Posts by AegisPrime

New open-source ad-blocking web browser emerges from brain of ex-Mozilla boss Eich

YTS?

Couldn't they afford to hire a grown-up for their Senior Software Engineer for Privacy/Security???

Paris because it looks like they'd be BFFs...

2015's horror PC market dropped nine per cent

PCs tend to be in use for a lot longer than any given i or Android device too - I built my current desktop in early 2009 (i7 Nehalem) and simply haven't had the need to replace it (over the course of 6 years I've added more RAM and replaced the graphics card once).

On the mobile/tablet front, since then I've had:

iPhone 3GS (given to a friend)

iPhone 4 (sold)

iPad 1 (sold)

Samsung Galaxy Ace (sold)

Lumia 520 (current phone)

And I suspect I've invested in far fewer mobile devices in that time than many on el Reg.

A slowdown in desktop CPU innovation has stymied the PC upgrade market (why would I switch from Nehalem to Skylake?) plus PC gaming being held back by the console gaming albatross means there's simply nothing coming down the pipe (except VR possibly) to prompt a new motherboard etc. The system I have does everything I need it to (video, graphics, audio, games) - perhaps the next generation of consoles will finally render it obsolete for gaming and then I'll upgrade - so what's that? 3-4 years from now on its 10 year anniversary?

Oh, and my *last* PC (a Prestonia-based dual-Xeon) is now 13 years old and still going strong...

Your jingle to take into the weekend: QuickTime security fixes to apply

ProRes started gaining traction as Final Cut began to win industry acceptance. Admittedly for a long time it was exclusively an intermediate codec and frequently used in its 'Proxy' and 'LT' flavours purely for editing (and of course, requiring lengthy transcodes) - prior to that the QuickTime Player and bundled codecs were somewhat of a (divisive) novelty on the PC - some of the codecs were useful (the Animation codec got a lot of use in the early days of CG) but for the most part it was a slow, buggy piece of crap that didn't offer much value to Windows users. These days it's a necessary evil.

Mac-side the story was different since QT was an integral component of the OS - QuickTime's always been understandably more robust there.

And yeah, the industry's changed a bit. If you're shooting Hollywood stuff then Red cameras use their own format (Redcode) and the Arri Alexa shoots ProRes. Typically a DIT will apply a rough grade to footage on-set which'll be provided to the Editor (and Colourist) as LUTs so the footage can be screened to the Director and DP without it looking like ass (footage is recorded in-camera in Log modes for maximum dynamic range).

Editing computers are easily powerful enough these days to work with lightly-compressed 4k footage so once the edit's ready to go to the Colourist, all that's needed is an XML or AAF of the edit. The Colourist will work with the original footage and will be responsible for the final render of the movie. VFX stuff happens in the background whilst all this is going on with stuff getting added to the film right up to the final render. VFX is delivered in the highest quality possible so might go to the Editor as ProRes but most likely will go to the Colourist as DPX, EXR or ProRes 4444.

Re: Quicktime

CinemaDNG's great for top-quality acquisition and colour-grading but not so hot (actually, borderline useless) for editing. It also has obscene storage requirements (64GB gets me 12 minutes of 1080p compressed DNG on my Blackmagic camera).

ProRes and DNxHD are a good compromise because they have high data rates, are visually lossless (but not mathematically) and they can capture in 10-bit (up to 16 for ProRes 4444/XQ I believe). They work very well in editing applications (unlike long-GOP formats) and are second only to DNG for grading.

There's a few recorders around that'll capture to DNxHD from SDI and/or HDMI but the most common acquisition format these days is ProRes (with some hardware-specific 8-10 bit MP4/AVCHD/MXF thrown in). And don't get me started on the mess that is H.265...

Re: Quicktime

Sadly if you work in film/TV you can't bloody avoid it - if anything it's becoming even more entrenched. The latest cameras shoot ProResXQ which Quicktime for Windows can't even read *sigh*

You'd think someone other than Apple would've come up with a decent acquisition/intermediate codec but since Microsoft don't give a flying f**k about video we're still saddled with Apple's junk.

Avid make DNxHD/R (also reliant on QT) but they haven't exactly been pushing it so ProRes has proliferated pretty much unopposed.

It's replicant Roy Batty's birthday – but hey, where's my killer robot?

Try a few articles down: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/08/ehang_flying_taxi/

And tbh, Los Angeles 2019 didn't have that many Spinners - and what few there were appeared to be mostly LAPD...

Reverser laments crypto game protection, says wares dead after 2018

Re: A month.

Similar story with iLok 2 (which has only just been cracked) although bizarrely, said cracker claims that they'd never looked at iLok protection before and cracked it over the course of two weeks because they were 'bored' (!)

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

Re: Tough Sell

Real "media people" do indeed use the best tools at hand - sadly Gimp isn't one of those tools (unless you've been bludgeoned into it by working at an all-Linux studio which fortunately I've never had to).

That's not to say there aren't some fantastic creative applications on Linux - Modo, Nuke, Mari, DaVinci Resolve and more - Gimp and Blender aren't even the same sport though.

The Register's entirely serious New Year's resolutions for 2016

Ars?

Isn't the sensible IT stuff/real journalism's what Ars Technica's for???

Paris because she may not be with us for much longer...

Big Brother is born. And we find out 15 years too late to stop him

Re: EU?

Yeah, I was thinking FOI might be the logical place to start the process (of course, you won't get your 'Preston' dossier because 'national security') - I'm thinking the EFF might have some ideas?

EU?

Ok, I'm getting sick of this shit - how do we find out what information our own government is holding on us? There must be an EU process no?

I was never 'fine' with any of this and as a direct consequence of the Snowden papers now use a VPN, Protonmail etc. (because, y'know - PRIVACY) - but the extent of this is too much now - I want to know everything they have on me even if it's benign. There has to be some legal way...

Microsoft extends Internet Explorer 8 desktop lifeline to upgrade laggards

That doesn't make any sense?? 8/8.1 shipped with IE 11 - so they downgraded to 8???

UN privacy head slams 'worse than scary' UK surveillance bill

Anonymity is entirely possible on the internet.

1) All internet communications could and *should* be encrypted

2) Advertising doesn't *need* to target or track users

3) ISPs don't *need* to log the activities of their subscribers

4) Law-enforcement doesn't need nor should have *warrantless* access to data - meta or otherwise

A user's data is theirs and if they want to trade it away for 'free' services then that's their choice - but it should be an informed choice. Those of us that wish to remain free of snooping by corporations or governments alike should have that choice too.

UK's super-cyber-snoop shopping list: Internet data, bulk spying, covert equipment tapping

Re: Cautiously optimistic

Irrespective of whether I've read the draft bill or not (and I haven't), I have to question in what world legislation that permits warrant-less internet surveillance of an entire population could be considered 'good'? I get that it could always be *worse*, but good?

Sennheiser announces €50,000 headphones (we checked, no typos)

Seeing as Sennheiser make one of the best, cheap pairs of cans on the market (HD 201's - £18) I think I can forgive their bonkers eccentricity in making these - I wonder how they sound in comparison?

Microsoft now awfully pushy with Windows 10 on Win 7, 8 PCs – Reg readers hit back

Ugh. Just checked a small business PC I maintain and it's got the GWX icon in the systray (after I removed it a couple of months ago) - uninstalled the update (again) and I'm going to have to disable automatic updating entirely 'cause the users are exactly the type that'd hit update without thinking of the consequences. It also means I'm going to have to do a bit of uninstalling on some friends laptops that I thought had dodged the bullet.

I actually use Win 10 Pro on my Asus laptop and think it's ok but this cat and mouse game of Microsoft trying to forcibly install their latest and greatest (!) is getting pretty tiresome (not to mention shady) now.

Mad Max: High-octane dystopian desert demolition derby

"After losing his iconic and beloved car The Interceptor, Mad Max spends the rest of the game creating a next-level ride, The Magnum Opus."

Weird - 'cause the car pictured in the screenshots looks just like the Interceptor (albeit with jacked-up suspension) - I know there's other pre-order/DLC cars but I'm glad they stuck with the Ford Falcon :)

Adulterers antsy as 'entire' Ashley Madison databases leak online

Re: True - but unlikely

I've had this - some slimeball's using your email address for a bogus account (normally to con people) - go to the match.com login page and reset the password - it'll send you the login details and you can close down the account yourself.

Introducing the Asus VivoMini UN42 – a pint-sized PC, literally

32GB is plenty for Windows 8.1/10 - unlike 7, they do a pretty spectacular job of keeping WinSxS under control (although the OS is pretty tardy when it comes to actually doing the housekeeping) - when you've finished installing updates run this from an admin command prompt:

dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup

Windows will ditch the updates it no longer needs recovering scads of HD space - my 8.1 workstation runs off an old 32GB WD Raptor (with a separate drive for applications) and I've still got 16GB free on it (of course, once you put Office on the Asus you're f**ked).

Oh, and delete hiberfil.sys if you don't need it: powercfg -h off - that chews up a few gigs too.

Happy birthday, Amiga: The 'other' home computer turns 30

Re: Anyone remember the signatures?

Not to forget Mitchy's paw-print ;)

The Amiga was my gateway into working in video games, TV and film and I remember the 500, 1200 and especially the 4000 I had as old, departed friends. Still fire up Amiga Forever from time-to-time to play The Chaos Engine or dabble in Deluxe Paint.

There's still a few applications around that had their origins on the Amiga too - LightWave 3D, Directory Opus and TVPaint are all still around and exist in modern incarnations for PC and Mac.

Only Amiga makes it possible!

Microsoft attaches Xbox stream bait to Windows 10 hook

Having finally got the (RTM?) 10240 build on my laptop I'm... nonplussed. It's a bit slicker than the earlier builds but honestly, besides the Start menu (which is really just a crippled pop-up version of the Win8 Start screen) it's not exactly a huge leap over 8.1 - more of a 'sidegrade'.

The virtual desktops feature is nice (though I doubt I'll ever use it), having backups return from Windows 7 is good annnd... that's about it (I guess DX12 will be useful someday).

Lot of downsides though - the email app seems strangely less functional than Win8.1 and QuickTime's busted now (won't install) which means I can't use 10 for video editing - the only reason I upgraded from 8.1 Core was to use an old 7 Home Premium/Anytime Upgrade Pro license to get a 'Pro' version of Windows on my laptop for BitLocker - that works so I guess it's a nice-ish freebie.

Yahoo! displaces Ask in Oracle's Java update crapware parade

Re: Why don't they...

Don't even joke about that - I still find that POS on peoples laptops. Seriously, why won't it DIE???

Windows Phone is like religion – it gets people when they are down

Very happy with my Lumia 520 - considering it's Nokia's landfill phone it's considerably more robust than similarly priced Android phones were at the time.

I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to phones - I had an iPhone 1-4 then (when I was skint and needed a replacement) picked up a Samsung Galaxy Ace which was good for a while (if sluggish) once I'd wiped all the Samsung crud off and installed vanilla Android. I was tempted by a Nexus 5 (actually bought one and fiddled with it for a week before returning it) but finally settled on the Lumia 520 which I continue to really enjoy using - only thing I miss on it is an oleaphobic coating 'cause it's a grease magnet - next phone will almost certainly be a nice, compact WinPhone.

Google: Help us! Our search engine is STUFFED FULL of your 'revenge smut' pics

Some great articles in there though *cough*

Denon delivers low-cost DTS:X AV kit. Finally Dolby Atmos gets some competition

Harrow Audio (http://www.harrowaudiohifi.co.uk) recently supplied a friend of mine with a wonderful 5.1 Monitor Audio Radius setup (including the W12 sub and the larger front speaker) - the whole shebang including a discount Marantz AV Receiver cost around £2150 which I thought was bloody good value for a top-notch home-cinema audio system.

Fanbois designing Windows 10 – where's it going to end?

I totally agree - like it or loathe it, Windows 8 was at least a focussed piece of design (and a lot of good came out of that in the phone space). I'm so on the fence about Windows 10 - the new start menu is next to useless (yes, you can pin whatever you like in the tiles but the left hand side *only shows recently used* - you can't customize it in any way - the Win 8.1 Start screen is actually way more useful albeit twice as ugly in Win 10).

The sloppy attempt to modernize control panels still hasn't been completed in 10 leaving Win 7 users equally alienated and Win 8.1 users wondering where the heck everything went. Microsoft is pushing cloud logins even harder in Win 10 with even more of the bundled apps effectively unusable unless you switch to a Microsoft ID. There's some good stuff in there too but whilst I was an early adopter of XP, Vista, 7 and 8 - Windows 10 feels like the most mismanaged of the bunch to me. I hope come launch day my reservations prove unfounded but even so, I doubt I'll be upgrading for some time in that first year.

Swordfish fatally stabs man after man stabs, fatally, swordfish

Darwin award?

Surely a fatal man vs. swordfish deserves one?

Long, sticky summer ahead: Win 10 will be with OEMs by 31 August

Re: Eek!

And only 2GB HD space for an x64 install?