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Very creepy - I'll go to bed with nightmares!
I suspect it uses QTVR (seeing the hotspots on screen).
In my application the QT movies can't be specifically authored with 'cue' markers. They'll be straight broadcast video files, I won't have time to 'reauthor' them in any way, I'll merely want to add 'cue' marks somehow (these don't have to be kept with the file, but it'd be useful if they could). The search continues...
Sorry, should have been a bit more specific. This is for playback of uncompressed broadcast footage in a 'live, on-air' situation.
No time to mess around with cutting the movie up with Final Cut. Also looking for a VERY simple interface - ideally big play, stop and 'mark' buttons. I agree it should be relatively trivial to script an App that does it, but it has to be very simple to use. I've yet to find anything appropriate.
A Plea : Is Anyone aware of any Quicktime software that can do the following;
Allow you to insert 'pauses' into the playback of a movie. ie. movie plays until the 'pause' marker is hit, play is restarted when you hit play again until the next 'pause', and so on. Inserting and removing pauses on the movie timeline should be easy to do as well as being able to jump between them.
Alternatively, anyone know of a quicktime developer that may be able to deliver something like this.
thanks
Jonathan Ive CBE. Don't know if this has been mentioned here, but Mr Ive is now a
Citizen of the British Empire.
He was awarded this in our recent New Years Honours List.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4569912.stm
I presume they mean it'll be simultaneously broadcast to members of the media. This is what they did with the iPod video announcement - they had around 2,500 members of the european media in 2 BBC studios. Wonder if I could blag my way in...?
BTW The technoloy section of the UK Guardian last week featured a front page 'behind the scenes' piece by Mike Evangelista on the Macworld keynotes and how they are put together.
I think there's just a little anticipation out there...
PLASMA displays? Nooooooo.....
LCD at least please.
I've seen lots of prices like that recently, in fact I was filled on my Jan 75's at 2.89.
I'd just assumed they'd changed the way options could be priced. Since shares can be priced in cents theres no reason options shouldn't be.
If it's true you can buy options priced in cents It's time I started putting orders in between the bid/ask.
480p vs 480i. If I could just put my anorak on for a second ...
The perceived resolution of 480i IS lower than 480p by about 30%.
So, 1080i vertical res looks about the same as 720p (though you can only really tell on stills). Interlaced formats have higher temporal resolution - in english, they look smoother ...
We in Europe use 576 lines, so by your standards we have HD :-p
/anorak
Favourite trailer of recent times : Jerry Seinfelds 'Comedian' - "In a World....", gets me every time.
HD : 480p may well be an HD" standard but it's actually lower "D" than current European DVDs
480 lines is the same no. of lines as your current DVDs and analogue TV. There is a 480p HD standard in the US but no one really takes it seriously as HD.
It'd be a bit pointless putting 3 films on one DVD in this format as it wouldn't be any Higher Def. than now.
Data rate is about 1.73Mb/sec which is about 1/2 what we transmit on our digital channels at, admittedly Apple's Mpeg4 coding probably looks better than the Mpeg 2 we use. Looks like Apple are compressing the bitrate more for 480p too. Still, can't complain if you collect trailers
But if 'HD' stands for 'high definition' 480p isn't it.
Firewire. One of the comments there lead to a white paper by the CEO of Weibetech.
Here : http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/firewireevolution.pdf
His main points : Apple and Oxford (chipset makers) blew the Firewire 800 introduction & it performed below expectations.
SATA is the future for external storage, Firewire 800 is finished long term.
FW 1600 etc. will never happen.
Firewire 400 will be around for quite some time, in much the same way as USB1.1
The article Blue linked to was from the 1394 trade body, i suspect they may have a slight bias
BTW, I agree Firewire implementation is superior to USB for certain things. FW was designed for streaming from day 1, USB was never designed for this. USB2 will be made to work, I suspect it requires a lot more work though.
One more thing, Apple didn't help FWs reputation with the 1st generation G5s FW implementation. It was responsible for much grief in the Pro Audio community. The problems seem to have been sorted in the new dual cores - which is a good thing as there isn't a single audio interface using PCI-Express ATM, FW is the only way to go right now.
iSlate : a look into the future...
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan06/articles/leader.htm
Note this is a music recording magazine editorial, not an Apple related site at all.
I think it's entirely possible the PC could go by the wayside in the consumer market. The number of consumers who use a PC enough to justify having them is a very small niche. Much of what you described could be done with a Web browser now, including online spreadsheets. For small business users and the more tech savvy PCs will continue to serve a purpose.
this is what you need...
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123088,00.asp
OT : TV. Not necessarily, we get what our broadcasters buy. I haven't seen 'The Wire', though I think I've heard of it. Thing is, if it was trailed as a police show, I'd probably have not bothered unless I heard something specific about it. Police and hospital shows are something I tend to avoid.
What attracted me to 'Six Feet Under' - it wasn't about cops or doctors, the Alan Ball connection helped, and it had very black humour (appeals to us Brits )
I know 'The Shield' is well thought of too, and the 1 or 2 episoeds I've caught suggest that, but I'll have to start from the beginning. So much TV, so little time...
"But I defer to you on this topic. "
Thanks but my knowledge of their consumer lineup is probably no greater than yours.... odd that the pages I looked at made no mention of their s/ware being able to deal with moving pictures over USB. I've only had a quick peruse of their US site, but I haven't found a camcorder w/o Firewire/ iLink yet.
Re: combining monitor and TV. On the surface I agree this seems a good idea, but i think with the current numerous imcompatible DTT standards, putting the decoder in the monitor would be a guarantee of built in obsolescence. Keep it in the PC for now I say, hopefully with the move to Intel there'll be more choice. Now if your PC monitor had at least analogue RGB/ S-video/ composite in you could use it with whatever cable/ DTT/satellite box you like. (Analogue's compatible with anything you see ).There are monitors with composite and S-video In, but no RGB AFAICS. (BTW analogue video RGB ain't the same as VGA, though I'm sure you knew that ).
I'm not expecting things to settle down any time soon.
In the UK Sky are going to start pushing their HD service next year, while the BBC is looking at originating all content in HD in the next 3 years. There'll be a big push (via the BBC of course) to HD probably in 2008 onwards. That'll really p*** the public off
I'm in no hurry, I only recently got a Freeview (DTT) box, the sole reason being the last series of 'Six Feet Under' wasn't being shown on analogue. Best drama serial to come out of the US in recent times IMO.
FWIW, Panasonic's video camera lineup now has USB 2.0 in every model from the top pro camera ($65k) to the bottom of the consumer lineup. Others seem to have begun the transition as well. For now, they're shipping with both.
Are you sure? I couldn't find any mention of USB on any of Panasonics Pro cameras.
Of the cameras with USB none of them actually support sending video over USB, which is obviously a bit of a shortcoming for a 'video' camera... The USB is purely for sending stills right now. Their consumer cameras include 'Motion DV Studio LE' software. Despite it's name this is to be intended purely to "easily transfer still images captured on Mini DV tape to your computer".
Of course this can change, but given the PC world's avoidance of Firewire I'm surprised that there currently seems to be no facillity for streaming video over USB2.0 given it's been around 3/4 years now. Disk based and RAM based systems don't need to stream, but tape based cameras do. Of course there's no tape/camera control via USB either, this is essential in any production environment.
It took the audio world at least 3 years to get reliable audio streaming over USB. I don't see why the video world will be necessarily any faster.
Speaking of audio, there are currently only 2 USB2.0 multichannel audio interfaces on the market, both of these cost as much as an iBook. There's also been an explosion of Firewire interfaces recently - just in time for Apple to drop it?
Really doesn't make much sense in the short term. They'd be selling a computer on the back of software (iMovie) that doesn't work with any current camera. Longer term USB2.0 may well be fine as a FW400 replacement, meanwhile at the high end SATA could take over as a high speed interface for disk drives.
Don't know how much creedence to lend to this rumour but I don't recall O'Grady being a reliable rumour source. On the other hand Mark of the Unicorn have just announced their Firewire 828 audio interface now has USB2.0 - so maybe they know something.
.........
SDE TV's :The only other link I was given said they expect mass production of SEDs by 2007. The only downside from my point of view is that they're starting at 36" and going UP in size. My little hovel would find even a 36" screen a push...
You're mentioning of Plasma TV reminded me... Heard about a new display technology called SED being developed by Canon and Toshiba last night - was new to me anyway.
It uses a phosphor coated screen like your old CRT did, but a completely different way of driving it. Details here:
http://www.canon.com/technology/display/
Doesn't suffer from lag or limited viewing angle like LCD/plasmas. In fact the picture should be as good as the best CRTs, (for critical video viewing CRT is still the no.1 choice) but the TV will have a similar profile to LCD/plasmas, and it uses less power.
At last my search for a CRT replacement draws nearer...
I think the problem isn't 75, it's multiples of 37 5/8, I seem to recall this being Apple's ceiling up to early 1999...
Reading between the lines here, am I right in assuming HD based PVRs are pretty much rare over there apart from TiVo?
I'm a bit surprised if that is the case, as there are around a dozen models available here in the UK, only one of which (Sky+) ties you to any sort of subscription. The others retail for between £150 and £300. All of them only work with DTT (digital TV) services and most have dual DTT tuners allowing you to watch one programme while recording another.
Of course there are plenty of DVD recorders, but virtually all of them rely on analogue tuners, which will lower recorded quality as the compression used on transmission was never intended for multiple generation use.
This is an area which I think is going to hold everybody back, and may stop any one company dominating the market. The DTT service in the UK will be fundamentally different to the US, it's probably different in Germany, and let's face it, the French will probably have deliberately chosen something different from us
There isn't going to be a single worldwide box for some time that works with all the different systems. except via an analogue signal. Using analogue will lose any potential interactivety / programme integration that's likely to work with even a basic DTT box.
Apple would possibly have to make a different variant for each market, hence a possible reliance on 3rd party hardware like the Elgato EyeTV.
The UK's was a very early DTT platform. It's not based on any of the HD formats (it's w/screen standard def. TV) and in fact uses MPEG-2 compression for transmission - which scales poorly for HD. So at some point they're going to have to sell it all to us again using MPEG-4.
Sky are planning on rolling out an HD service in the next year or so (they originally wanted broadcast 540 lines but I think the EBU 'persuaded' them that they couldn't really call that HDTV ) No one knows the transmission standard at the moment but it's likely to be different from anything else we have right now. I'll be interested to see what kind of bandwidth they're palnning on allocating their HD channels as they're notorious for using incredibly low bitrates (down to 1mbit/sec) on their sports channels in particular.
Of course we have a very different market to the US as cable has relatively little penetration here, as does satellite. The latter relies on sport (movies are a loser for them these days as we can just hire the DVD when we want from Amazon now), which limits their market.
From what I see in the trade papers there are numerous transmission formats vying for attention, all of which seem to involve 3 or 4 letter abbreviations. Don't ask me what any of it means though, as after reading a couple of articles like these I've usually lost the will to live...
Me? I don't even understand what you're talking about. Some sort of betting? We don't do that kind of thing here - ask the Irish
Hope you all had a good thanksgiving
Sony: It just keeps getting better - there's code in there too from the guy who cracked DVD encription...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/18/sony_copyright_infringement/
No more Sony for me, though given their recent products that's not exactly a hard decision.
That's the whole Windows thing in a nutshell, it's that macho male thing. 'Hey I built this computer from scratch, only took me $200 and a week to get working'. It's not the end result that matters, it's how you got there. Most of these guys will never admit they bought a PC because they like to tinker with them, it's another little world they can disappear into.
I think the Mini 1st could be a very smart move. As you say it's the 'dip your toe in the water' machine. Making it Intel would remove yet another potential barrier to switchers.
Seeing as you have to go and find the application, then install it and THEN enter your username and password, it's hardly correct to describe it as 'infecting' the Mac...
Unlike the Windows version which does it w/o even telling you it's installing anything.
Congrats Blue!
Life may seem a little different afterwards.
Funny, I've had the same error message, when I've tried using Audacity under Panther. Gave up on it as I have other tools.
Careful... a Bit too much 'irrational exuberance' here eom
OT: Re free downloadable programming. The BBC has to be careful here, they've asked for a (well) above inflation increase in the licence fee over the next 8 years - at the same time they're wanting to make all BBC content freely available to anyone for 7 days after transmission. Licence fee payers may not be too happy about anyone being able to see for free, programs they've paid for. I reckon it should be free for UK Licence payers, and have maybe a 'nominal' annual sub for everyone else, might actually save them having to raise the licence fee.
Re the Apple Event here, don't think there was any connection between the event and the free programming announcement. I think Apple just needed a very large venue for all the european media with satellite links so they could watch the announcement live. TV studios are good for this, presumably 'BBC Studios' offered them a good rate (along with about 10 minute free advertising the following day!).
OT More RB amusement: I must be bored... Tried posting about 8 times at various times, from 4 different browsers on 2 different computers. Twice it's claimed to have posted - it hasn't. So, thought I'd use their help form to alert them of a problem - oops,THAT errored!
Now there was an email address in that error message, so foolishly I emailed them with the entire litany of error messages I'd received so far. Guess what, the email bounced Apparently help@support.lycos.com doesn't exist.
If this is 'intermittent' I'd hate to find out their 'consistent' problems.
Worryingly I'm beginning to find this funny - I need to get out more.
OT : RB AAPL board
Just tried posting on RB again, this time it tells me the message has been posted 'and it's been highlighted below' nothing highlighted, no new message, I can't see anything there. I give up, life's too short.
AAPL was trading around $14 back then. Given Kevin's bullsihness on AAPL and his options trading strategy I'd imagine he's very comfortably retired by now
OT: For some odd reason I found myself scanning the Raging Bull AAPL board. There was a post I wanted to reply to there. Now after 8 attempts (continuous 'oops you're post didn't make it'... I've not only given up, but realise why I stopped bothering with it - the site is so dog slow to load compared to iHub (or just about anywhere else I go). I'm still a member there, I'm just curious, is it always this bad?
Are there likely to be movie houses that don't include MacOS X boxes?
No, but they're unlikely to be using OSX for 3D work. From what I've been told OSX & 3D aren't a good fit, something to do with a poor implementation of Open GL. There aren't really any real HIGH - end video cards available for the Mac either.
In the post world it's Mac for 2D and PC for 3D. Maybe this will change with the Intel Macs.
Most big movie houses use Linux clusters for rendering.
I'm pretty sure those connectors on the DVD players are HDMI connectors for high definition displays. Doubt it'll work with the Apple displays but wouldn't know for sure.
Embarassing really. The colour bars through the dancing silhouette just look like a mistake. And talking of mistakes (or maybe it's just a REALLY clever play on words I'm too dumb to see...) it apparently allows:
"PUR ENYOMENT OF MUSIC' (sic)
'Two step forward'... and three back?
Capture Cards: The Blackmagic cards are very good - for broadcast use (we have several). They're not intended for home use, and unless you have access to broadcast SDI digital video they're no use for semi-pro users . No composite or S-video input options either.
An oxymoron... eom
TV resolution: Sorry PDQ those figures are misleading. The 'lines' they are referring to represent how many vertical 'lines' each recording device can 'resolve'. This isn't the same as the lines a TV picture is made up of (which are fixed at 485 for you poor guys, 576 for us), or the 240 lines of the iTMS movies.
360 'lines' is the maximum no. of alternating black/white vertical 'lines' a standard TV transmission can show (hence Blue's 720 x 480).
BTW Current standard definition DVDs are exactly the same resolution as this, otherwise your TV couldn't show them.
240 is about right for VHS (this would be equivalent to a QT movie 480 pixels wide), though giving this a fixed number is misleading, as VHS is analogue & doesn't divide video into a fixed no. of pixels.
It depends on the state of the recorder, tape, heads etc. With a decent modern VHS off air recordings can be hard to tell from live TV sometimes & S-VHS can get up to near 300 lines. VHS (and all analogue tape formats) problem isn't resolution, it's noise & the fact tape degrades. That's why DVDs look so much better.
I'd imagine the scaled ITMS movies on your TV would look roughly VHS quality.
I think Apple should thank the BBC here in the UK. Breakfast News ran a good 7 minutes on the launch this morming complete with a studio discussion with technology journalists and lots of footage of yesterday's 'event' here. There's also been a 2 minute puff piece on the new iPod running.
Actually, while I'm quite happy as an Apple fan and sometime trader (read gambler) I do wonder why we're spending so much time on it, especially as we are supposed to be a non-commercial organisation.
As to the iPod itself...
I'm underwhelmed in it as a video playback device,but I'm not sure that it matters. The video playback is just an extra feature, it's still essentially an iPod.
I'm not convinced people will be willing to pay $2 for last nights TV just so they can watch it on the train the nex day, especially as it's something they're used to getting for 'free'.
I don't think Apple know how this is going to pan out - the video playback is just a bonus right now.
This could create a new market for short filmakers perhaps. There are plenty of experimental shorts made for festivals and to show what a director can do. It would be good if they could earn a little off them. I suspect the price may drop this time as this is a NEW revenue stream for the programme makers, it doesn't really compete with DVD.
Any guesses on the close? $55 or bust....
Just don't blame me OK? eom