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Invisible wrote:
> Ah, but what's this I see? A "privacy filter"? Yes, it's a small piece
> of plastic which is transparent only when viewed from certain
> directions. In other words, you stick it to your screen to reduce the
> viewing angle. WTF, people!? :-D
What part of "privacy" did you misunderstand?
> First of all, it's supposedly a video camera, and yet it costs less tha
n
> £2,000. Actually, it costs less than £500. To be blunt, it co
sts £75.
> This is highly suspicious.
Let me blow your mind:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/usb-rechargeable-1-3mp-pin-hole-spy-av-camer
a-disguised-as-sunglasses-tf-slot-42736
> Quite why anybody would pay for an expensive 2MP photosensor and then
> stick it behind a crappy 7mm lens I have no idea.
I've never understood that, unless a 2MP photosensor is actually cheaper
in
bulk than a lower quality one.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"How did he die?" "He got shot in the hand."
"That was fatal?"
"He was holding a live grenade at the time."
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Invisible wrote:
> OK, so you can change the frequency weightings and how often a keyframe
> is put in, and so forth. I'm not seeing much that fundamentally changes
> the whole algorithm such that it might require less computer power.
Making every frame a keyframe reduces the computing and memory you need. Not
using any B frames significantly reduces the amount of memory you need. Not
doing motion prediction reduces how much compute power you need. (At least
for MPEG. I don't know H.264, but I'd assume it's similar.)
> (Although, as I say, I imagine the really hungry bits probably
> have custom hardware acceleration in a device like this.)
Exactly.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"How did he die?" "He got shot in the hand."
"That was fatal?"
"He was holding a live grenade at the time."
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> > Quite why anybody would pay for an expensive 2MP photosensor and then
> > stick it behind a crappy 7mm lens I have no idea.
> I've never understood that, unless a 2MP photosensor is actually cheaper in
> bulk than a lower quality one.
Well, as technology advances it often quite ironically happens that
the older some technology gets, the more expensive it becomes to purchase.
The reason is simple: Lack of demand reduces supply, and low supply means
that the product becomes expensive to produce. Production lines get
upgraded for the newer technology (if not even dismantled outright), so
the older technology becomes more difficult to produce.
Thus the price of most technology experiences a strong U-shaped behavior
as time passes: When the technology is brand new, it's extremely expensive
(both because production costs are still high due to the lack of cheap
production lines, and to capitalize on the eagerness of early adopters).
Then it quickly gets cheaper and cheaper, until it reaches the bottom of
the price valley (and depending on the product it can become almost
ridiculously cheap compared to its original price). Then it stays there
for some time, and when the technology gets more and more obsolete, and
demand decreases, it starts becoming once again more and more expensive
to produce. Depending on the product, it may at some point become impossible
to purchase anymore (because nobody is making it), or extremely expensive
(even more expensive than when it was brand new).
This is the reason you eg. don't find half-gigabyte USB memory sticks
anymore, even though one could think that they would be very cheap to
produce. In fact, they might not be. They might actually be pretty
expensive to produce, which is why nobody does anymore.
It may also explain why it's cheaper to produce a camera with a 2MP
sensor than one with eg. 1MP.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Well, as technology advances it often quite ironically happens that
> the older some technology gets, the more expensive it becomes to purchase.
That was what I had intended to imply, yes. :-)
> (both because production costs are still high due to the lack of cheap
> production lines, and to capitalize on the eagerness of early adopters).
It's more that the technology requires a shake-down period. Yields are
tremendously low until every one of the hundreds of precise steps gets
adjusted just right. A 10% yield on early runs is a good number.
You're also paying off the design. I have a friend who designed RISC chips
for one of the big CPU companies before ARM bought them out, and he told me
about half the cost of a chip over its lifetime is design costs. That is, if
you sell a total of $100million worth of CPUs over its lifetime, it costs
about $50million to design them and $50million to manufacture and distribute
them.
+=+=+=+
Oh, and if anyone cares, here's what the video from those glasses looks like:
http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/PICT0001.AVI
http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/PICT0003.AVI
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"How did he die?" "He got shot in the hand."
"That was fatal?"
"He was holding a live grenade at the time."
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On 25/01/2011 07:26 PM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Quite why anybody would pay for an expensive 2MP photosensor and then
>>> stick it behind a crappy 7mm lens I have no idea.
>
>> I've never understood that, unless a 2MP photosensor is actually cheaper in
>> bulk than a lower quality one.
>
> Well, as technology advances it often quite ironically happens that
> the older some technology gets, the more expensive it becomes to purchase.
> The reason is simple: Lack of demand reduces supply.
I don't recall the details now, but the other day I discovered that
something like 128MB of PC100 RAM is more expensive than 1GB of PC3200.
Or similar. Which is quite bizarre, really...
Alternatively, if you're actually buying PC100, it means you have
something really critical that you need to keep working. (Rather than,
say, just replace the damned PC.) And if it's that critical, they can
charge you "sucker fees" (i.e., whatever they charge, you just have to
pay it, because you need it that badly).
In general though, I was under the impression that most technologies
don't dissappear, they just move down the food chain. For example, the
Z80 is still in production. It's extremely popular, apparently. And
rather cheap too. (I have no idea what the original sale price was, but
currently it's a few quid.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> In general though, I was under the impression that most technologies
> don't dissappear, they just move down the food chain. For example, the
> Z80 is still in production. It's extremely popular, apparently. And
> rather cheap too. (I have no idea what the original sale price was, but
> currently it's a few quid.)
Intel stopped producing the 80386 a few years ago, so it does happen
with some products.
--
- Warp
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On 25/01/2011 09:22 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> In general though, I was under the impression that most technologies
>> don't dissappear, they just move down the food chain. For example, the
>> Z80 is still in production. It's extremely popular, apparently. And
>> rather cheap too. (I have no idea what the original sale price was, but
>> currently it's a few quid.)
>
> Intel stopped producing the 80386 a few years ago, so it does happen
> with some products.
I've seen printers and so forth that use old x86 CPUs inside. I wonder
if Intel stopped manufacturing the 386, or just licenced the design to
somebody else?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It's extremely popular, apparently.
The Z80 is the CPU of choice for things that need a low-power CPU. Like,
digital voice recorders, toasters, remote controls, etc.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"How did he die?" "He got shot in the hand."
"That was fatal?"
"He was holding a live grenade at the time."
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On 25/01/2011 06:28 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> OK, so you can change the frequency weightings and how often a
>> keyframe is put in, and so forth. I'm not seeing much that
>> fundamentally changes the whole algorithm such that it might require
>> less computer power.
>
> Making every frame a keyframe reduces the computing and memory you need.
Presumably the bitrate is going to skyrocket if you do that though.
> Not doing motion prediction reduces how much compute power you need.
Does the standard actually allow that?
(Now that I think about it, the decoder algorithm is usually far more
tightly specified than the encoder...)
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On 25/01/2011 06:24 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Ah, but what's this I see? A "privacy filter"? Yes, it's a small piece
>> of plastic which is transparent only when viewed from certain
>> directions. In other words, you stick it to your screen to reduce the
>> viewing angle. WTF, people!? :-D
>
> What part of "privacy" did you misunderstand?
Engineers spend decades designing an LCD with a wide viewing angle, and
then a company sells you a device to narrow the viewing angle again. :-D
How absurd.
I'm reminded of Flanders & Swan:
I had a little gramophone,
I'd wind it round and round.
And with a sharpish needle,
It made a cheerful sound.
And then they amplified it,
It was much louder then.
And you sharpened fibre needles,
To make it soft again.
At any rate, all this device does is mean that anybody wanting to
shoulder surf needs to stand somewhat closer to you. It doesn't
magically stop people seeing what's on your screen, it just makes it
mildly harder. (For *you* as well as everybody else.)
> Let me blow your mind:
>
>
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/usb-rechargeable-1-3mp-pin-hole-spy-av-camera-disguised-as-sunglasses-tf-slot-42736
An amusing novelty toy, I'm sure...
>> Quite why anybody would pay for an expensive 2MP photosensor and then
>> stick it behind a crappy 7mm lens I have no idea.
>
> I've never understood that, unless a 2MP photosensor is actually cheaper
> in bulk than a lower quality one.
Well, perhaps. I rather suspect it's because most people think the
sensor is the *only* thing that determines picture quality, so they will
simply buy the camera with the highest pixel rating.
(I vaguely recall somebody did an experiment that went something like
this: Take a photograph. Make two edited copies of it. One is slightly
sharper, the other has slightly brighter colours. Ask people which one
they prefer. That's your control group. Now ask another bunch of people,
but first tell them that one picture came from a 2MP camera and the
other from an 8MP camera. Apparently the majority preferred the 8MP
image, regardless of which one you claim to be 8MP. In other words, what
the image actually looks like has no effect on consumer choice. People
are stupid.)
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