scott wrote:

> And the cost for me to upgrade at home from 1GB to 2GB was a 
> tiny fraction of the cost of a Vista license.

5. Vista is so over-priced that I could by several entire PCs for the 
cost of a single Vista licence. :-P

-- 
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Warp wrote:

>   Isn't it a bit ironic that each new version of Windows adds more things
> the user can *not* do, instead of the opposite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista

Heh, just like with XP, they're reducing the amount of stuff you can 
customise. (E.g., the Explorer toolbar is no longer configurable. You 
can't remove those useless search buttons, or the back and forward 
buttons. And you can't add useful buttons like map drive.) They're also 
removing power. (E.g., you can still make Zip files, but you can no 
longer password protect them.)

I can hardly wait until the day when I'm forced to use this crap. :-(

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> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?

For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.

When was the last time you checked the Dell website?  Ever since I can 
remember they've always had something around the 300 pound mark.

> 2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of "cheap".

When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* more 
> than 4 GB of RAM.

And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)

Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
things go faster.  Of course if an application really needs to use the RAM 
then Vista gives it the RAM and discards it's "cache".  What would be the 
point of having RAM sat there unused?  Anyway, personally, I need 8GB 
because I do simulations which often use over 4GB, and I'd like to have some 
spare to actually use my PC at the same time.  I don't imagine a "normal" 
user would need more than 2GB unless they were doing video editing or 
something equally memory hungry.

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>> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?
> 
> For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
> 320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.
> 
> When was the last time you checked the Dell website?

Last year. And for a machine much poorer than that, they were demanding 
£1,200. Even when I stripped all the options down to the bare minimum, I 
couldn't get the price below £700.

>> 2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of 
>> "cheap".
> 
> When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

OK, now I am puzzled. When a built a PC last Autumn, I could only afford 
0.5 GB on the budget I had. When did RAM suddenly get this cheap??

>> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* 
>> more than 4 GB of RAM.
> 
> And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

OK, I'll give you that one. It seems that if you pay for a reasonably 
expensive board, it does in fact support as much as 8 GB.

>> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
>> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)
> 
> Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
> things go faster.

...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
Vista goes really slow".



So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
they don't cost much money?

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> ...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
> Vista goes really slow".

Not really, IME Vista needs 2GB to fully stretch out and work smoothly as 
designed.  If you try and run it on 1GB, you'll probably be spending more 
time paging around "clever features" and "actual programs" etc than the 
benefit you get from the clever features.  Vista runs fine on 1GB, *once* 
you have your program loaded.  If you just you one program all day you'll be 
fine, but if use lots of different programs it's going to appear slow to 
you.  Anyway, all this is a pointless discussion, as I said, for a fraction 
of the price of Vista you can buy an extra 1GB.

> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
> they don't cost much money?

Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
amount of RAM.

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>> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
>> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
>> they don't cost much money?
> 
> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

> IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
> amount of RAM.

Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

-- 
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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>
> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
> but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
> GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was 
necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB 
previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

> Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
> isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

Of course.  I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to sell 
for the same price.  There's always cheap ones for around 400 pounds, and 
then the expensive ones around 800-1000 pounds (ok then really expensive 
ones for more).  But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up. 
If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it can't be that overpriced.

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>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of 
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly 
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
> 
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of 
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just 
eat your harddrive faster.

(As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

> I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to 
> sell for the same price.

Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

> But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up.

Now that I can agree to.

> If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it 
> can't be that overpriced.

I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it 
is priced at basically £400. My entire PC cost me £500 when I built it. 
  So that's 80% of the cost of the hardware. You can build a cheap PC 
for about £100. So that's roughly 4 entire PCs. Sounds pretty darn 
expensive to me...

-- 
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And lo on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:24:30 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>>
>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of  
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly  
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
>
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that  
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating  
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of  
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of  
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was  
> necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB  
> previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

No the comparision here appears to be -

OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM

It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to  
double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your previous  
OS?

-- 
Phil Cook

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

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>> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
>> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
>> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
>> data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
>> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just eat 
> your harddrive faster.

Have you tried editing a 10MP photo?  10e6*3bytes = 30 MB, times several 
layers and undo levels easily exceeds 256 MB.

Have you tried editing a full-HD video clip using your PC?  Believe me, it 
eats RAM, which is traditionally why the "video editing" PCs have been high 
spec with lots of RAM.

> (As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
> now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
> unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

Yawn!  Check amazon!  Loads priced between 100 and 200 pounds with 10MP.

> Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
> basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

While that may be true, I highly doubt that a PC would not have been 
available at the time for under 1000 pounds.  WHen was it and what spec?  We 
bought a P166 32MB in 1996 (IIRC), it cost something like 800 pounds and 
certainly wasn't the cheapest one available.

> I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it is 
> priced at basically £400.

Where the hell are you looking?  On amazon they have the 
all-singing-all-dancing full Ultimate edition for 217.98.  The home-premium 
edition is 147.48.  If you want to upgrade, it's 68.98 for the home version, 
and if you want the OEM version (basically tied to that PC) then you can 
half those prices.

Of course, a company like Dell who buys in bulk will get it a lot cheaper, 
assume they pay around half price, so that's 30 quid instead of 60 for home 
premium.

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scott wrote:

> Have you tried editing a 10MP photo?

Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a case 
of "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? OK, now 
print that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.

> Have you tried editing a full-HD video clip using your PC?

1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?

2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? Nothing 
supports it yet.

3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?

>> Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
>> basically the cheapest thing in the shop.
> 
> While that may be true, I highly doubt that a PC would not have been 
> available at the time for under 1000 pounds.  WHen was it and what 
> spec?  We bought a P166 32MB in 1996 (IIRC), it cost something like 800 
> pounds and certainly wasn't the cheapest one available.

IIRC, it was about 1994. Back in those days, having a "home computer" 
was considered somewhat unusual. I don't recall what spec; I think it 
had 8 MB RAM and a 66 MHz CPU of some kind. Short of going back in time, 
that's all I can tell you.

>> I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on 
>> it is priced at basically £400.
> 
> Where the hell are you looking?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995

Found it on their front page.

> Of course, a company like Dell who buys in bulk will get it a lot 
> cheaper.

Probably.

-- 
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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a case of 
> "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? OK, now print 
> that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.

Agreed.  But if you only have "almost no RAM at all", eg 256MB, then it can 
quickly become a problem.  A few levels of undo and your harddrive is 
thrashing.

> 1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?

A camcorder?  People often take them on holiday and stuff, I'm sure you've 
seen them.  Again, look on Amazon under High Definition camcorders, prices 
range from 150 pounds upwards.  Or for geeks, maybe we create animations 
using POV :-)

> 2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? Nothing 
> supports it yet.

Ermm, you looked in a shop that sells TVs recently?  Almost all support 
HDTV, when you need to replace your TV you're not going to have a choice.  A 
quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an HD-capable TV, that is 
predicted to reach 70% by 2012 (guess it's at about 30% now then), so it 
looks to me like lots of people have support for it already.

> 3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?

Editing programs use up as much of your RAM as they can to make everything 
faster while you are working.  Of course you can get away with less, but 
things go really slowly with your drive thrashing away.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

They recommend you get the extra GB if you're planning to do HD editing.

> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995
>
> Found it on their front page.

Hmm, on amazon it seems to be half the price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Vista-Ultimate-Service-Pack/dp/B0013O77GM

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> OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
> new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM
>
> It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to 
> double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your previous 
> OS?

Because Vista was designed for new computers?  I guess MS saw it as a waste 
of money optimising it for older machines.

Post a reply to this message

>> Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a 
>> case of "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? 
>> OK, now print that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.
> 
> Agreed.  But if you only have "almost no RAM at all", eg 256MB, then it 
> can quickly become a problem.  A few levels of undo and your harddrive 
> is thrashing.

Maybe I've missed something, but what image editing software gives you 
more than 1 level of undo?

I mean, I'm sure if you're a professional digital artist, you've going 
to have some serious high-end software, and some spine-tinglingly 
expensive hardware to go with it. But normal people? They're just going 
to use the free Hyper Painter XL that comes with your camera...

>> 1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?
> 
> A camcorder?  People often take them on holiday and stuff, I'm sure 
> you've seen them.  Again, look on Amazon under High Definition 
> camcorders, prices range from 150 pounds upwards.

I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And it 
was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. (So I'm told anyway. It 
was a gift, so I didn't actually pay for it.) The idea that you could 
buy something capable of taking half-decent video for less than £800 
seems really far-fetched to me.

> Or for geeks, maybe we create animations using POV :-)

And why do you think I own a DVD burner? ;-)

BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...

>> 2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? 
>> Nothing supports it yet.
> 
> Ermm, you looked in a shop that sells TVs recently?  Almost all support 
> HDTV, when you need to replace your TV you're not going to have a 
> choice.

Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money? 
Seriously, you're not going to throw away a perfectly good TV just so 
that you can get a marginally-sharper picture, are you.

> A quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an 
> HD-capable TV.

That's a really tiny percentage.

And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
£800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)

>> 3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?
> 
> Editing programs use up as much of your RAM as they can to make 
> everything faster while you are working.  Of course you can get away 
> with less, but things go really slowly with your drive thrashing away.

This suggests to me that you only need large stacks of RAM if you're 
doing professional video editing work. I mean seriously, I don't even 
*know* anybody else rich enough to afford a video camera, much less 
technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what you can 
do with a DVD recorder...

>> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995
>>
>> Found it on their front page.
> 
> Hmm, on amazon it seems to be half the price:
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Vista-Ultimate-Service-Pack/dp/B0013O77GM

OK, well that's a little less extortionate, but it's still pretty damned 
expensive IMHO.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
48732ac7$1@news.povray.org...

> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?

I just bought from Dell a laptop (dual-core) and a desktop (quad) for 700 
and 800 euros respectively (£550 and $650). Both machines have 4 Gb RAM. The 
laptop has a 250 Gb HD and the desktop a 750 Mb HD and a 20 inch screen.

The trick with Dell is that there's always some "special deals" available 
and if you're already a client they bombard you with discount vouchers and 
such. Also, it's sometimes possible to buy at discount or even bulk prices 
(down to 40% off), when one belongs to an organisation that is in 
partnership with Dell.

> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway?

Unless one works exclusively with text-based applications, there's *** never 
*** enough RAM. Others have mentioned it already, but even cheap cameras and 
camcorder can now generate massive amounts of data and one needs a lot of 
RAM to handle this smoothly. Particularly, non-geek family members can be 
extremely Gigabytes-hungry once they figured out that one can take 
great-looking movies of everything that moves ("no, you can't attach 15 Gb = 
90 min of high-def wailing baby movie to your email and send it to all your 
friends")...

But even for non-graphic, professional applications, there's never enough 
RAM anyway: the more you have, the more you will be tempted to use and will 
end up using: Law of the Constantly Maxed Out Resources.

G.

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>> OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
>> new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM
>>
>> It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need 
>> to double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your 
>> previous OS?
> 
> Because Vista was designed for new computers?  I guess MS saw it as a 
> waste of money optimising it for older machines.

Getting an OS to work with less than a small star system's worth of RAM 
doesn't requite "optimising", it requires basic design principles.

But then, Vista isn't really an OS, is it? It's an OS plus a huge stack 
of other bits and pieces. I understand that out of the box you get DVD 
authoring, a web server (!!), various online collaboration software, and 
so forth. Not to mention layer upon layer of unecessary eye candy [which 
may or may not be pretty, I don't know].

I think we can safely say that the *real* reason it demands so much 
hardware is to keep the hardware vendors (M$'s real customers) happy.

(They say this is why Windows NT displaced Netware. What sane hardware 
vendor is going to recommend a product that works on cheap hardware?)

-- 
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> I just bought from Dell a laptop (dual-core) and a desktop (quad) for 700 
> and 800 euros respectively (£550 and $650). Both machines have 4 Gb RAM. The 
> laptop has a 250 Gb HD and the desktop a 750 Mb HD and a 20 inch screen.
> 
> The trick with Dell is that there's always some "special deals" available 
> and if you're already a client they bombard you with discount vouchers and 
> such. Also, it's sometimes possible to buy at discount or even bulk prices 
> (down to 40% off), when one belongs to an organisation that is in 
> partnership with Dell.

Damn. My company *is* in a partnership with Dell. We bought 12 new PCs - 
OptiPlex 755 with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM and some 
low-end Intel graphics card, and it cost something like £900 per base 
unit. What the heck do you know that I don't???

(As an aside... is there a reason why Dell is always 3x more expensive 
than, say, HP, IBM, Acer, any other company on Earth?)

> Unless one works exclusively with text-based applications, there's *** never 
> *** enough RAM.

Really? I seem to have way more than I need. It's almost never fully 
utilised, except when trying to build huge histograms. (Not a common 
activity, obviously.)

> Others have mentioned it already, but even cheap cameras and 
> camcorder can now generate massive amounts of data and one needs a lot of 
> RAM to handle this smoothly.

Well, I was editing CDs on a machine with 2 MB of RAM about 10 years 
ago... For complex video effects I guess you do need to hold quite a bit 
of data in RAM at once though.

> Particularly, non-geek family members can be 
> extremely Gigabytes-hungry once they figured out that one can take 
> great-looking movies of everything that moves ("no, you can't attach 15 Gb = 
> 90 min of high-def wailing baby movie to your email and send it to all your 
> friends")...

That's not even funny.

Sure, I can see needing huge amounts of HD space. I'm just not seeing 
much need for huge RAM. And besides, I was talking about the bare 
minimum amount of RAM required for Vista to even consider operating. 
Presumably if Vista needs 2 GB to run, if you want to edit video *as 
well* you'd need even more RAM...

(BTW... I did wonder why the hell WeV has 4x 360 GB drives. Until I 
discovered that every single one of them is full to busting with illegal 
DVDs he's downloaded. *shivers*)

> But even for non-graphic, professional applications, there's never enough 
> RAM anyway: the more you have, the more you will be tempted to use and will 
> end up using: Law of the Constantly Maxed Out Resources.

Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't 
think of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much 
memory. Playing games involves audio and video data, but I'm 
hard-pressed to think of anything else...

(Unless you're running some kind of server. Don't do that unless you 
have stacks of... well, everything really!)

-- 
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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> I mean, I'm sure if you're a professional digital artist, you've going to 
> have some serious high-end software, and some spine-tinglingly expensive 
> hardware to go with it. But normal people? They're just going to use the 
> free Hyper Painter XL that comes with your camera...

Even MS Paint has 10 levels of undo.  I got PSP free with some camera ages 
ago (or it's like 50 quid I think), it has configurable levels of undo, the 
default seems to be "500MB of space per open image" (I just checked, never 
changed it before).  You can configure it to a certain number of levels if 
you want to.

> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And it 
> was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

Yawn! How old is it?  For 800 pounds today you can buy a really decent HD 
camcorder.

> BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
> some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...

I think I used ULead DVD Movie Factory before, it worked pretty seemlessly, 
but I didn't exactly tax it, I just wanted to put a few .avis onto a proper 
DVD with a menu so a friend could watch them.  Was really quick to use, had 
some nice pre-set menu graphics to chose from, and burnt fine first time.

> Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money?

Yawn! You really should do a few clicks on amazon before making statements 
like that.  You do realise that for 900 pounds you can get a good quality 46 
inch full-HD TV!  Smaller ones are *considerably* cheaper (like less than 
half that price).

> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour £800 
> or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)

Yawn!  Under 200 pounds now.

> much less technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what 
> you can do with a DVD recorder...

Programs like Windows Movie Maker make it pretty easy.  Judging by the 
number of videos on YouTube made with it, I guess a fair number of people 
worked out how to use it.

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> I got PSP free with some camera ages ago (or it's like 50 quid I think).

Really? Every camera I've ever seen comes with some random paint package 
that nobody ever heard of... [And which does almost nothing beyond 
colour adjustments and automatic red-eye removal. Ooo, and maybe a few 
warps.]

>> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And 
>> it was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.
> 
> Yawn! How old is it?

About 1 year?

> For 800 pounds today you can buy a really decent HD camcorder.

I didn't think you could buy a *still* camera for that kind of money. 
(Well, no, that's a slight exaggeration. £500 for a decent still camera.)

>> BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
>> some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...
> 
> I think I used ULead DVD Movie Factory before, it worked pretty 
> seemlessly, but I didn't exactly tax it, I just wanted to put a few 
> .avis onto a proper DVD with a menu so a friend could watch them.  Was 
> really quick to use, had some nice pre-set menu graphics to chose from, 
> and burnt fine first time.

That's more or less the level of what I'm trying to do too. I make 
POV-Ray render some insane stuff, build AVIs out of it, and then put it 
onto a real DVD so it can be played anywhere. (Plus playing uncompressed 
video seems to stress my HD.)

The thing I've got seems to crash a lot. It allows you to do some 
limited video editing, but stubbornly refuses to allow you to do things 
like insert pauses or writing and so on.

>> Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money?
> 
> Yawn! You really should do a few clicks on amazon before making 
> statements like that.  You do realise that for 900 pounds you can get a 
> good quality 46 inch full-HD TV!  Smaller ones are *considerably* 
> cheaper (like less than half that price).

You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few 
days ago, right?

>> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
>> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
>> £800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)
> 
> Yawn!  Under 200 pounds now.

Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, the 
format is still brand-spanking-new. Are there even any BluRay titles to 
play yet?

>> much less technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond 
>> what you can do with a DVD recorder...
> 
> Programs like Windows Movie Maker make it pretty easy.  Judging by the 
> number of videos on YouTube made with it, I guess a fair number of 
> people worked out how to use it.

Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and 
it wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a bunch 
of videos and join them together to make one video. But that seemed to 
be the sum total of its abilities.

OTOH, most videos on YouTube seem to be unedited mobile phone videos... :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> That's more or less the level of what I'm trying to do too. I make POV-Ray 
> render some insane stuff, build AVIs out of it, and then put it onto a 
> real DVD so it can be played anywhere. (Plus playing uncompressed video 
> seems to stress my HD.)

For playback on PCs (and on the PS3 connected to my TV) I usually convert to 
h264 which is really good for high resolution.  I found a program called 
xvid4psp which is free and has a nice GUI to do all the conversion, without 
needing some huge command line only to find that your player doesn't support 
"adaptive b-frames" or some pyramid thingy.

> The thing I've got seems to crash a lot. It allows you to do some limited 
> video editing, but stubbornly refuses to allow you to do things like 
> insert pauses or writing and so on.

Oh, Windows Movie Maker is good for stuff like that, it's what I usually use 
for simple editing with text, still images, pauses etc.  I've got a feeling 
that it's only the version that comes with Vista that lets you do HD quality 
though, but I guess that's not a problem for you.

> You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few days 
> ago, right?

That's funny, on their website they have plenty of HDTVs under 400 pounds.

> Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, the 
> format is still brand-spanking-new.

Hmm I don't think so, once the PS3 came out, basically nobody could sell a 
blu-ray player for above 400 pounds.  Since then the prices have gradually 
come down from 350 or so to the 200 you see today.

> Are there even any BluRay titles to play yet?

Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.

> Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and it 
> wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a bunch of 
> videos and join them together to make one video. But that seemed to be the 
> sum total of its abilities.

You didn't notice the fades and text and all the effects you could add then?

Post a reply to this message

> For playback on PCs (and on the PS3 connected to my TV) I usually 
> convert to h264 which is really good for high resolution.  I found a 
> program called xvid4psp which is free and has a nice GUI to do all the 
> conversion, without needing some huge command line only to find that 
> your player doesn't support "adaptive b-frames" or some pyramid thingy.

I usually just use MPEG-1. It works everywhere, and it's easy to create. 
(Doesn't look quite as nice as a DVD though.)

I used to use Huffyuv, but it only gives you a few percent compression, 
and then one day it spectacularly stopped working on my PC and I nearly 
lost a whole load of renders that had taken months to produce. o_O

>> You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few 
>> days ago, right?
> 
> That's funny, on their website they have plenty of HDTVs under 400 pounds.

Well, unless they only put the expensive ones out on display or something...

>> Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, 
>> the format is still brand-spanking-new.
> 
> Hmm I don't think so, once the PS3 came out, basically nobody could sell 
> a blu-ray player for above 400 pounds.  Since then the prices have 
> gradually come down from 350 or so to the 200 you see today.

Oh. So it's Sony's fault? ;-)

>> Are there even any BluRay titles to play yet?
> 
> Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.

OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less 
than 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD 
content printed on BluRay disks...

>> Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and 
>> it wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a 
>> bunch of videos and join them together to make one video. But that 
>> seemed to be the sum total of its abilities.
> 
> You didn't notice the fades and text and all the effects you could add 
> then?

I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round 
by using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.
>
> OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less than 
> 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD content 
> printed on BluRay disks...

What makes you think that older films only exist in SD format?  Do you think 
they always used to show SD format at the cinema?!?! :-O

> I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
> duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round by 
> using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.

Don't have that limitation here, just go to timeline view and drag the video 
clips around after you've applied the transition.

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
487365a2$1@news.povray.org...

> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't think 
> of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much memory.

At least, having a lot of memory lets you open many RAM-hungry apps at the 
same time. I can have FinalRender gobbling memory to render a huge scene and 
still be able to edit images with Photoshop while having Firefox opened with 
lots of tabs etc. Also, there are many professional applications where more 
RAM = bigger whatever is the goal of the application. I'm working with 
linear programming for instance, and more RAM = larger models.

G.

Post a reply to this message

>> OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less 
>> than 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD 
>> content printed on BluRay disks...
> 
> What makes you think that older films only exist in SD format?  Do you 
> think they always used to show SD format at the cinema?!?! :-O

Er... yes. (Let's face it, at the cinema the pictures are usually more 
blurry than on TV! For some reason, they never bother to get the 
projector sharply in focus...)

>> I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
>> duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round 
>> by using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.
> 
> Don't have that limitation here, just go to timeline view and drag the 
> video clips around after you've applied the transition.

I'll try it when I get home.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't think 
>> of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much memory.
> 
> At least, having a lot of memory lets you open many RAM-hungry apps at the 
> same time. I can have FinalRender gobbling memory to render a huge scene and 
> still be able to edit images with Photoshop while having Firefox opened with 
> lots of tabs etc. Also, there are many professional applications where more 
> RAM = bigger whatever is the goal of the application. I'm working with 
> linear programming for instance, and more RAM = larger models.

OK, but all of what you've described is pretty unusual for home use.

Sure, I run flam3, which eats RAM like candy. But that's because I'm a 
nerd. Normal humans don't do things like that.

At any rate, none of this explains why *Vista*, by itself, requires 
multiple gigabytes of RAM. (And therefore, presumably, if you want to 
run *real applications* that require gigs of RAM, you have to add even 
more RAM to your system to accomodate them!)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Er... yes. (Let's face it, at the cinema the pictures are usually more 
> blurry than on TV! For some reason, they never bother to get the projector 
> sharply in focus...)

Never noticed that before at the cinemas I've been at.  What I do notice is 
that even when you walk right up to the screen at the end, the text of the 
credits still looks good, even when you've got 1% of the screen taking up 1 
foot right infront of your face.  Now try going up close to your TV during 
the end credits of a film and seeing how detailed the text looks...  There's 
an order of magnitude difference.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I'm just loving the concept of "only 1 GB of RAM" - as if that's a 
> "small" amount or something...

Yeah, I was looking at machines in Fryes yesterday (just because I was 
there) and noticing all of them had either 2 or 5 gig, for fairly 
reasonably-priced machines. (Not cheap, mind, but below mid-range even 
had 2G of RAM.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of 
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

I remember when Myst first came out on a CD. Wow, over 600 meg on one 
read-only disk. "Well," I thought, "there goes the end of game pirating. 
You'd never be able to copy such a thing onto a hard drive."

And yeah, it's nice to have a 10G text file, wonder how you're going to 
trim lines off the top and bottom conveniently, and then realize you are 
on a 64-bit machine with 16G of RAM, so you just fire up VI.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> And yeah, it's nice to have a 10G text file, wonder how you're going to 
> trim lines off the top and bottom conveniently, and then realize you are 
> on a 64-bit machine with 16G of RAM, so you just fire up VI.

Wouldn't scrolling the file take more than the linetime of the universe?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
> some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...

When I looked around for DVD authoring software for turning camcorder 
stuff into DVDs, I found ULead to be the only version that actually 
didn't compress everything so poorly it was unwatchable. ULead "fair" 
quality was better than anyone else's "best" quality. I suspect ULead is 
the only one that actually implemented b-frames at the time.

If that's what you're doing, I'd suggest getting a clip with lots of 
motion and another with lots of flat area, then trying out all the free 
trial versions of stuff to see what the quality is like. I used a video 
of sun sparkling off an open tank of water, and then looking into the 
tank of water to see the turtles and such swimming. Gave a good pair of 
images, with lots of random motion and lots of subtle contrast 
differences, both of which are hard for mpeg to compress.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Wouldn't scrolling the file take more than the linetime of the universe?

Errr, no?  If you turn off the syntax highlighting, it takes about 90 
seconds to load and maybe 2 minutes to save. Much less time then trying 
to get the head/tail arguments correct, even assuming they support the 
kind of trimming you're trying to do.  (I forget which, but there's one 
combination out of the obvious four that isn't supported.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:31:13 -0400, SharkD wrote:

> On the subject of licensed software and the tight grip the license
> holders have on them, I wish ATRAC were an open standard and prevalent
> instead of MP3. It's a much better algortihm, but Sony wants to keep it
> all to itself.

MP3 isn't actually an open standard either.  It's a de facto standard, 
but Frauenhoffer (sp?) expect software developers writing encoders (and 
possibly decoders, don't recall the specifics offhand) to pay license 
fees.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:52:22 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> 2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of
> "cheap".

Depends on the memory technology used.  I upgraded a machine here from 1 
GB to 2 GB for about US$55 - about 25 GBP IIRC.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:03:29 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't
> think of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much
> memory. Playing games involves audio and video data, but I'm
> hard-pressed to think of anything else...

Virtualization of multiple OSes.  Lots of people use VMware for testbeds 
and such, that takes a good amount of memory.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> MP3 isn't actually an open standard either.  It's a de facto standard, 
> but Frauenhoffer (sp?) expect software developers writing encoders (and 
> possibly decoders, don't recall the specifics offhand) to pay license 
> fees.

  That's the reason why many small software houses prefer using the ogg
format, as it's completely free.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

In article <48737522$1@news.povray.org>, voi### [at] devnull says...
> >> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't t
hink 
> >> of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much memory.
> > 
> > At least, having a lot of memory lets you open many RAM-hungry apps at 
the 
> > same time. I can have FinalRender gobbling memory to render a huge scen
e and 
> > still be able to edit images with Photoshop while having Firefox opened
 with 
> > lots of tabs etc. Also, there are many professional applications where 
more 
> > RAM = bigger whatever is the goal of the application. I'm working wit
h 
> > linear programming for instance, and more RAM = larger models.
> 
> OK, but all of what you've described is pretty unusual for home use.
> 
> Sure, I run flam3, which eats RAM like candy. But that's because I'm a 
> nerd. Normal humans don't do things like that.
> 
> At any rate, none of this explains why *Vista*, by itself, requires 
> multiple gigabytes of RAM. (And therefore, presumably, if you want to 
> run *real applications* that require gigs of RAM, you have to add even 
> more RAM to your system to accomodate them!)
> 
Well. How about something slightly normal, like having Firefox open with 
tabs for information sites, while also running the game engine, and 
running a program that tracks you combat kills, to tell you how much 
damage you are doing, while storing that data for later use in a MySQL 
file. Or are 99.9% of the people playing EQ2 "not normal" by your 
standard?

And that doesn't even go into people running something like Second Life, 
where the only people not trying to design things (i.e. having graphics 
editors, Photo Shop, etc., open are either a) using free acounts and 
can't afford the software, or b) bots designed to up the traffic stats 
on sims.

I could go one, but the point is, if you play games, your probably going 
to need that 1GB to "run the game", and the second to do anything else 
at the same time. If you play games for something that *supports* over 
1GB per application, how long do you "really" think its going to be 
before you need it to run at all? Since, you know, that drives hardware 
requirements "way" more than MS making bloatware.

You might be surprised what "normal" people need on their system. lol

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:22:38 -0400, Warp wrote:

>> MP3 isn't actually an open standard either.  It's a de facto standard,
>> but Frauenhoffer (sp?) expect software developers writing encoders (and
>> possibly decoders, don't recall the specifics offhand) to pay license
>> fees.
> 
>   That's the reason why many small software houses prefer using the ogg
> format, as it's completely free.

Yep.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:

> I could go one, but the point is, if you play games, your probably going 
> to need that 1GB to "run the game", and the second to do anything else 
> at the same time.

Sure. If you're running an intensive game, you're going to need the 
hardware to handle it. (Not sure why you'd be running something else at 
the same time as a game, but hey...)

Still doesn't explain why Vista should waste 2 GB of your RAM rather 
than let your intensive game use it for itself...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't
>> think of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much
>> memory. Playing games involves audio and video data, but I'm
>> hard-pressed to think of anything else...
> 
> Virtualization of multiple OSes.  Lots of people use VMware for testbeds 
> and such, that takes a good amount of memory.

Surely you'd only *attempt* such a thing on an extremely high-end server 
though? (Recall that Vista is a desktop OS.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:45:25 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't
>>> think of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much
>>> memory. Playing games involves audio and video data, but I'm
>>> hard-pressed to think of anything else...
>> 
>> Virtualization of multiple OSes.  Lots of people use VMware for
>> testbeds and such, that takes a good amount of memory.
> 
> Surely you'd only *attempt* such a thing on an extremely high-end server
> though? (Recall that Vista is a desktop OS.)

Nope.  IT classrooms typically buy the cheapest hardware they can 
possibly purchase - usually desktop machines - and then run a virtual 
server envrionment.

For lab work, high-end hardware is typically also not used unless 
hardware duplication needs to be done for testing.  Many of the machines 
I've used in labs have been discarded desktops for users who upgraded to 
better machines.  Old Compaq Deskpro machines and the like.

I have a Compaq EVO 600 sitting here on my desk at home that's running 
VMware Server, and on my Linux laptops, I have VMware Workstation 
installed so I can have access to Windows for the one or two odd 
occasions where I absolutely must have it (and I hate having to use it at 
all).  Without the 2 GB of RAM in my laptop, I wouldn't be able to do 
that.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:44:21 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Sure. If you're running an intensive game, you're going to need the
> hardware to handle it. (Not sure why you'd be running something else at
> the same time as a game, but hey...)

Lots of people run antivirus, firewall, etc - while playing games.

I know many people who will have docs open for whatever reason while 
playing games (taking notes, etc).

It's not uncommon.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Not sure why you'd be running something else at the same time as a game

You never played Second Life, have you? ;-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Maybe I've missed something, but what image editing software gives you 
> more than 1 level of undo?

The GIMP.  It's in your price range, too :)

> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And it 
> was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. (So I'm told anyway. It 
> was a gift, so I didn't actually pay for it.) The idea that you could 
> buy something capable of taking half-decent video for less than £800 
> seems really far-fetched to me.

Sounds like an old cam-corder.  Put it this way: 4 years ago, when I 
worked at Best Buy (not the cheapest shop, mind you), you could buy an 
SD camcorder for <$200 (that's about GBP130).  You could buy a really 
nice HD one for $800 (GBP500 or so).

>> A quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an HD-capable TV.
> 
> That's a really tiny percentage.

That's about what Macs have, and they're not exactly rare.

> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
> £800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)

You can get a PS3 for $399 now (GBP 250), or a stand-alone player for 
$200 (GBP 130).

> This suggests to me that you only need large stacks of RAM if you're 
> doing professional video editing work. I mean seriously, I don't even 
> *know* anybody else rich enough to afford a video camera, much less 
> technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what you can 
> do with a DVD recorder...

You need to get new friends, the ones you have are affecting your 
viewpoint :)

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, the 
> format is still brand-spanking-new. Are there even any BluRay titles to 
> play yet?

The format was brand new 3 or 4 years ago.  You realize that the 
Japanese have had HDTV as standard for over a decade, and are currently 
discussing the successor to it (3800 horizontal resolution, or something).

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

> I remember when Myst first came out on a CD. Wow, over 600 meg on one 
> read-only disk. "Well," I thought, "there goes the end of game pirating. 
> You'd never be able to copy such a thing onto a hard drive."

Yep I remember that time too, when previous games I had came on up to 10 
floppies.  Then this CD drive came out and could store 600 meg - the first 
few data CDs I got (the entire archive of a certain magazine's cover discs, 
and a couple of games) only used about a quarter of the CD.  Now we have 
games that come on multiple DVDs, surely the step to blu-ray can't be that 
far off now.

> And yeah, it's nice to have a 10G text file, wonder how you're going to 
> trim lines off the top and bottom conveniently, and then realize you are 
> on a 64-bit machine with 16G of RAM, so you just fire up VI.

For me it's just nice that my PC can be chugging away processing a 5GB 
simulation, and yet I can carry on working as normal (Outlook, powerpoint, 
excel etc) as if it's doing nothing else.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:23:47 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>> OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
>> new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM
>>
>> It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to  
>> double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your  
>> previous OS?
>
> Because Vista was designed for new computers?  I guess MS saw it as a  
> waste of money optimising it for older machines.

A more precise answer would be - because it's doing more then the old OS,  
but it's all under the surface where you can't see it.

At which point the question becomes - What stuff and does it make things  
better?

-- 
Phil Cook

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

Post a reply to this message

>> Maybe I've missed something, but what image editing software gives you 
>> more than 1 level of undo?
> 
> The GIMP.  It's in your price range, too :)

Uhuh. And who (apart from me) uses that?

>> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And 
>> it was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.
> 
> Sounds like an old cam-corder.

It's only about 1 year old.

> Put it this way: 4 years ago, when I 
> worked at Best Buy (not the cheapest shop, mind you), you could buy an 
> SD camcorder for <$200 (that's about GBP130).  You could buy a really 
> nice HD one for $800 (GBP500 or so).

Doesn't necessarily mean that you can buy it in the UK for that price. 
(E.g., a copy of Acrobat Standard costs $400 in the US, and £400 in the 
UK. I'm also told - I don't know if it's true - that CDs are roughly 10x 
cheaper in America than here.)

>>> A quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an HD-capable TV.
>>
>> That's a really tiny percentage.
> 
> That's about what Macs have, and they're not exactly rare.

Rare enough that in my entire life, I've never seen a real Mac. Except 
on TV.

>> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
>> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
>> £800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)
> 
> You can get a PS3 for $399 now (GBP 250), or a stand-alone player for 
> $200 (GBP 130).

Well, I guess that's not *so* steep compared to a £9.99 DVD player...

>> This suggests to me that you only need large stacks of RAM if you're 
>> doing professional video editing work. I mean seriously, I don't even 
>> *know* anybody else rich enough to afford a video camera, much less 
>> technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what you 
>> can do with a DVD recorder...
> 
> You need to get new friends, the ones you have are affecting your 
> viewpoint :)

"New" friends? What makes you think I have any to start with?

I said I didn't *know* anybody - nothing about being friends with them. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Wouldn't scrolling the file take more than the linetime of the universe?
> 
> Errr, no?  If you turn off the syntax highlighting, it takes about 90 
> seconds to load and maybe 2 minutes to save.

90 seconds?

If you just wanted to remove the first and last line, wouldn't it take 
less than 90 seconds to script it? Even in the most retarded scripting 
language imaginable?

-- 
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scott wrote:

> Yep I remember that time too, when previous games I had came on up to 10 
> floppies.  Then this CD drive came out and could store 600 meg - the 
> first few data CDs I got (the entire archive of a certain magazine's 
> cover discs, and a couple of games) only used about a quarter of the 
> CD.  Now we have games that come on multiple DVDs, surely the step to 
> blu-ray can't be that far off now.

Rise of the Robots: 12 floppies, delicious graphics, LAME gameplay.

Native Instruments Komplete V: 12 DVDs.

I think the step to BluRay has gotta be pretty far away though. You want 
a drive that reads and burns CD, DVD-SL, DVD-DL, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, 
DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and so on? That'll be £20 please. You want something 
that can touch BluRay? That'll be £400 please.

Looking along the shelves and seeing that it quite a wakeup call. It's a 
bit like that time I was in a jewlery shop, looking at earings at about 
£15 each. And then I saw a necklace and thought "hey, that's nice... I 
wonder ho- £7,000?!! Oh, wait. It's pure diamond..."

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>> Not sure why you'd be running something else at the same time as a game
> 
> You never played Second Life, have you? ;-)

Played? I've never *heard* of it. Why?

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