On 4/5/2011 3:14, Invisible wrote:
> I would pay serious money to obtain hardware and software which isn't
> infuriatingly awkward to use. But unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be
> an option. Nobody makes it.

I have found that is just plain how it works in video. I'm not sure why. I 
haven't been able to find a capture card that will process HD coming off a 
TV cable, in spite of every TV having this capability. The few capture cards 
that *seem* to have this capability require you to use their custom playback 
software that only runs on the same machine where you have the card plugged 
in, which kind of defeats the purpose of capturing the stuff in the first place.

Find a set-top box that'll play files *and* record TV.

Don't even get me started on the PS3 usability failures. :-)

Every day I notice 101 minor things where I say "with a little thought (or, 
if they didn't make the compromise this way) it would have been much less 
annoying."

 > I doubt integrating whatever 3rd party code they bought into their own 
codebase was a five minute job.

You'd be surprised.

 > What, fundamentally, can we do about this?

Shop someplace like Amazon where people give reviews that the company 
doesn't get to vet.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 05/04/2011 04:50 PM, scott wrote:
>> How does that help?
>
> You don't read reviews before buying something?

No. But generally I don't buy hardware from Amazon anyway...

(Usually I only buy music from Amazon. And then only when I already know 
what I'm trying to buy, so the reviews are irrelevant.)

 From what I've seen, the reviews for just about *everything* are 
unwaiveringly positive.

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

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On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:54:23 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> On 05/04/2011 04:50 PM, scott wrote:
>>> How does that help?
>>
>> You don't read reviews before buying something?
> 
> No. But generally I don't buy hardware from Amazon anyway...
> 
> (Usually I only buy music from Amazon. And then only when I already know
> what I'm trying to buy, so the reviews are irrelevant.)
> 
>  From what I've seen, the reviews for just about *everything* are
> unwaiveringly positive.

That's not been my experience.  But more to the point, if you had a 
problem and you don't write a review, you're not helping the next buyer 
make an informed decision.

Jim

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On 4/5/2011 11:54, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>  From what I've seen, the reviews for just about *everything* are
> unwaiveringly positive.

Maybe for music...

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 05/04/2011 8:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> That's not been my experience.  But more to the point, if you had a
> problem and you don't write a review, you're not helping the next buyer
> make an informed decision.

I agree.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 05/04/2011 06:07 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/5/2011 7:41, clipka wrote:
>> Am 05.04.2011 16:09, schrieb Invisible:
>>
>>> I have absolutely no idea whether these "server-grade" drives really
>>> *are* more reliable, or whether it's just a sucker tax.
>>
>> Server drives are designed to endure continuous use.
>>
>> Desktop drives are designed to endure lots of power cycles.
>
> The drives in a NAS are exactly the same as what you'd buy off the shelf
> in an electronics store.
>
> Google has a whitepaper telling about the drive reliability based on
> statistics from half a million disk drives. There's little correlation
> between "category" and reliability.

So it *is* a sucker tax then.

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On 05/04/2011 08:33 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 05/04/2011 8:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> That's not been my experience. But more to the point, if you had a
>> problem and you don't write a review, you're not helping the next buyer
>> make an informed decision.
>
> I agree.

Well, perhaps. Perhaps if I actually bought hardware from Amazon instead 
of the 10^17 other suppliers, and for every single one I wrote a long 
description of why it sucks, the manufacturers might lose 0.02% of their 
sales, and a tiny few people would be spared buying one sucky product 
only to buy another equally sucky product. I doubt this is going to 
bring quality back to the marketplace.

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>> You don't read reviews before buying something?
>
> No. But generally I don't buy hardware from Amazon anyway...

You don't need to buy it from amazon, but generally enough people have 
that there will be a good range of reviews from people using it in 
different ways.  After reading a couple of pages of comments it usually 
becomes quite obvious if there are problems with the features you are 
interested in.

Also check the "What people buy after looking at this page" section, it 
seems to me like bad reviews certainly affect what people buy.

Is the recorder you have listed on amazon?  If it is then I'd definitely 
leave a review highlighting the points you mentioned here - you'll get a 
much bigger audience and actually influence future purchasers.  You 
didn't even mention the make/model number here, so how are we meant to 
avoid it :-)

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> Well, perhaps. Perhaps if I actually bought hardware from Amazon instead
> of the 10^17 other suppliers, and for every single one I wrote a long
> description of why it sucks, the manufacturers might lose 0.02% of their
> sales,

Amazon has about a 10% market share for online sales...

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On 06/04/2011 09:18 AM, scott wrote:
>> Well, perhaps. Perhaps if I actually bought hardware from Amazon instead
>> of the 10^17 other suppliers, and for every single one I wrote a long
>> description of why it sucks, the manufacturers might lose 0.02% of their
>> sales,
>
> Amazon has about a 10% market share for online sales...

How did you calculate that?

Also, what percentage of the total market is online sales?

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