had a  
>>> huge LCD with "HD Ready" splashed all over it, and huge cardboard  
>>> signs saying "WOW! LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE!" And I remember thinking  
>>> "...I can't see any difference."
>>  They were probably feeding in some crappy HD or worse even SD  
>> material... NExt time take along a copy of the pixar shorts on blu-ray  
>> and ask them to play that on a 1080p TV.  It will knock you out!
>
> They were running National Geographic HD. (Doesn't mean they had an HD  
> decoder of course...) Lots of long short of mountains, jungles, big  
> savanas and stuff that's clearly meant to make you go "wow". It honestly  
> didn't look much different to what I get on my 7 year old TV at home.

Remembering that all the training they've had in electronics is to  
remember to ask "So you want the extended warranty on that?". It's scary  
at times watching HD televisions being fed an input via an unshielded  
multifeed or from an HD Box via a SCART connector.

>>> I mean, let's face it, HD is only 4x the imagine resolution.
>>  "only".  What resolution do run your desktop in?  Now imagine dividing  
>> that by 4.  It wouldn't be pretty...
>
> As far as I know, a normal TV operates at something like 300x200 or so.  
> That means that 4x would only be 600x400 - still extremely low.

As has already been mentioned PAL has 625 lines with normally only 576  
active lines.

>>  Total cost £825.
>
> I think we've established that the shop was overpriced. ;-)

You seem to have a few of those :-)

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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>> They probably use MPEG2, it gives you about twice the compression of 
> 
> I believe they do. At least for standard def DVD.

The bluray standard allows MPEG2, h264 or VC-1 to be used.

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scott wrote:
>>> They probably use MPEG2, it gives you about twice the compression of 
>>
>> I believe they do. At least for standard def DVD.
> 
> The bluray standard allows MPEG2, h264 or VC-1 to be used.

Had to look them up. Cool.

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scott wrote:
> The bluray standard allows MPEG2, h264 or VC-1 to be used.

h264 is pretty impressive, even if it does require a Cray to run at 
realtime speeds.  my own attempt to rip a VHS tape to an AVI resulted in 
an initially 22-GB file (6.25 hours @ 640x480x24fps), and I was able to 
use h264 to compress it to ~3 GB with almost no noticeable reduction in 
quality (not that the quality was terribly great to begin with...)

-- 
Tim Cook
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-empyrean

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GFA dpu- s: a?-- C++(++++) U P? L E--- W++(+++)>$
N++ o? K- w(+) O? M-(--) V? PS+(+++) PE(--) Y(--)
PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Alain wrote:
> Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/11/22 04:15:
>> I mean, let's face it, HD is only 4x the imagine resolution. If you 
>> compare the two side by side you'd probably notice. But if you just 
>> look at an HD TV, there really isn't much to notice. The picture is 
>> very slightly more crisp, but that's about it.
> Do you mean 4x the total numbet of pixels, or 4x the number of LINES?
> 4x the pixels == double the pixels per lines and double the lines.
> 4x the lines is more like 16x the resolution!

I mean 4x the number of pixels (2x lines + 2x columns).

>> Certainly it hardly seems worth paying £7,000 just for a very slightly 
>> more crisp picture. I could buy a *car* for that amount of money! 
>> Hell, I could almost buy a copy of *Oracle* for that!
> You are slightly outdated! HD prices have come down a LOT in just 2 years.

Yeah, but the shop isn't going to draw you eye to the *cheap* models, 
are they? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> I mean 4x the number of pixels (2x lines + 2x columns).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_Video_Resolutions.svg

I was looking for that before but couldn't find it...

Also I found a few screen-caps:

This is from normal digital terrestial TV:

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/images/0604DoraCreds2b-x.jpg

This is from some US HD channel:

http://www.bur.st/~anthony/dba/160206/stateoftheunion_1.jpg

Now, if you can't tell the difference...

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scott wrote:
>> I mean 4x the number of pixels (2x lines + 2x columns).
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_Video_Resolutions.svg
> 
> I was looking for that before but couldn't find it...

Ah yes, it's coming back to me now... Some "HD" TVs only actually 
support the lowest HD resolution, and some support higher ones. (I 
wonder if the same goes for "HD" transmissions and "HD" disks?)

> Also I found a few screen-caps:
> 
> http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/images/0604DoraCreds2b-x.jpg
> http://www.bur.st/~anthony/dba/160206/stateoftheunion_1.jpg
> 
> Now, if you can't tell the difference...

These images look different to me. (I notice one is photographic and the 
other isn't...)

All I said was I was in a shop looking at one of their fantastic HD TVs 
and there was little if any apparent difference. Yeah, the picture was a 
little bit sharper, but nothing to get excited about.

I see three possibilities:

1. The TV they were proudly displaying was actually rubbish.

2. The signal they were feeding it with was naff.

3. There's little actual difference between HD and SD.

These possibilities do not appear to be muturally exclusive.

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And lo on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:32:10 -0000, scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> did  
spake, saying:

>> I mean 4x the number of pixels (2x lines + 2x columns).
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_Video_Resolutions.svg
>
> I was looking for that before but couldn't find it...
>
> Also I found a few screen-caps:
>
> This is from normal digital terrestial TV:
>
> http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/images/0604DoraCreds2b-x.jpg
>
> This is from some US HD channel:
>
> http://www.bur.st/~anthony/dba/160206/stateoftheunion_1.jpg
>
> Now, if you can't tell the difference...

Dora looks more alert? Bush looks less blue in HD?

[Waits for Warp to criticise ;-)]

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook wrote:

> Dora looks more alert? Bush looks less blue in HD?

http://www.bash.org/?475920

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And lo on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:47:53 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> scott wrote:
>>> I mean 4x the number of pixels (2x lines + 2x columns).
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_Video_Resolutions.svg
>>  I was looking for that before but couldn't find it...
>
> Ah yes, it's coming back to me now... Some "HD" TVs only actually  
> support the lowest HD resolution,

720i/p

> and some support higher ones.

1080i/p

> (I wonder if the same goes for "HD" transmissions and "HD" disks?)

Good question. I don't think there's anything stopping transmission in 720  
instead of 1080. I believe Sky's own channels are 1080i but some of the  
non-Sky HD stuff is 720p. As for discs If they're going to the bother I  
don't see why they'd only use 720 over 1080. For games, I note some for  
the PS3 only go as high as 720. A decent decoder will up/down scale  
according to the TVs abilities, but obviously the more data the better.

>> Also I found a few screen-caps:
>>  http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/images/0604DoraCreds2b-x.jpg
>> http://www.bur.st/~anthony/dba/160206/stateoftheunion_1.jpg
>>  Now, if you can't tell the difference...
>
> These images look different to me. (I notice one is photographic and the  
> other isn't...)

Well one is live the other cartoon (feel free to guess which is which),  
you should also rezoom them so they have the same apparent height (if the  
browser hasn't), and I believe Dora is NTSC which uses less lines then PAL.

> All I said was I was in a shop looking at one of their fantastic HD TVs  
> and there was little if any apparent difference. Yeah, the picture was a  
> little bit sharper, but nothing to get excited about.
>
> I see three possibilities:
>
> 1. The TV they were proudly displaying was actually rubbish.

Possibly

> 2. The signal they were feeding it with was naff.

Probably

> 3. There's little actual difference between HD and SD.

Nope.

> These possibilities do not appear to be muturally exclusive.



-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Invisible wrote:
> That's interesting. I was in some shop the other day, and they had a
> huge LCD with "HD Ready" splashed all over it, and huge cardboard signs
> saying "WOW! LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE!" And I remember thinking "...I
> can't see any difference."

	There's a big difference - the folks in the shop probably had not set
it up correctly, or something.

	What I've disliked about big HDTV's is that regular channels, DVDs, etc
can tend to look quite poor on them. This is _not_ in comparison to
looking at HDTV feeds. Probably just because the TV's I saw were quite
big (in inches), so you could easily see all the flaws of regular TV
shows...

-- 
"Honey, answer the phone."  "Okay.  BaRRING! BRRNG! BaRR"


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4745a4aa$1@news.povray.org...

> I see three possibilities:
> 1. The TV they were proudly displaying was actually rubbish.
> 2. The signal they were feeding it with was naff.
> 3. There's little actual difference between HD and SD.

4. You need to see an ophtalmologist?

G.

Post a reply to this message

scott escribió:
> http://www.bur.st/~anthony/dba/160206/stateoftheunion_1.jpg
> 
> Now, if you can't tell the difference...
> 

I see interlacing artifacts >_< Progressive video ftw.

Post a reply to this message

Phil Cook escribió:
> Well one is live the other cartoon (feel free to guess which is which)

lol :D The HD one?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> 
> They were running National Geographic HD. (Doesn't mean they had an HD
> decoder of course...) Lots of long short of mountains, jungles, big
> savanas and stuff that's clearly meant to make you go "wow". It honestly
> didn't look much different to what I get on my 7 year old TV at home.

It was either National Geographic HD or Discovery HD which I saw at the
store here in Finland (Verkkokauppa.com is the store) from multiple
HD-screens at once. I couldn't figure out if the resolutions seemd to be
good or bad, 'cause I almost got a headache from the infernally bad
MPEG-encoding! Seriously, I'd take old-fashion analog-RF rather than
such crap, while the analog problems are easier for brains to filter.

> (I remember I once plugged my laptop into the TV because we didn't own a
> DVD player. The Windows desktop was... unreadable. Literally, you just
> couldn't read *any* of the writing! But then, I guess usually you sit 12
> feet from your TV screen, so they're not going to bother making it able
> to display tiny writing like that...)

That's a sign of bad TV or bad TV-out. I had 25" Finlux (some
basic-model, but good picture quality) and Matrox G550 connected via
S-video: Windows desktop was usable (no, not clear, but useable) even
with 1280x960. It was unbelievably clear with 800x600 (didn't outperfom
a monitor, but I was really surprised that a TV could do that).

> I think we've established that the shop was overpriced. ;-)

Certainly ;).

And yes, SD-picture seems soft when watched with 93" picture from 5
meters away. I think that (really a big picture with home theatre
enthustians) is a real winner-goal for HD. 768x576 vs. 1920x1080 makes
pretty big difference, once you can see the pixels of the first one.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:474548a9$1@news.povray.org...

> Certainly it hardly seems worth paying £7,000 just for a very slightly
> more crisp picture. I could buy a *car* for that amount of money! Hell,
> I could almost buy a copy of *Oracle* for that!

Where the hell are you shopping? I priced LCD HD TVs last weekend, and I
could get a good one for R7000. (that's somewhere around 450 pounds, if you
convert)

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47456cf5@news.povray.org...

> (I remember I once plugged my laptop into the TV because we didn't own a
> DVD player. The Windows desktop was... unreadable. Literally, you just
> couldn't read *any* of the writing! But then, I guess usually you sit 12
> feet from your TV screen, so they're not going to bother making it able
> to display tiny writing like that...)

Odd. I often plug my laptop into my 6 year old TV, since I also don't have a
DVD player. At 800*600, the desktop is easily visible and the text readable.
It's not as clear as on the laptop screen, but then I wouldn't expect it to
be.

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Warp wrote:
> scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>> But Oh My God, the picture quality was amazing.
> 
>   Yeah, assuming the bluray player/drive doesn't decide that your 1-year-old
> TV/monitor (or if you are using a computer, almost anything in it, more
> prominently your 1-year-old top-of-the-line graphics card) is an illegal
> ripping machine and thus decides to give you a low-resolution blurred
> version of the image.

...this part worries me...

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> I see interlacing artifacts >_< Progressive video ftw.

Yeh, I found it pretty hard to find any 1080p screen-caps on the net, I 
guess that's because most broadcasters use 1080i max at the moment.

There are some 720p and 1080p clips here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

They look pretty impressive even on a 1280x1024 monitor.

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Gail Shaw wrote:

> Where the hell are you shopping?

The wrong place, clearly. ;-)

> I priced LCD HD TVs last weekend, and I
> could get a good one for R7000. (that's somewhere around 450 pounds, if you
> convert)

Doesn't mean it's possible to buy it in this country for that price.

(For example, Adobe Acrobat costs £400 in the UK, and costs $400 in the 
USA. Notice that $400 /= £400 by any stretch of the imagination...)

(For another example, the guy in HQ was shocked that we were being asked 
to pay £6,000 a year for our Internet access. Apparently one of the 
sites in the USA is paying [what equates to] £600 for the same thing.)

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Invisible wrote:
> savanas and stuff that's clearly meant to make you go "wow".

Myself, I find the compression artifacts tremendously distracting.

> As far as I know, a normal TV operates at something like 300x200 or so. 
> That means that 4x would only be 600x400 - still extremely low.

640x480, actually, for NTSC disregarding overscan.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Darren New wrote:

> Myself, I find the compression artifacts tremendously distracting.

You know what I find amusing?

You sit and watch a DVD on your normal TV, and it looks just like normal 
TV. (Except a bit clearer.) Then you go watch the same DVD on your PC, 
and it looks *horrible*! There's black noise, there's big pixel blocks, 
there's bits of background moving at 2 frames per second... and then you 
realis just how lame your TV is.

I once put together a DVD where one animation was at half resolution. 
When you watch it on TV, you can't actually tell the difference... (!)

>> As far as I know, a normal TV operates at something like 300x200 or 
>> so. That means that 4x would only be 600x400 - still extremely low.
> 
> 640x480, actually, for NTSC disregarding overscan.

Mmm, OK.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
> > Myself, I find the compression artifacts tremendously distracting.
>
> You know what I find amusing?
>
> You sit and watch a DVD on your normal TV, and it looks just like normal
> TV. (Except a bit clearer.) Then you go watch the same DVD on your PC,
> and it looks *horrible*! There's black noise, there's big pixel blocks,
> there's bits of background moving at 2 frames per second... and then you
> realis just how lame your TV is.

Hmm... something that takes a crappy signal, and makes it look identical to a
good signal... I'd say that that makes yours a GOOD TV, wouldn't you? :)

Anyway, the every step in the video process has the potential to degrade picture
quality, so CG is always going to benefit most from HD, while live movies rely
much more on goo dacting than on good film quality.

....Chambers

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47469bee@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
> > I priced LCD HD TVs last weekend, and I
> > could get a good one for R7000. (that's somewhere around 450 pounds, if
you
> > convert)
>
> Doesn't mean it's possible to buy it in this country for that price.

SA is notoriously expensive for any form of electonics. I bought my laptop
in the US for $1800 (around R14000 at the time)
To buy it here I'd pay R24000 at least.

While I didn't go electronics shopping in the UK last time I visited, I did
notice that electronics are cheaper there than in SA, though not by as much
as the US is.

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:

> while live movies rely much more on goo dacting than on good film quality.

Priceless! Thanks. :-D

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Gail Shaw wrote:

> SA is notoriously expensive for any form of electonics.

I'm not categorically saying you *can't* buy it for that price here, I'm 
just noting that it doesn't *authomatically* follow, that's all. ;-)

> While I didn't go electronics shopping in the UK last time I visited, I did
> notice that electronics are cheaper there than in SA, though not by as much
> as the US is.

I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.

BTW, there's an old legend that in America all CDs cost (the equivilent 
of) £5 each or less. Is there any shred of truth to this, or is it just 
another wild exaggeration?

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> BTW, there's an old legend that in America all CDs cost (the equivilent 
> of) £5 each or less. 

They cost online roughly what they cost in a store. Check amazon. 
Nowadays they're $8-$12 USD for "normal" stuff.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

> BTW, there's an old legend that in America all CDs cost (the equivilent 
> of) £5 each or less. Is there any shred of truth to this, or is it just 
> another wild exaggeration?

($10) I guess that's sort of true, you can find some stuff for that,
the worse your taste is, the cheaper.  Though double that
is perty common for newer stuff. ($20)

Post a reply to this message

Tim Attwood wrote:
>> BTW, there's an old legend that in America all CDs cost (the equivilent 
>> of) £5 each or less. Is there any shred of truth to this, or is it just 
>> another wild exaggeration?
> 
> ($10) I guess that's sort of true, you can find some stuff for that,
> the worse your taste is, the cheaper.  Though double that
> is perty common for newer stuff. ($20) 

Over here, £15 seems to be the standard price for a CD. (Unless it's 
Pink Floyd - then you can *double* the price. Which is odd, considering 
how unpopular Pink Floyd is...) More like £20 or £25 for a double CD, 
and more still for big boxes of multiple disks - but nothing really 
surprising about that.

Oh, but you can probably buy old trash that nobody wants for £7 or 
something. ;-)

It's just that there's this often-repeated believe that everything is so 
much cheaper in America, and the streets are paved with cheese. Myself I 
rather doubt it. But I've never been there, so...

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> Anyway, the every step in the video process has the potential to degrade picture
> quality, so CG is always going to benefit most from HD, while live movies rely
> much more on goo dacting than on good film quality.

Many live movies also rely on 'bad' film quality to give a look & feel. 
Three Kings springs to mind, with the bleached-washed out look. It even 
has a warning just before the film advising viewers not to adjust their 
players or screens!

Michael Mann's recent films (Collateral and Miami Vice) use digital 
cameras to get a more 'documentary' feel with slightly noisy images, and 
to bring out the light of cities at night. He's on record saying that 
you just can't get the same feel using a normal film camera.

The Illusionist uses very subtle darkening at the edges of the frame and 
slight deadening of the colour in certain scenes to suggest a hint of 
how Victorian films looks when played back now (this is when the film is 
set).

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Over here, £15 seems to be the standard price for a CD.
£12-13 for most newly released CDs. Some move up to £15ish and stay 
there, if they're in any way 'popular' they tend to end up between £5-10 
for long swathes of time.

> Oh, but you can probably buy old trash that nobody wants for £7 or 
> something. ;-)
It's usually 50-50 in that price range, I find. Mind you, one man's 
Mozart is another man's Cheeky Girls...

DVDs are the same. £13 or so when they come out, but if you know what's 
likely to be popular you're better off waiting 3 months and getting it 
in the sales for £4-8. I've not bought a DVD for more than £8 for years 
now. I can't believe people don't have the patience to save themselves a 
tenner... Having said that, this seems to apply only to popular titles 
with wildly fluctuating stocks. Rarer titles can be expensive. I 
recently bought The Abyss (special edition). I was watching the price on 
Play.com for ages - £18.99 - despite the regular edition being only a 
fiver. Eventually I got it second-hand. For a fiver ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Over here, £15 seems to be the standard price for a CD.
> £12-13 for most newly released CDs. Some move up to £15ish and stay 
> there, if they're in any way 'popular' they tend to end up between £5-10 
> for long swathes of time.

Interesting. Clearly I'm shopping in the wrong places! ;-)

Usually "most" CDs are around £15, and a few are £17 or £18 or so. And 
then the unpopular ones are £12 or lower, and the utterly naff ones are 
£7 or even £3.

BTW, I just realised: I haven't bought any CDs at all this year. Such is 
the state of modern music that I haven't heard *anything* I want to 
spend money on! :-.

Oh, wait, that's not true... I bought a boxed set of The Beach Boys. 
(Was this this year or last? I think it was this year...)

> I can't believe people don't have the patience to save themselves a 
> tenner...

My grandparents (yeah, them!) were bemoning the story they saw in the 
news the other day. Apparently people were queueing outside a shop from 
2 AM in the morning to get their hands on this brand new mobile phone 
that just came out and costs who knows how many £££. The news reporter 
mentioned that the phone will probably be "obsolete" in a few months' time.

My grandparents were utterly astonished that anybody would sleep in the 
street half the night and hand over hundreds of pounds for something 
they're going to throw away in a few months' time. Clearly *somebody* 
out there gets paid much more than I do. :-P

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And lo on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:16:07 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> Tim Attwood wrote:
>>> BTW, there's an old legend that in America all CDs cost (the  
>>> equivilent of) £5 each or less. Is there any shred of truth to this,  
>>> or is it just another wild exaggeration?
>>  ($10) I guess that's sort of true, you can find some stuff for that,
>> the worse your taste is, the cheaper.  Though double that
>> is perty common for newer stuff. ($20)
>
> Over here, £15 seems to be the standard price for a CD. (Unless it's  
> Pink Floyd - then you can *double* the price. Which is odd, considering  
> how unpopular Pink Floyd is...) More like £20 or £25 for a double CD,  
> and more still for big boxes of multiple disks - but nothing really  
> surprising about that.
>
> Oh, but you can probably buy old trash that nobody wants for £7 or  
> something. ;-)
>
> It's just that there's this often-repeated believe that everything is so  
> much cheaper in America, and the streets are paved with cheese. Myself I  
> rather doubt it. But I've never been there, so...

It is to us if you simply apply that 2:1 ratio and forget everything else  
such as wages, office costs, taxes... The real question is do Americans  
find their products cheap or over-priced compared to other goods in their  
own country.

On a similar note I know someone's who's just bought two Wii's from  
Germany; including delivery the translated costs are about £190 each for  
the basic bundle. Seeing as the RRP is £180 here, but you can't get one,  
that's not bad.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
news:op.t2ekygdic3xi7v@news.povray.org...

> On a similar note I know someone's who's just bought two Wii's from
> Germany; including delivery the translated costs are about £190 each for
> the basic bundle. Seeing as the RRP is £180 here, but you can't get one,
> that's not bad.

The Wii here, console and one controller, is just under R3000, depending
where you buy it. Translates to just over £200. CDs and DVDs are around
R130-R180 each (£9-£13)

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And lo on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:10:24 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>  
<"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:

>
> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
> news:op.t2ekygdic3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>
>> On a similar note I know someone's who's just bought two Wii's from
>> Germany; including delivery the translated costs are about £190 each for
>> the basic bundle. Seeing as the RRP is £180 here, but you can't get one,
>> that's not bad.
>
> The Wii here, console and one controller, is just under R3000, depending
> where you buy it. Translates to just over £200. CDs and DVDs are around
> R130-R180 each (£9-£13)

I think delivery costs might bump up that price a little and of course  
you're not in the EU monopo... economic trading bloc so he'd probably only  
be able to buy one before people in suits descended on him.

So do you think the console is considered expensive in SA from a native's  
perspective.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Invisible escribió:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>>> Over here, £15 seems to be the standard price for a CD.
>> £12-13 for most newly released CDs. Some move up to £15ish and stay 
>> there, if they're in any way 'popular' they tend to end up between 
>> £5-10 for long swathes of time.
> 
> Interesting. Clearly I'm shopping in the wrong places! ;-)

In Argentina, the cheapest place for CDs is train stations. They have 
hundreds of pirated music CDs and VCDs.

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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
news:op.t2esn1hic3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> So do you think the console is considered expensive in SA from a native's
> perspective.

Fairly expensive. It's not something that a large percentage of the
population can afford. It's certainly something that needs to be budgeted
for.

The Wii console is around R3000. The XBox 360 is a bit more I think. I've
seen it for R3500

To put in perspective.

Most paperback novels are around R100
A movie is R15-R40, depending where and when
Supper out at a good restaurant for 2 will usually cost between R250 and
R500, depending on the location.
My grocery bill for a month (for me and two cats) usually comes to around
R1000-R1500.
My bond repayments (morgage, if you call it that) on a 2 bedroom flat are
around R6500 a month

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Many live movies also rely on 'bad' film quality to give a look & feel.
> Three Kings springs to mind, with the bleached-washed out look. It even
> has a warning just before the film advising viewers not to adjust their
> players or screens!
> 


I was told in a film class that Three Kings used some new Kodak film
that had a broader 'yellow' response range for the brighter gold colors.
A quick googleing proved that wrong, all they did for the bleached out
look was use the wrong chemicals in developing the film.

Hmm, wonder if my place has a spot for a dark room . . .

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> I was told in a film class that Three Kings used some new Kodak film
> that had a broader 'yellow' response range for the brighter gold colors.
> A quick googleing proved that wrong, all they did for the bleached out
> look was use the wrong chemicals in developing the film.

Yup, they deliberately ruined it. Much cheaper and probably more effective.

> Hmm, wonder if my place has a spot for a dark room . . .

If it does, make sure you dark-proof it to stop the dark leaking out!

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And lo on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:32:42 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>  
<"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:

>
> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
> news:op.t2esn1hic3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>> So do you think the console is considered expensive in SA from a  
>> native's
>> perspective.
>
> Fairly expensive. It's not something that a large percentage of the
> population can afford. It's certainly something that needs to be budgeted
> for.
>
> The Wii console is around R3000. The XBox 360 is a bit more I think. I've
> seen it for R3500

So a Wii is about 30 times the costs of a paperback, whereas here it's  
more like 20, and a 360 is about 35x rather then 30x. I'd hate to ask  
about the PS3.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.

I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)

Jim

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message 
news:474c5cad@news.povray.org...
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>
>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
>
> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)

You'd have to peel him off the wallpaper first.  ;-)

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On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:20:48 +1000, Brian Elliott wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:474c5cad@news.povray.org...
>> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>
>>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
>>
>> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)
> 
> You'd have to peel him off the wallpaper first.  ;-)

<G>

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> 
>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
> 
> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)
> 
> Jim

That was Gail.

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On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:45:46 -0500, Tom Galvin wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> 
>>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
>> 
>> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)
>> 
>> Jim
> 
> That was Gail.

Ah, I guess my memory's worse than I remembered it being. ;-)

Jim

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message 
news:474f52bd$1@news.povray.org...
> On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:45:46 -0500, Tom Galvin wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>>
>>>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
>>>
>>> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
>> That was Gail.
>
> Ah, I guess my memory's worse than I remembered it being. ;-)

Oh.  I'd forgotten that.  :-)

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On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:26:59 +1000, Brian Elliott wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:474f52bd$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:45:46 -0500, Tom Galvin wrote:
>>
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:32:55 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I wouldn't know. I've never been to the USA.
>>>>
>>>> I coulda sworn you said you'd been to Seattle - that's in the US. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> Jim
>>>
>>> That was Gail.
>>
>> Ah, I guess my memory's worse than I remembered it being. ;-)
> 
> Oh.  I'd forgotten that.  :-)

Forgotten what? ;-)

Jim

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