Recent Comments:
Bell, Telus to announce HSPA partnership this week? {Engadget Mobile}
Sep 3rd 2008 2:21PM You're talking about two entirely different standards and things.
The article was talking about CDMA the mobile phone standard being a burden. It is.
HSPA (actually UMTS) is not based upon CDMA-the-mobile-phone-standard (IS-95/IS-2000). UMTS is a revision of GSM.
The only thing UMTS and IS-95/IS-2000 have in common is that they both use Code Division Multiple Access technology for the air interface. They don't even use this in the same way, using different encodings, frame rates, even spectrum slice widths. To use a car analogy, claiming they have much in common is like claiming a motorbike and a dump truck are both variants of the same thing because they both have tires made of rubber.
Bell and Telus will not find UMTS a drop-in replacement for IS-95/IS-2000. The two systems are entirely different, employing entirely different models of how a phone system should work. Essentially the entire infrastructure - with the exception of the base stations themselves - will need to be built from scratch.
I don't know why people keep banging on with this meme that UMTS has more in common with IS-95/IS-2000. They have almost nothing in common. I assume it has to do with the bizarre war Qualcomm was running against GSM in the late nineties where they managed to convince people that the crummy, half-witted, AMPS-derived "standard" they were pushing was better than GSM (a) because of the air interface and (b) because it didn't come from anything connected to a government (GSM was the product of European phone companies, which in the 1980s were publicly owned.) Their FUD campaign and insistence that one, relatively minor, component of a standard was the only thing that mattered, actually did a lot to prevent progress in the mobile phone sphere. We're now finally moving to LTE, which is what UMTS would have looked like had CDMA not been politicized.
There can be only one: "source" claims for iPhone 2.0.2 to not suck, 2.0 must die {Engadget Mobile}
Aug 29th 2008 10:07AM Damned straight.
Firefox users should add the following line to their userContent.css file:
A[HREF*="roughlydrafted"]:after { content: " [IDIOT WARNING]"!important ; color: red }
It highlights Roughly Drafted links with a suitable warning. Websites like Slashdot and, here, Engadget, have an annoying habit of posting links without actually indicating the source. It's worse than being rickrolled, at least when you're rickrolled you know the poster of the link wasn't as dumb as you feel.
You'll find your userContent.css file in the "chrome" subdirectory of your Mozilla/Firefox profile. The precise location depends on your OS, under GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, etc), you can open a shell, and type "gnome-open ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/chrome" to bring up the folder. If the file is not there, just copy userChome-example.css to userChrome.css, and open the file in Text Editor by right-clicking and selecting "Open file with "Text Editor"".
Disney to finally unleash a few classics on Blu-ray {Engadget HD}
Aug 29th 2008 9:04AM I agree that better audio is one of the best parts of the newer standards, although in all honesty I doubt many people can tell the difference between full-rate DTS (remember though that many DTS DVDs use half-rate) and the 5.1 so-called lossless audio formats. The relative rarity of DVDs with "good audio" though means that Blu-ray's (and HD DVD's) *consistent* support makes them a step up on audio quality more than the codecs used.
Transmitting two hours of full-rate DTS takes less than 1G. "CD" 5.1 quality lossless sound compressed using FLAC or something similar takes around 2-2.5G. And, obviously, if you go 24bit/96kHz, you're looking at around 5-6Gb for lossless audio (sticking with 5.1) This is, of course, if lossless is what you absolutely must definitely have, at some level good compression is indistinguishable from lossless to virtually every human ear.
What am I trying, badly, to say? Well, let's go top of the line. Let's say 7.1 "lossless" 24 bit 96kHz audio is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. You're talking about 7G of data (for two hours.) The video part of the movie itself, compressed using H.264 is going to weight in at around 7-8G. So it's an increase, but it's questionable whether a technology that's capable of streaming 7-8G of video data is going to start choking at the seams or become significantly more expensive if it has to less than double that. In other words, there's no reason why digital downloads shouldn't incorporate excellent audio as an option. Especially as 7Gb is an absolute upper limit, realistically we're not talking about anywhere close to that for audio indistinguishable from that quality.
This is especially true if it's a selling point. If people can select "Low, Medium, High, Superhigh" quality for the video, and "Stereo, Regular 5.1, HQ5.1, HQ7.1" for the audio, with different prices for each, then theoretically a movie download service has the capability to aim at different price brackets depending on budget and convenience.
Which in turn gives you another good reason why downloads are likely to be successful once user-friendly models that overcome the limitations of DRM are worked out (Netflix coming very close right now.) They offer the opportunity to overcome the limitations of physical media. Want to know why everyone felt it necessary to go blue-violet laser for the HD disc formats? It wasn't that you can't fit two hours of decent (albeit not "lossless") sound and video on a two-layer red-laser disc. But, of course, a single disk has to work in multiple markets. And everyone wants a commentary track or two. And, of course, the format needs to be better than DVD in more respects than quality (though they screwed that one up.) In comparison, a digital download only has to involve the content the user actually wants to see and hear at the precise moment they're watching it.
Blu-ray (and HD DVD, and CBHD, et al) all have to cater for every single possible combination of use scenarios. Which also means there's little opportunity to differentiate on price or convenience.
It's hard to be sure what's going to happen right now until digital downloads start to shake themselves out into a user friendly pattern. But it's far from inconceivable that they'll find some aspect of Blu-ray is impossible to displace. If Blu-ray remains a niche format, then the more convenient downloads are over BD, the more likely it is that the latter format will simply disappear. I've already said I think it's going to happen anyway, unless the Blu-ray standard is overhauled (and the Blutards stop living in denial, refusing to countenance the idea that BD isn't going to be some massively popular format in two years.) Downloads do not preclude high quality audio any more than they preclude high quality video. With significant advantages over old-fashioned disc-based media, they stand more than a fair chance of beating discs if the price model is right and if they ensure there are no good reasons to prefer physical discs.
Sony debuts $1,500 SACD player with HDMI output {Engadget HD}
Aug 28th 2008 3:24PM : @squiggleslash, you can churn out as many hypothetical scenarios as you like but it's up to Disney, Fox, Warner to decide if they want combo discs
Well, gee, do you think? And there was I thinking that I could wave a magic wand and force them to do what's necessary to make Blu-ray viable.
Seriously, what kind of an answer is that to my post? How does that in any way address the issues it raises? "X has fault Y" "Oh yeah, well it's up to Z to fix it, not you". Really?
It absolutely astonishes me that Blu-ray enthusiasts are not interested in addressing the issues with their format. Somehow you all believe it's going to succeed, regardless of how many faults it has. You're not interested in making it better than DVD (except in definition), you're not interested in making it work in people's existing infrastructure, you all seem to believe that people will blindly just drop DVD and switch to Blu-ray.
They're not going to. It's up to Warner, Disney, et al to fix it. It's up to consumers to want it.
Consumers don't want it, and will not until it's actually beneficial to them.
Sherwood bringing two new Blu-ray players to CEDIA {Engadget HD}
Aug 28th 2008 3:19PM Yeah, there'll be no DVD. Because the studios would rather earn a fraction of what they're earning trying to prop up an unpopular product than sell to everyone.
The optimists are suggesting that Blu-ray will be even with DVD in 2012. That's four years away, at a time when online downloads are beginning to become credible. The only way Blu-ray is going to pull even is if DVD becomes a niche product, with everyone switching to downloads for their primary source of content.
Seriously, pull your head out and look at the real world. Blu-ray isn't going anywhere. It needs a massive take up of HDTVs just to be attractive to a majority of the population, and still has to overcome the increased competition it's going to get and the fact BD disks are unattractive to anyone with SD TVs anywhere in their infrastructure. With the economy as it is, that's improbable.
It's the wrong format at the wrong time. Let's hope the BDA ignores the Blutards and actually fixes the problems.
Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Blu-ray players officially official, still unpriced {Engadget HD}
Aug 28th 2008 3:12PM Yes, it's going to be $199 and they're going to throw in a free 50" 2160p240 Plasma TV with each purchase.
That's for the BD55, obviously. The '35 costs $99, and comes with a 32" 10,000:1 1080p60 LCD. But who would want *that*?
Toshiba's new ZF LCDs include Cell-based Resolution+ upscaling {Engadget HD}
Aug 28th 2008 12:48PM Yes, we're aware of how it works, but it's still not "native" 960p. The data is thrown away during the conversion to 480i, blurred further due to compression, and as a result attempts to extract more data than was there originally are limited to guess work based upon clues from surrounding frames. I'm not saying it doesn't look good, but "native" 960p it aint.
As for the evil government agencies comment: You do realize those NCIS shows where Abby "enhances" a blurry CCTV picture to identify the terrorists are, actually, fictional? The picture you show is very good, but it's also meaningless. It's an edge-sharpened picture, I'm not seeing more detail, just better contrasts due to an intelligent sharpening algorithm. If you really think it's showing more detail, try reading the smaller text on the label on the bottle. There's nothing I can't read on the left that I can on the right, and if I enhance the contrast on the left, they're about equal in readability.
There's no additional information, it's just a smart sharpening algorithm.
Toshiba's new ZF LCDs include Cell-based Resolution+ upscaling {Engadget HD}
Aug 28th 2008 10:58AM Whether it's SuperUpconversion or not, "native" 960p out of 480i is not physically possible. They can do some remarkable stuff with upconversion, and some DVDs in particular support standards that makes the disks lend themselves to upconversion, but it's incorrect to refer to the processed result as "native" 960p in any way. What makes a feed 480i is that the rest of the data isn't there.
I'm surprised none of the Blutards have chimed in yet with a complaint about Toshiba's lack of a player for their flailing standard, like they did with the DVD player thing the other day.
Sony debuts $1,500 SACD player with HDMI output {Engadget HD}
Aug 27th 2008 6:28PM The purpose of a combo disc is to ensure you only have to buy one copy of the movie to play on all your players.
Here's an example: My Sister-in-law wants the latest Disney movie for my nieces. She has two choices: A Blu-ray disc to play on the (admittedly non-existent, but let's pretend she has one) Blu-ray player in the living room, or a DVD that'll play on the living room player (albeit in poorer quality), the kid's room DVD player/TV, and her SUV's entertainment system.
Which do you think she'd buy? Which would she buy if the Blu-ray disc was actually combo DVD/Blu-ray format?
For Blu-ray to succeed, it has to be more useful than DVD. Better does not just mean higher quality, it means there should be no downside to using it.
I continue to be surprised at the number of Blu-ray fans who don't "get it" and insist Blu-ray should be as limited as possible, nothing more than an incompatible high definition format.
Sony debuts $1,500 SACD player with HDMI output {Engadget HD}
Aug 27th 2008 2:12PM SACD is interesting, it's a natively backward compatible format in that CD players can play SACDs (but at CD quality), and SACD players can play SACD discs at SACD quality and CDs at, well, CD quality. Thus far SACD's failed to take off largely because CDs are already "good enough" for most consumers, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have some good ideas.
The backwards compatibility thing is what Blu-ray needs and HD DVD should have had too. HD DVD had "combo" discs, but nobody in the DVD Forum thought to make it a mandatory part of the spec. The result is that anyone who buys Blu-ray discs can only play them on Blu-ray players, which means, in practice, the only TV they can watch them on is the big one in the living room. A parent considering buying Disney movies for their kids is better off getting the DVD version, as it'll play in the kid's room, and on the minivan system, etc.
It would be nice to see the same approach as with SACD taken with Blu-ray. Making a Combo disc can't be impossible, and it's probably one of many things that are necessary to get the format out there to everyone, not just the magic 10% with high-def infrastructure, especially as, arguably, DVDs are still more useful than Blu-ray discs even to that 10% given that nobody has 100% HD infrastructure.
