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Written by Bob H
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Thursday, 22 January 2009 20:28 |
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There pop-up on the forums from time-to-time, and they complain why we don't have one feature or another. In the latest thread on DigitalSpy they complained that our product didn't feature 1080p, or DiVx decoding. So, I thought I wanted to post something on DigitalSpy, however common sense and experience tells me if I post it there I might regret it because it could be a reactionary posting by me, so I will post it here to vent: "It depends on where you are targeting a product in the market as a manufacturer. We pay a licence for all technology we use (this may be different than you experience) for example we even have to pay a royalty for the use of Phono connectors. It would be a cost for us and eventually for the consumer, we already have people complaining about cost, should we limit our market further?
I won't defend the scaler in the product, I have been over this issue countless times. Personally I recommend if you aren't satisfied with the scaler to use the "Original" mode. We manufacture Televisions as well, and I know that the scaler chip we use can cost as much as the entire MPEG decoder chip (in a good TV). In a TV part of the cost you are paying for is the scaler, if we put a dedicated scaler chip in our STB product you would effectively be wasting the money you spent on your LCD TV and paying double.
An experience of using the scaler in a DVD player is more about ensuring the quality of the output of the DVD decoder and is mostly enhanced by using HDMI output for a digital-to-digital movement of signals.
In the end it comes down to a matter of choice, as a manufacturer we make choices that we have to balance (costs/sales) and the consumer has to make a choice to decide if the product is right for them. We make the product we feel most appropriate to make, we even take feedback, but ultimately the we are responsible for the choices and how they affect our sales. Some might even say they don't have a choice because we are the only manufacturer of Freesat approved HD PVRs, that is still about choice, you don't have to buy anything or you can buy a non-Freesat product or you can wait until another manufacturer decides to make a product." At least here I can remove it... |
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Written by Bob
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Thursday, 15 January 2009 10:38 |
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On the BBC Internet Blog, Andy Quested has discussed the various issues around the addition of a test signal to BBC HD. It makes for very interesting reading, well worth it for anyone wanting to better understand their television and get a better picture. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/12/a_christmas_present_from_the_h.html I actually emailed Andy about one part of his article: "The audio is actually two blocks of wood being banged once a second - nothing to beat the real thing!" I emailed him to say that in college one of my much respected lecturers (Morgan Jones ) proposed using a spark gap as a syncronisation source. Few things in nature are more instant than a spark and the correlation between the light and the light is absolute (subject to the speed of sound, etc). His response was that he would look at it but he also raised another issue, how do you deal with the fact that an audio compression system based on the psycho-acoustic model might ignore such a short spike of audio? Frankly I don't know, I am not sure I know enough about compression systems, but it seems worth a look. Bob |
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Written by Bob H
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Thursday, 15 January 2009 08:28 |
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Last night we watched a programme about the British men's fashion designer Ozwald Boateng: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gmj5m/Ozwald_Boateng_Why_Style_Matters/
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Wednesday, 03 December 2008 14:59 |
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Well, after the disaster that was the HTC Touch Diamond I had a while ago, I decided I needed to call Orange and sort out my phones. I had been fancying an iPhone but I was loathed to move to O2 for it. I had been tracking the news around Orange because they were rumored to be selling the iPhone this year. But it being the end of November and there not being a press release in sight I decided just to call them and see what I could blackmail them in to providing. I had seen the HTC Touch HD and thought, being the most expensive phone in the residential section I thought I should try it. I spoke to the nice lady at upgrades, she said she wasn't authorised give me that for free and I should speak to "retentions". I was duely transfered and speaking to the crack team; I mentioned that I wanted a good upgrade or an extreme downgrad. I asked about the HTC Touch HD and said I was looking for something like an iPhone. They said I had to pay £50 for it, I don't normally pay for phone upgrades, however they offered me a halving of my line rental. So, I am now paying £22 per month for 1200 minutes, 900 texts, unlimited internet and I got a top of the line phone.Win! The HTC Touch HD is much better than the Diamond, it is faster (although the processor is the same), it has a better display (a large 480x800 touch display) and all in all despite it's relative weight it feels good to the touch. I was at a PR event last night for our company where our PR agency invited a group of journalists and we were discussing such devices. I bought out my phone and the considered opinion was that it was quite nice. I think it won't be going back and I can be quite happy with what I have. |
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Written by Bob H
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Saturday, 01 November 2008 10:59 |
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This friday Angel and I were both in London at the same time of the evening and I suggested we went for dinner. As I was in Docklands I suggested Canary Wharf as the ideal location to meet and eat. Interestingly when we arrived there was a small anti-capitalism protest in progress, nothing spectacular but a couple of hundred people.
We did a little capitalist shopping and sat down at a capitalist chain restaurant to watch the anti-capitalists at work. They made interesting charges at a line of police taunting them and it was rather childish really.
What really caught my attention was a sign "Capitalism isn't working!" being heald up by people I think assocated with a group of socialists present. We both thought it was interesting because when did pure socialism work? Well the only examples I can see of socialism are communist and quasi-communist countries such as Russia, Albania, China, Cuba, the list goes on but it lists as a litany of countries which have either complete social unrest, a great deal of poverty or suppression of human rights. Some might argue China is very successful as a socialist state but when you consider it's reforms involve greater financial liberty tending toward capitalism and it still has a terrible human rights record, I think there isn't much of an arguement for the alternative to Capitalism.
Personally I think that both systems are flawed, capitalism assumes unconstrained and continued growth when in fact resources are finite and growth cannot be infinate. However socialism does not permit personal growth and requires great self sacrifice, which while noble on paper is actually unworkable. Having read the combined works of Plato I have come to his realisation that no political system is ideal, however you just have to make the best you can of a libertarian state.
Maybe "Capitalism isn't working" is correct, but "Socialism never worked" is also true. |
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