Quote from JeffR :

Regarding you-tube improvment in quality, it seems the main difference is a big increase in the streaming rate (number of bits of data output per second).

Damn. Yesterday I could download all versions of a video using downloadhelper. Now I can only get the low version. But from memory the specs were roughly:

normal:
320x240, Sorensen codec, 350 kbit/s

fmt=6
480x360, Sorensen codec, 900 kbit/s

fmt=18
480x360, AVC/h264 codec, 600 kbit/s

And btw. WMV/VC-1 does support interlacing so if you are reencoding a true 1080i source there is no need to destroy the temporal resolution by using a 30 fps deinterlacer. Motion smoothness FTW.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Are file size and movie length maximums unchanged? Looks good now!

No idea, I don't even have an account, yet.

Quote from Lotesdelere :

Daily Motion is also experimenting HD:

http://www.dailymotion.com/hd/

Flash v9.0.115.0 required.

I hate it when HD labels are slapped on anything that looks slightly better than an average porn site trailer. The video I clicked on at that site was certainly not as good as DVD.

Quote from deggis :

That's is pretty big difference when you do a compare (with the actual video). I wonder does this transformation has anything to do with Stage6 quitting?

Also some time ago Youtube changed it's "recommended uploading settings". Previously it was 320x240, now it's 640x480 (meant for future?).

We recommend the following settings:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 640x480 resolution (* most updated recommendation)
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second

and on other page on the FAQ it says:

Our recommended file format is MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, or SVQ3 rather than h.264) at 640x480 resolution with MP3 audio (64k mono).

Looks like with that new mode it doesn't automatically add letterbox bars if the video has been uploaded in widescreen aspect ratio Hope that gets fixed, nothing is more annoying than watching a video in wrong aspect ratio.

Interesting. I wonder why they don't recommend AVC. Why don't they just tell you the specs to create clips that won't need to be reencoded?

I've been complaining for a long time that youtube uses such a prehistoric codec as Sorensen, causing IMO vomit inducing image quality.

Apparently they have in fact kept the original versions of the uploaded videos on their servers and are currently converting them to the avc/h264 codec. All you have to do to load the new versions is add &fmt=18 to the end of the url when you open a video. Not all videos work and the quality still isn't anything special, but it is at least acceptable now.

Video links and screenshots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo&fmt=18
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=18

Quote from spankmeyer :

There's no 'true' dpi.

But the amount of pixels would tell me straight away if it will be any good for my A2-size art quality printing needs when I do know my printer's lpi.

Correct answer. Wasn't asking you though.

Quote from zeugnimod :

Apparently it automatically is bad music and you have to be ashamed of liking it when a song/band is a bit successful.

Yeah, when did you get tired of hearing the "die sind mir zu kommerziell geworden" BS. Some people fail to ever recognize the irrelevance.

Lol, this is more chat room than format at the moment.

Quote from JJ72 :

level of detail as how sharp is image is to human eye.

as I said "if that's below the ppi your monitor is capable of showing, you are actually losing some details. "

of course if that isn't the case, there's no difference.

changing print size alone will decrease the dpi, and hence lost in level of details.

I dunno about DVD player, but of a bitmap image, there's no way you can increase the physical size of an image while maintaining the level of detail/sharpness/whatever you call it.

I'm not sure you're getting it. The thing is that a computer doesn't care what the dpi value of an image is. Only a printer cares. Even a monitor doesn't care as it just shows, pixel by pixel, what the monitor tells it to. The dpi value only exists as a couple of bytes in image files, so the monitor never even gets the chance to care.

I'll try with a question. If I send you an image without a dpi value tag, how would you go about trying to find out the 'true' dpi value for that picture? What are you going to measure?

Quote from JJ72 :

it's ppi.

dpi is just used for printing.

there're standard in monitor resolutions. (just no absolute)

That's why graphic cards give you 4 to 5 settings instead of being totally linear like setup values in LFS. those settings are usually base on some standard ppi values like 72, 90 and so.

and base on these numbers. with 72ppi being most common and supported by lower end graphic cards, it's not clueless.

Doesn't make sense to me. ppi is defined by screen, not by GPU.

Quote from JJ72 :

and again, lets get back on what's the point of maintaining the resolution but without adding details (which I think is the TRUE point of the post)

That is the question. I honestly understood lizard as wanting to enlarge print size but being unhappy with artifacts that were introduced by resampling. That's why I said disabling resampling is the answer. You may well be right that he in fact wants to improve the detail of his image in which case he can only try the different resampling methods and see if he likes the result. I think Paint Shop Pro has more algorithms to choose from and there are loads of expensive add-on resamplers for PS.

First hit in google: http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html

Quote from JJ72 :

Actually you are wrong.

in the old days there's no standard in monitor resolutions, but nowadays the trend is it's going down the route of standardizing, PC will mostly be 72ppi and mac will use 90ppi. Of course not all of the monitor following this standard (some high end ones goes above 200ppi) but as a general guide in digital interface design, it's not clueless BS.

It's completely cluless. dpi is just meta data that you can change with a hex editor. An internet browser doesn't even look at it. And there is no such thing as a dpi standard for monitors. I already linked to a dpi calculator that will tell you the value. Mine has 90 dpi. My laptop, which displays all the images on this page exactly the same, without losing any details, has 85.3 dpi.

Last edited by J.B., Sun 2 Mar 2008, 09:46.

Define "maintain level of detail".

And no you don't lose any detail by replacing a 22' 1680x1050 screen with a 20' 1680x1050. You just get a lower area for the same details.

Also I didn't say anything about multiplying pixels. I said you can either just change the print size, which is a matter of changing a couple of bytes and does not change the file size. Or you can use a resampling algorithm which actually does increase the amount of pixels. Depending on type of image and method used the results can in fact be perceived as having more detail (think upscaling DVD player).

I took care to say "size in pixels" not "resolution", so what I stated is true.

In the computer world the term resolution is often used incorrectly to mean amount of pixels instead of pixels per area. This is because there is no real concept of area for computer images unless they are from a scanner. That's why the whole "use 72 dpi for internet" is mostly clueless BS. BTW, if you want to know the dpi value of your screen you can check this out: http://www.raydreams.com/prog/dpi.aspx

For lizard's case the question is what he wants exactly. Print at a larger size but keep the dpi? Or just change the size while keeping the amount of pixels? Both can be done with photoshop.

Last edited by J.B., Sun 2 Mar 2008, 09:16.

ghey

Is it impossible to have a 1680 x 1050 screen in both 20' and 22' sizes?

Image size in inches and image size in pixels have nothing to do with each other.

All you need to do is uncheck "Resample Image".

What does the older woman say to the girl that makes her want to leave the bus? And why is she touching her all the time even though the girl is repeatedly telling her she has no right to do so (or does she in USA)?

EDIT: some info is here. Apparently the girl and the bus driver were having a verbal dispute and the bus driver stopped the bus to get up and ask the girl why she doesn't find another way to get to school. At the same time the bus driver is by law not allowed to let the girl off.

Pretty stupid situation the bus driver put herself in there, not sure what she was expecting. Certainly trying to solve situation by force was not very clever either.

Quote :

"Based on the information we have, we do feel that the assault did occur mutually on each party," said Gilbert Police Department Sgt. Mark Marino. "Each individual on this bus had a particular role and that role did violate the law."

Funny video though.

EDIT: From youtube:

Quote :

This is Arizona's actual law, regarding teachers and others "entrusted with the care and supervision of a minor" (I assume that would cover the bus driver): "A parent or guardian and a teacher or other person entrusted with the care and supervision of a minor or incompetent person may use reasonable and appropriate physical force upon the minor when and to the extent reasonably necessary and appropriate to maintain discipline."

If that does cover school bus drivers then she did nothing wrong. Would make more sense IMO if she could just chuck her out for being a brat.

Last edited by J.B., Wed 27 Feb 2008, 01:47.

Quote from Shotglass :

tbh i couldnt care less about the number of hd channels in germany and i dont think that the attractiveness of a medium known mostly for its abilities to dumb people down is an accurate measure of intelligence and tech savvyness

I wouldn't say tech savvyness or intelligence. But something is wrong when Premiere HD sports shuts down and the 24h Big Brother live SD channel is doing just fine.

Quote from Shotglass :

i can almost guarantee you that all of those who now poke fun at you for it had no idea what a furry even is before you started that thread

I still don't get it. It's like some kind of kinky porn fetish but without the naughty bits.

Ok, so it's not the old AA/AF problem. Strange issue.

avih, as long as you use no AA/AF you should get roughly a double fps boost with a modern CPU, even though only one core is supported. With AA/AF I think your GPU will become the limiting factor.

Quote from KROM :

(Ridiculous performance trick - if you switch to windowed mode (shift+F4) and then back to full screen your FPS could nearly double - at least they do for me)

This the case with me also.

Isn't that just loss of AA/AF due to crappy drivers? When I had Nvidia I used to have this.

Quote from Shotglass :

luckily while the number of people able to do basic math is declining rapidly in this country that got its place in the world economy through good engineering...

Yeah, it does seem a bit worrying how opposed to technology this country is getting. One recent example I can think of is that with two HDTV channels shutting down, Germany now has less HDTV channels than Albania and I think we are the only country in Europe that won't be showing the football Euro in HD.

If you take the largest turbine you also have to take the most powerful nuclear plant. --> 1000

Quote from wien :

Well. I don't agree. There are for instance plans to create a 1.5 gigawatt wind farm out in ocean of western Norway.

Now that's more like it. And it's offshore!

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

That was going to be my argument, but I figured some douchebag would come on and say something like "WELL, THAT ONE PLANT IS EQUIVALENT TO 50 WIND TURBINES AND I'D RATHER HAVE ONE OF THOSE THAN 50 OF THE OTHER!!!"

50? We're talking more like 1000.

Wind turbines do create net energy over their lifetime but their power output is so small it's not even funny. This means that you need loads of space to get any decent amount out of them which is incompatible with the fact that they are hideous.

To put this into perspective I just did some comparisons. Did you know that this


makes 6 times as much power as this


and 90 times as much power as this


and a whopping 160 times as much power as this entire wind park?



To add some data to the pictures the first is the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear power plant (5700 MW, 1 km^2). The second is the coal power plant Heilbronn (950 MW, 0.5 km^2), the third is the Nevada Solar One (64 MW, 1.5 km^2) and the last is the Windpark Lichtenau consisting of 52 Turbines (36 MW, 4 km^2).

In terms of power per space the wind farm gets pwned by a factor of 500! And that's assuming that the turbines run at max power all the time, which of course they don't even get close to.


In short I think it's a case of using whatever sucks the least. Currently that means to me we should get rid of fossil power, use mainly nuclear, get wind and water power from the oceans and hope that solar gets efficient soon so that we can plaster the Sahara and get rid of Nuclear.

Sadly, though, the main achievement of the environmentalists has been to keep fossil power alive.

Oh, and cool vid by the way.

EDIT: another fun fact I just came up with: if you wanted to expand the above mentioned wind farm to a size where it can output the same amount of power as the most powerful nuclear plant, you'd need an area the size of Heidelberg (100 km^2).

Last edited by J.B., Mon 25 Feb 2008, 01:17.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/65246

Di Resta got the drive! I'm sure he's going to be right up there fighting for the title. I've been impressed by him ever since he beat the highly rated Vettel to the F3 title. In the same team.

So nothing new in terms of drivers for the 2008 cars. Surely Spengler will keep his seat so I guess that means the two 2008 cars left will go to di Resta and Green or Paffett.

So can one of you NASCAR experts explain what happened to JPM? He went from 2nd to 26th in about 2 racing laps. Is it because he has no friends? Is he behaving in a way that makes people not want to draft with him? Is it because his head got broken? What is it?

Last edited by J.B., Wed 20 Feb 2008, 04:42.