Posted by admin on Oct 27, 2010 in
Chit-chat In 1984， when Steve Jobs exited to announce the first Apple computer, he mentioned that IBM had refused them because the Apple Computer is too small and it cannot do any serious computing. But it turned out to be a great success and the legend continues today. While I have tried to suggest programs of small size to some famous brand, and I got similar reply, your program is too small for serious editing.
Well, who defined that video editing is something so serious that average people cannot access at all? May be one day, serious editing software of huge size will be replaced by smart and small ones.
Posted by admin on Oct 19, 2010 in
Chit-chat Steve Jobs doesn’t usually make a guest appearance on Apple’s post-earnings conference calls with analysts, but after Apple’s first $20 billion quarter, he made an exception. The result was an instant classic, as Apple’s CEO laid out how he views the phone and tablet markets, taking shots at Google and Research In Motion (RIM) and ripping the idea of a seven-inch tablet.
Blowing Past BlackBerry
Jobs started by taking on BlackBerry-maker RIM by explaining that RIM is fading in Apple’s rearview mirror. In the just-concluded quarter, Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones, compared to 12.1 million BlackBerries sold in RIM’s most recently-reported quarter, which ended in August.
“We’ve now passed RIM, and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future,” Jobs said. “They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform, after iOS and Android… RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb.”
Debating With Google
Jobs focused most of his remarks on Android, Google’s competing smartphone operating system. He openly questioned the reality of Android market-share statistics and attacked the search giant for marketing its operating system as “open” versus Apple’s “closed” iOS.
“Last week, Eric Schmidt reiterated that they are activating around 200,000 Android devices per day,” Jobs said. “For comparison, Apple has activated around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the last 30 days, with a peak of almost 300,000 iOS devices per day on a few of those days.”
The Apple CEO lamented the lack of tangible data about the number of Android phones that are actually shipped. “Unfortunately, there is no solid data… we hope that manufacturers will soon start reporting the number of Android handsets they ship each quarter, but today that just isn’t the case… We await to see if iPhone or Android was the winner in the most recent quarter.”
Jobs moved on to attack Google’s characterization of Android as a more open platform than Apple’s as a disingenuous attempt to obfuscate the reality of how Android differs from the iOS.
“Google loves to characterize Android as ‘open’ and iOS and iPhone as ‘closed.’ We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches,” Jobs said. “The first thing most of us think about when we hear the word ‘open’ is Windows, which is available on a variety of devices. Unlike Windows, however, where most PCs have the same user interface and run the same apps, Android is very fragmented. Many Android [manufacturers], including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user’s left to figure it out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same.”
As an example of why Android is a bad platform for App developers, Jobs cited a Twitter client developer (which he referred to as “TwitterDeck,” though presumably he meant TweetDeck) that reported it had to support more than 100 versions of Android software on 244 different handsets. Jobs also pointed out that in addition to the Android Marketplace, there are at least three other app stores being launched by vendors, causing confusion for users and work for developers.
“This is gonna be a mess for both users and developers,” Jobs said. “Contrast this with Apple’s integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.”
Besides which, Jobs said, “even if Google were right, and the real issue is ‘closed’ versus ‘open,’ it is worthwhile to remember that open systems don’t always win.” His example: Microsoft’s PlaysForSure venture used the PC model of separating hardware from software, but it crashed and burned. “Even Microsoft abandoned it in favor of copying Apple’s integrated approach,” Jobs said. “Even Google flirted with this integrated approach with their Nexus One phone,” he said.
“In reality, we think open versus closed is a smokescreen to hide the real issue,” Jobs continued, stating that the real debate is between “fragmented versus integrated” and which is better for the consumer. “We think Android is very, very fragmented and becoming more fragmented by the day,” Jobs said. “We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s… When selling to users who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time. And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform rather than a hundred variants.”
Tablets Ahoy
Jobs then turned to skewering the iPad’s impending competition, most of which feature seven-inch displays. Jobs discounted the seven-inch tablet form factor as “only 45 percent as large as a 10-inch screen,” and mocked the concept of an “avalanche” of forthcoming tablets.
“It appears to be just a handful of credible entrants, not exactly an avalanche,” Jobs said.
Then Jobs turned to attacking the seven-inch tablet form factor. “The 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps,” Jobs said. “Every tablet user is also a smartphone user. No tablet can compete with a smartphone” when it comes to stashing it in a purse or pocket. “Seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad,” he said.
What’s worse, Jobs noted, current tablets run the Froyo version of Android that Google has specifically said isn’t ready for tablets. “What does it mean when your software supplier says not to use their software in your tablet? And what does it mean when you ignore them and use it anyway?”
Jobs predicted that, in the end, “the current crop of seven-inch tablets are doing to be DOA” because they will ultimately “offer less for more” than the iPad. “Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small, and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning both customers and developers who jumped on the seven-inch bandwagon with an orphan product. Sounds like lots of fun ahead.”
By David Chartier, Macworld
Posted by admin on Oct 12, 2010 in
Chit-chat
Well hey — Cisco’s finally announced the consumer-level HD video conferencing system that’s been rumored for a while now. Called Umi, (you me — get it?) the system consists of a 1080p camera module, remote, and a separate set-top box. Cisco says Umi will allow for full 1080p video calls with 720p/30 recording, with a fallback to 720p / 480p if bandwidth is constrained. The camera itself has a glass lens with an optical zoom, autofocus, auto exposure and auto white balance, as well as motorized pan, tilt, and zoom. There’s also a motorized privacy shutter, which is a nice touch. The service is compatible with Google Voice and Video Chat, and Cisco says it’s looking into FaceTime integration as well — we’d expect Skype and Fring are also high on the list of potential partners.
Cisco says it’ll be demoing Umi on Oprah and launching an ad campaign with Ellen Page in the runup to a holiday launch, but none of that will distract from the required $24.99 monthly / $275 annually Umi service plan and $599 MSRP. We don’t know how well that’s going to go over with anyone, but that’ll give you something else to ponder along with this new Cisco slogan we just came up with:
Umi: Now you have to wear pants.
Posted by admin on Oct 12, 2010 in
Chit-chat
This is not a story about betray or loyalty but a competition or cooperation one.
The war between Apple and Google just broke the field of Smartphone and extended to the television set. Here I am going to talk about how do they differ in terms of digital entertainment and how do they compete each other.
While Apple TV has only one box, while Google develops the brains called Google TV and partnered with Logitech on the hardware named Revue. It seemed that Apple is trying to build an Apple Kingdom allowing no body step in while Google is implementing kind of open and share policy and trying to aligning with more to expand its territory.
Apple TV is kitchen knife while Google TV is Swiss Army Knife.
Apple won’t let anybody else touch its proprietary Apple TV interface, and Google wants to staple Google TV onto as many boxes as it can. In this way, Apple has only one Apple TV box to do all things while Google TV will be built right in to new TVs from Sony, available on separate set-top boxes from Logitech, and those are just launch partners, with many more to come. Just as it does with smartphones, this rainbow of vendors will translate to more choice for Google TV users, while Apple TV users have one box to do it all.
Here is what can Google TV do,
• stream audio and videos for listening and watching;
• supports not only services Google has partnered with, such as Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, but just about any video on the Web;
• meld Internet video, live broadcast video, and DVR video into one seamless entertainment extravaganza;
• integrates with Dish Network boxes at a deeper level, it can control them and search recorded videos;
• browse Web sorts of all sorts using the built-in Chrome browser;
• adopts Logitech’s Harmony technology to let you control all your living-room gizmos;
• offers iOS and Android apps that let you use your smartphone as a remote control;
• download and install Android apps but not until early 2011, when Google makes its TV Android Market available.
If you spend $150 for an optional Webcam, it provides 720P ūmi-like HD videoconferencing.
Apple is trying to lead the market while Google is following it.
This is talking about Bluray. Jobs had criticized Bluray as a “bag of hurts” publicly while Google TV is going to be integrated into Sony Bluray Player.
Content Services Are Key
The Revue and all other boxes are designed to play media from the Internet, and connect either via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi. Since all these devices are designed to play online media or pull content from your PC, none feature internal storage you can use.
The Revue has two USB 2.0 ports for connecting external hard drives. Apple TV has a microUSB port, but it can only be used only for service and support.
The newly released Revue by Logitech seemed to be a Swiss Army Knife rather than the less versatile kitchen knives. In the case of Apple TV, which doesn’t yet have a full slate of TV episodes and movies, is sort of a kitchen knife which can only slice certain kinds of vegetables.
Subscription Services
If you have a Netflix subscription (starting from $9 per month), you can watch on-demand streaming on the Revue, Apple TV and the Roku XDS. If you are a Hulu fan, you can use the service on the Boxee Box, or Hulu Plus ($10 per month) on the Roku XDs.
Apple has no deal in place with Hulu. Logitech said Google is in talks with the company over future plans to bring the service to the Google TV. If Amazon Video on Demand is your thing, you can also get the service on the Revue and Roku boxes.
Apple TV has cut deals with major content partners so you can rent TV shows from ABC, Disney, Fox, and the BBC for $0.99 a pop and rent movies for $3.99. Apple also announced AirPlay, a feature that will let you stream video and music from the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad straight to an Apple TV.
Google TV has a similar trick up its sleeve with a feature called ‘Fling’ that lets you stream content from and Android smartphone to the TV.
We still remember that HTC, a Google Android Operating System Phone manufacturer of potent infringement of iPhone. The brawl between Android and Apple iOS has just begin a couple of years ago and now the fight has extended to the TV set. Jobs believe that Google betrayed the alliance physically, technically as well as spiritually, While Schmidt post no comment at all on this.
For me, this has nothing to do with betray or loyalty, no single company could monopolize the mobile market, or it would be a nightmare for customers. This is competition or cooperation.
As customers, we welcome both competition and cooperation, because both will bring us more fascinating technology and improve our digital life.
Posted by admin on Sep 29, 2010 in
Tech Base
What is Audio/Video out of sync?
Audio/video out of sync literally means the audio and video does not arrive to you at the same time, the audio lags behind the video or the video lags behind the audio.
Then why does audio/video out of sync happen?
The first generally accepted reason for A/V out-of-sync is that digital processing of video signal is always more resource intensive than digitally processing audio signal, therefore video processing always needs more time than the corresponding audio processing.
The second generally accepted reason for A/V out-of-sync on digital video is wrongly produced sampling clock. This could come in many different flavors. One typical situation in PC video editing is that the sampling clock used by the PC differs from that used by the original video source. For example, while PC video capture device manufactures take exact 48KHz audio sampling clock as standard for DV video sampling clock, some Canon Mini DV cameras(e.g. XL1) were actually made to use 48.009KHz audio sampling frequency.
The third common cause of audio/video out of sync is using host PC based software to do real-time video / audio compression. Apart from mere digital data transmission such as Firewire-DV video capture, most video capture processes on PCs need to compress video in real-time into a suitable format for a particular application: analogue video need to be compressed in DV, MPEG, or streaming format, DV video need to be compressed into MPEG or streaming format, etc.
The fourth easily ignored reason is that you don’t choose the right software to process your video. Well, this is a kind of acquired video/audio out of sync, for example, Bluray Discs and DVDs seldom have audio video out of sync problem, but it may acquired the annoying problem of audio video our of sync after a compression
Then how to fix audio/video out of sync?
First, Most digital video processing devices have some kind of A/V out of sync problem. These include professional broadcasting devices as well as prosumer and amateurer devices. As for generic PCs, they are doomed to be causing A/V out-of-sync problems at every stage of their video capture, compression, editing, and outputting processes, despite those much hyped commercial claims to the opposite.
In the commercial broadcasting field, special operations have been taken to measure and correct the A/V out-of-sync problem. Apart from implementing audio delays to allow video processing to catch up, one complicated method is to insert audio synchronisation signal into video streams in a visually invisible manner, so that proir to the final video/audio play back point, these embedded audio sync. marks can be checked against the corresponding audio signal arriving at that point, to find out possible out-of-sync then delay/advance audio or video accordingly. These said, audio/video out-of-sync is rarely completely eliminated in broadcasting industry, although they can be effectively minimised. To this end, the ITU had another very logical recommendation called ITU-R BT.1377, which suggests that video and audio equipment be labeled to indicate processing delay or delay range —- You rarely see PCs and their A/V peripherals being labeled this way, do you?
Second, To achieve perfect audio/video sync, video and audio sampling clocks at PC’s video capture hardware ideally should be locked together: every fixed length of video samples(frames) should have fixed number of audio samples. For PC video capture devices that do not have its own audio capture hardware, like many low-end analogue video capture cards, this is extremely difficult because they will need the PC’s sound card to capture and sample the incoming audio, while the PC’s sound card can have different sampling clock than the incoming video’s, resulting in inevitable audio/video out-of-sync for video capture process where audio is captured separately (using PC sound card instead using video capture hardware itself) from video.
Third, This realtime compressing video task can be accomplished either using a hardware circuit(chipsets and on-board firmware) on a dedicated video capture board, or a software running on the host PC. To achieve a decent quality video and sychronised audio, such as 25Mbps “DV” format video, or 4Mbps~10Mbps DVD-compliant MPEG2 video, current host PCs, with all their mighty powers and glorious features in hardware and software, cannot handle realtime video compressing task using host-PC based software. Designs of products using low-cost video grabbing hardware and host-PC based video compressing software all failed miserably, producing horribly low quality video and absolutely out-of-sync’ed audio. Typical examples include using realtime MPEG encoding software to create DVD-compliant video files through Firewire ports connected to DV cameras, and using realtime “DV” encoding software to create DV-compliant .AVI files for video editing, through low-cost TV-tuner cards or AGP graphics cards connected to analogue VCR/cameras. Exception might exist, through extremely smart enginnering effort, but in general host-PC software-based realtime video encoders causing audio/video out of sync is inevitable. The reasons why generic PCs cannot handle realtime video compression properly are mainly due to their hardware and software design architecture, detailed discussion on this will go beyond this article’s scope.
Forth, if you want to convert your Bluray movies, DVD discs to video formats required by your portable viewers, you’d better choose software adopting frame by frame error correction and verification frame by frame in terms of time to make sure that video generated from the software will be in perfect audio/video sync. I am using Pavtube Bluray Ripper, and it performs as it is advertised and does generate audio video in synchronization.
Posted by admin on Sep 24, 2010 in
Bluray
Before we talk about why we need a Bluray Ripper, we’d better make it clear what is a bluray ripper. Bluray Ripper is a kind of program that helps you rip the bluray movie from your Bluray disc to your computer and convert to the format you need.
From the definition, one can conclude that a Bluray Ripper is mainly to backup the Bluray movie to computer. Then why, you may doubt, I must backup it? The first reason to do so is that you can only play Bluray Discs through a costly Bluray player or a Bluray Drive. That sounds sort of restrained. So if you want to make the best of the expensive Bluray Discs, you’d better backup the Bluray movie to your computer so that you can extend your Bluray movie enjoyment to your laptops or tablet PCs. And you don’t always need a Bluray player.
Expensive things are always vulnerable to damages. Bluray Disc is not an exception. Slight scratch on the surface of Bluray Disc may be a disaster of data loss. So you must make a backup, or your regret does not help anything when your favorite Bluray Discs don’t play properly.
Bluray movies are huge and generally take dozens of GB space, so you need the Bluray Ripper to compress the huge movies to efficient formats that are easy to save and transfer.
Posted by admin on Sep 7, 2010 in
Gossip
Mark Hurd, whose departure from HP had been compared to Steve Jobs’ exit from Apple in 1985, is headed to Oracle where he will serve as co-president and join the board of directors.
Oracle announced the news late Monday. The hiring adds yet another layer to an already drama-filled Silicon Valley saga.
In early August, HP ousted Hurd amid allegations of financial misconduct and sexual harassment. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a close friend of Hurd’s, criticized the decision by comparing the situation to when Jobs, Ellison’s “best friend,” was forced out of Apple in the 1980s.
“The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,” Ellison wrote. “That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.”
By first defending then hiring Hurd, Ellison has now “put his money where his controversial mouth is,” wrote Ashlee Vance of The New York Times. Hurd will replace Charles E. Phillips Jr. as co-president. Earlier this year, Phillips admitted to having an affair after a woman he had been seeing made details of their relationship public.
Hurd had been widely praised for his work at HP, where he grew the company into the largest PC maker in the U.S.
In his new role, Hurd will oversee “sales, marketing and software support.”
From: Appleinsider
Posted by admin on Aug 16, 2010 in
Chit-chat Since the world’s largest PC manufacturer, Dell and HP are both members of BDA board, it’s very likely that the technology will be adopted as the next-generation optical disc format for PC data storage and replace technologies such as DVD±R, DVD±RW, and DVD-RAM.
Posted by admin on Aug 6, 2010 in
Bluray
The not so bright people out there had expected bluray disc and bluray player sales to skyrocket once the format war was done, but it didn’t. And it seemed that more and more picture and motion companies are joining the Bluray wagon, trying to spur more and more people go Blu. Comparatively speaking, it takes much shorter time to transition from DVD to Bluray than VHS to DVD does, much negativity must be covered. Think about iPhone 4 plunged into “Antennagate” and the aborted Window Vista, you will get it.
High definition video, I believe, is in line with most consumers’ need. Bluray, however does not make the best of it. High Definition, large capacity is great, but that is mot all. Hare are the seven deadly sins Blu ray (including bluray disc and bluray player) had committed.
The first sin Blu-ray committed is greed.
Bluray is more expensive
Sony had won the format war and thus tries to charge people between 50 and 100% more for a product with marginally better quality
Consequently, Bluray things, especially Bluray Player, cost much more than its competitors. It doesn’t matter, people boasting Play Station 3 would say, since PS3 can play Bluray disc. Then what about those without a PS3? To play the Blu ray disc, you have to spend 5 to 10 times more money on a Bluray player, which sounds like to you got to buy a Ferrari to listen to a car stereo.
The second sin is over cautiousness which produces inconvenience to bluray owners
Region Code + DRM
To protect from piracy, Blu-ray employed both region coding as well as DRM (digital rights management). The Blu-ray Disc region coding scheme divides the world into 3 regions, labeled A, B, and C.
Region A includes most North, Central and South American and Southeast Asian countries plus Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.
Region B includes most European, African and southwest Asian countries plus Australia and New Zealand.
Region C contains the remaining central and south Asian countries, as well as China and Russia.
Region coding makes it such that movies bought from a region A (eg. USA) cannot be play on a player that is bought in region B (eg. Europe). As for DRM Once you want to make a copy of the protected disc, problems posed and try to stop you to do that. Users making copy of the Bluray Disc for backup makes sense, but DRM is a big trouble.
The third sin of Bluray is fragility.
Data stored very close to surface of disc.
Data in the Blu-ray disc is stored very close to the surface of the disc (0.1mm) as compared to DVDs and HD DVDs (0.6mm). Scratches of more than 0.1mm will possibly damage all data stored under the scratch marks. However, various companies have come up with their own method of hard-coating the surface to make it scratch proof.
Then what about Netflix customers, scratches are almost inevitable in shipping, the only way to avoid this is to spend more money on the wrapping. Or they might not be able to watch the Bluray movie with a hairlike crack, wasting shipping fee.
One famous feature that Bluray is proud of is the high storage capacity of 25 Gb per layer. This means large number of data can be stored onto the disc. The accompanying trouble for Bluray disk owner is how to make sure it is absolutely safe. Frustration does not help at all once the whole movie or the entire data lost accidentally due to the fragileness or carelessness. To protect data on the costly Bluray, hard coat is not enough. The best way to make sure data is safe is to backup it on your computer or anywhere else. You’d better believe in BACKUP rather than Bluray.
In attempting to circumvent region coding restrictions, stand-alone Blu-ray Disc players are sometimes modified by third parties to allow for playback of Blu-ray Discs (and DVDs) with any region code. That is not enough, it might makes Bluray disc of different region coding can be played on one player, and it does not do away with the data safety trouble caused by the fragileness. Well the solution is the same, make a backup. There are Bluray Rippers of various brands that are able to handle the region code as well as the DRM problem and backup it onto your computer. Once the data is copied to your computer you are free to enjoy it without restrictions.
Posted by admin on Aug 4, 2010 in
Bluray Jennifer Huang
Bluray discs are not that strong as it is claimed.
As it is known, Bluray has a deadly innate defect, data residing very close to the surface of Blu-ray disc. The top of the substrate is 0.1mm beneath the cover layer surface, which means the substrate itself is 1.1mm thick. A slight crack as thin as a piece of hair could be destructive, let alone a finger print which would totally be a disaster.
I appreciate and even applaud for the supreme audio/video quality presenting by Bluray discs, but I just cannot afford such a fragile technology.
Even there are companies producing hard coating for Bluray disc, such as TDK, Sony and Panasonic. It seemed that you have to pay extra money for this remedial and awkward technology. Hard coating technology had been applied a couple of years ago, when Bluray was not as popular as today. I bought the Bluray discs at the end of 2009, when all Bluray discs were supposed to be scratch-resistant. But my Bluray discs are so vulnerable to scratches. The only reason I can figure out is that I didn’t pay for it.
Another proof that Bluray disc is easy to break with careless scratches is from Netfilx customers, which is the largest DVD and Bluray renting service by mailing. Below is one of charges against the easy-to- break Bluray from a Netflix member.
“At that time… 75% of blu-ray discs I received had the crack. Right now I’d saw about 50% of the blu-ray discs I get are cracked. It seems to be less so for newer releases, but not always. “
“Just in the past month or so, it seems every Blu-Ray disc Netflix sends me has PERMANENT PHYSICAL scratches on the “scratch proof” coating. Since the actual data is right underneath this, this of course causes playback to freeze and the disc to be unwatchable.”
On some titles, I am on my fifth attempt to get a playable title from Netflix, yet I continue to receive Blu-Ray discs with these strange scratches that render the disc unplayable. “
Jesus! You got to try 5 times or even more to get a playable Bluray disk! It suggests that 5 Bluray disks of the same movie had broken because of careless scratches!
This tweet from Netflix seems to confirm that Blu ray discs are very frail. Or Netflix is renting “old” Bluray discs without hard coatings? Or the hard coating does not resist anything at all?
Netflix have started to raise the rates on Blu-ray plans by $1 per membership which suggested Netflicks are trying to pass the cost of frequent disk replacement over to the consumers. Netflix hate this defect of fragililty a lot I bet, because it caused so many shipping back and forth for replacement which annoyed both.
Here I am not trying to attack the cutting edge Blu technology, but I am trying to say the truth and the real story happened to Bluray owners like me.
I myself have bought 30 plus Bluray Discs from Amazon since 2009, but one third of them do not work properly! Some of them freeze from time to time while playing and some others do not play at all! They cost hundreds of bucks! Sounds like a wallet vampire!
Frustration, however, does not help a thing when data lost due to tiny scratches. Bluray disc’s easy-to-break squandered trust and expectation of so many customers like me. And we cannot put our costly movie or data at the mercy of delicate Blu thing.
To protect data on the costly Bluray discs, hard coating is just a remedial technology demanding extra payment. The best way to guard Bluray movie or data against accidental damage is to backup onto computer. I would rather believe in backup than the delicate Bluray technology.
How, you may wonder, can I backup a Bluray disc?
Well, there are Bluray Rippers of various brands available in the market. You can get one with any search engine you prefer. The most powerful feature of a Bluray Ripper is to help you to make a full Bluray disc copy to your computer without any quality loss. Even if your Bluray disk damaged you can still enjoy the movie with Power DVD after you created ISO images with the files you have backed up on your computer.
