Ipad3 event (New Apple stuff)


neil_g said:
lord, see the smiley on my post? the "better" comment was tongue in cheek. i appriciate its horses for courses.
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no im not being facetious. I genuinely am interested in where people are getting video from that they need it to be in all the different formats.
 
joescrivens said:
no im not being facetious. I genuinely am interested in where people are getting video from that they need it to be in all the different formats.
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i rip to MKV, its a nice container format in my opinion. the oh camcorder is some bizarre mpg variant with odd codecs, i download a lot of material online (legally) that can be in various different formats.

personally i dont really mind as long as it can playback MKV, as like you say i can always recode the other files but the point was it has more variance to support a wider audience.

im surprised the ATV doesnt support anything over dolby digital though. but then it is a compact unit with built in power brick so i guess they had to compremise.
 
neil_g said:
i rip to MKV, its a nice container format in my opinion. the oh camcorder is some bizarre mpg variant with odd codecs, i download a lot of material online (legally) that can be in various different formats.

personally i dont really mind as long as it can playback MKV, as like you say i can always recode the other files but the point was it has more variance to support a wider audience.

im surprised the ATV doesnt support anything over dolby digital though. but then it is a compact unit with built in power brick so i guess they had to compremise.
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Whilst I don't disagree MKV has some nice features as a container, I do like how in the MP4 container you can wrap the same content, and include all the meta data so you have a nice full and comprehensive file that shows up in the UI with all the trimmings like cover art, actors, description, ratings, movie studio etc...I makes for a nice whole rounded experience in my opinion.
 
neil_g said:
i rip to MKV, its a nice container format in my opinion. the oh camcorder is some bizarre mpg variant with odd codecs, i download a lot of material online (legally) that can be in various different formats.
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Just out of curiosity - what do you download online that you stream to the device that you can't get straight on the device in the first place?
 
joescrivens said:
no im not being facetious. I genuinely am interested in where people are getting video from that they need it to be in all the different formats.
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I'm the same as Neil: rip video to .mkv as it is content agnostic (that is, it is a container file you can put anything in - including subtitles and chapters). Sources: BRs, DVDs, off-air TV records (I'm doing this a lot these days), various cameras that have different video formats....

All my CDs are ripped to single file FLACs with CUE sheet support as this is both lossless and means I can get back the original CD if I want/need to and gapless playback is not a problem. I can also pretty simply re-rip the FLAC to .mp3 should I want to put it on a mp3 player (in fact, quicker than I can transfer it to the player). And no, I don't use an iPod because I like to be able to just transfer stuff to the mp3 player without having to sync it.

Basically, apart from the video recode (which I do to reduce storage requirements) everything else is held in the original format from the source material - which means DTS for most BRs, DD/AAC for broadcast and DD for DVDs.. This means should my playback equipment improve, I still have access to the original source data without recourse back to the silver disc/original broadcast.

The beauty of an open system for playback is that if new formats appear (as happened with DTS and AAC in the time I've been streaming video) they can be implemented with an improved codec pack.
 
arad85 said:
I'm the same as Neil: rip video to .mkv as it is content agnostic (that is, it is a container file you can put anything in - including subtitles and chapters). Sources: BRs, DVDs, off-air TV records (I'm doing this a lot these days), various cameras that have different video formats....

All my CDs are ripped to single file FLACs with CUE sheet support as this is both lossless and means I can get back the original CD if I want/need to and gapless playback is not a problem. I can also pretty simply re-rip the FLAC to .mp3 should I want to put it on a mp3 player (in fact, quicker than I can transfer it to the player). And no, I don't use an iPod because I like to be able to just transfer stuff to the mp3 player without having to sync it.

Basically, apart from the video recode (which I do to reduce storage requirements) everything else is held in the original format from the source material - which means DTS for most BRs, DD/AAC for broadcast and DD for DVDs.. This means should my playback equipment improve, I still have access to the original source data without recourse back to the silver disc/original broadcast.

The beauty of an open system for playback is that if new formats appear (as happened with DTS and AAC in the time I've been streaming video) they can be implemented with an improved codec pack.
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i got lost even reading all of that.

Would you agree that what you are doing is not the normal thing that 99% of users who want to watch video on their TV do?
 
I still haven't pulled the trigger, although I am pondering it.

I'm looking for an all around device to cover me at University. Something light enough to carry all day in lectures and in the library. Offering audio recording, note taking and essay writing capabilities.

I also want web on the go and presentation functionality.

The main advantage for me in this format over a laptop or netbook is being able to read research papers and course material as if I'm reading from a book or paper. I have an airplay capable printer/scanner so it's also a big pull to be able to scan my handwritten notes and read back through them when needed as if reading a book or paper.
 
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gingerweasel said:
I still haven't pulled the trigger, although I am pondering it.

I'm looking for an all around device to cover me at University. Something light enough to carry all day in lectures and in the library. Offering audio recording, note taking and essay writing capabilities.

I also want web on the go and presentation functionality.

The main advantage for me in this format over a laptop or netbook is being able to read research papers and course material as if I'm reading from a book or paper. I have an airplay capable printer/scanner so it's also a big pull to be able to scan my handwritten notes and read back through them when needed as if reading a book or paper.
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all of that, and yet you still haven't decided? Sounds like the perfect fit to me.
 
At the risk of even boring myself now:

Apple make some good products. If they do it for you, that's all well and good. Other people see the way Apple products work as limiting to a lesser or greater extent. That's all well and good too. Apple products tend to command a premium price. If you're happy with that price and you like the way Apple products work, then wonderful. That does not make them a panacea for all people.

If you wish to be evangelical about Apple products (or anything else for that matter), expect others to be equally vocal for the opposite opinion - this is just human nature. The smart evangelist - as with all religions - is the one who understands and respects his opponents viewpoint and coexists alongside it.
 
gingerweasel said:
I still haven't pulled the trigger, although I am pondering it.

I'm looking for an all around device to cover me at University. Something light enough to carry all day in lectures and in the library. Offering audio recording, note taking and essay writing capabilities.

I also want web on the go and presentation functionality.

The main advantage for me in this format over a laptop or netbook is being able to read research papers and course material as if I'm reading from a book or paper. I have an airplay capable printer/scanner so it's also a big pull to be able to scan my handwritten notes and read back through them when needed as if reading a book or paper.
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I do not think it is great for audio recording, note taking nor essay writing. It can do all of that, but I'd rather use a live scribe pen for audio recording and note taking. A laptop for essay writing and an iPad for reading research papers, course material and annotating them :)
 
joescrivens said:
here's a clue - which company is the most successful at this kind of thing? The one who keeps things simple
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The one who makes it hardest for others to coexist with them and makes it simple for the users to give The Company more money through electronic stores.

See my post above. I have no problem with Apple products, it the evangelists I have the problem with ;)
 
I still do everything I need on my iPad 1 and this hasn't really grabbed me as a worthy upgrade yet. If things come out that mean my current one can't cope I may upgrade, however. Am thinking of getting the apple TV to play with though.
 
arad85 said:
The one who makes it hardest for others to coexist with them and makes it simple for the users to give The Company more money through electronic stores.

See my post above. I have no problem with Apple products, it the evangelists I have the problem with ;)
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I don't think apple are making it difficult for WD to have a streaming box product are they?

The fact is if you think that a large number of users do what you do, the way you describe then I think you are way off. Sure there are people who do - but realistically what percentage of the media consuming world does that?

The majority do things simple - it's why wordpress is so successful. People don't want to have to build a webiste from scratch (some do, but the majority don't). Provide the majority of people with an easier, simpler way of doing what they want and you'll succeed.

There will always be a niche for people who want to "fiddle under the bonnet" and those products can be considered "better" for what they offer - but they will not be "best" for the market as a whole.

It's the same in the company I work for. There are hundreds of different interactive whiteboards in the world. But we have the best marketshare by a long stretch because our solution offers the most simple and effective one - other competitors can do more things than our products but the majority of the market don't need them, so we win
 
joescrivens said:
all of that, and yet you still haven't decided? Sounds like the perfect fit to me.
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I know Joe, just can't get the feeling out of my head the MacBook Pro is the more traditional stable fit. Tried and tested...

The negatives of the iPad are the lack of features in most of the writting apps. Features for citations, bibliographies etc...
 
gingerweasel said:
I know Joe, just can't get the feeling out of my head the MacBook Pro is the more traditional stable fit. Tried and tested...

The negatives of the iPad are the lack of features in most of the writting apps. Features for citations, bibliographies etc...
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yeah, i wouldn't attempt to do assignments etc on an ipad. It's for consumption more. I do have pages on it and write a journal on there, but it's not really ideal for proper work in my opinion
 
neil_g said:
i see no mods warning them in other threads that often end up in bickering..
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you report them, we'll take a look. for the record, you dont know how much PMing of people goes on behind the scenes, we dont just post in threads..;)
 
joescrivens said:
I don't think apple are making it difficult for WD to have a streaming box product are they?
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Well... yes. Once you have locked yourself into Apples world, it's difficult to get out as everything tends to be in some Apple proprietary format or other, which someone else has to reverse engineer (I have no idea if WD have done this or not as I neither use the WD product nor do I have any source material in any Apple proprietary format). M$ were slated for this style of business practices 10 (or was it longer!) or so years ago.

From a simplistic viewpoint, my media dictates the output devices I use - not the other way around. If Apple did something that integrated well with my media, had as good a UI as xbmc and cost £99, I'd buy it. If I have to setup servers on machines, run extra conversion that loses source fidelity and have to buy an iPad/iPhone to control it effectively, then I'm personally not interested.
 
matty said:
you report them, we'll take a look. for the record, you dont know how much PMing of people goes on behind the scenes, we dont just post in threads..;)
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[SARCASM]
That'll be just like the PMs I got last night and no mods posting comments quoting my posts in this thread then.....
[/SARCASM]

;)

Or was it just that no one reported me?

I have to say there does appear to be bias as I feel the same as Neil. Whether there is or not is another matter.
 
arad85 said:
Well... yes. Once you have locked yourself into Apples world, it's difficult to get out as everything tends to be in some Apple proprietary format or other, which someone else has to reverse engineer (I have no idea if WD have done this or not as I neither use the WD product nor do I have any source material in any Apple proprietary format). M$ were slated for this style of business practices 10 (or was it longer!) or so years ago.
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So the ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003 MP4 is some proprietary format that someone else has to reverse engineer? Hmmm, proprietary yes of course, but that doesn't mean it isn't open the two are not the same thing at all. If anything one could argue that MKV is not standardised by ISO/IEC. And as you very well know, it is a container format also (however with additional metadata capabilities in a standardised manner such that consumer devices can provide a decent representation of the contents) and the video and audio streams within could easily be repacked into a matroska container if you really wanted to.

I would love to understand what you really meant by proprietary data that you can't get out of...It works just fine across a multitude of platforms and is using properly ratified standards.
 
Do Apple provide a walled garden. Yes. Without doubt.

And yet.....remove those people who are, at heart, geeks (and I don't use that in a perforative sense), and it looks like most are happy living in that walled garden.

What I find really depressing is that living in that walled garden apparently makes you a fanboy. In reality it makes me someone who thought long and hard before moving from Windows to OSX 4 years ago.

Rather like Sonos (which I also have a huge amount of time for) it's given me a superb platform for what I do for a living. That's all I want. I'm not sure why anyone feels the need to justify their own choices, nor why anyone else feels they have the right to question mine.

You pays your money, you pays your choice. Nice and easy really. Don't want to live in a walled garden, then don't. Plenty of options. Just don't waste everyone's time by telling everyone.
 
dejongj said:
I would love to understand what you really meant by proprietary data that you can't get out of...It works just fine across a multitude of platforms and is using properly ratified standards.
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ALAC for example.

TBH, I'm lowest common denominator - I have files going back ages that are in all sorts of formats (.avi, .ts, .mkv, .mov, .mpg, .flac, .mp3, .cue, .iso, .wav etc...) and all sorts of sizes and framerates (which the player will set the TV to and/or change the playback rate slightly to avoid juddering BTW). I just want something that plays all of them without having to have a server in place to negotiate streaming or having to batch recode them as my player is of limited ability. The data is all just on windows shares here...

Radiohead said:
What I find really depressing is that living in that walled garden apparently makes you a fanboy.
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Noooooooooooooooo. Living in a walled garden doesn't make you a fanboy. Living in a walled garden and saying "this is the best walled garden ever because it does exactly what I want it to do and that is surely enough for everybody" makes you a fanboy....
 
arad85 said:
I'm the same as Neil: rip video to .mkv as it is content agnostic (that is, it is a container file you can put anything in - including subtitles and chapters). Sources: BRs, DVDs, off-air TV records (I'm doing this a lot these days), various cameras that have different video formats....

All my CDs are ripped to single file FLACs with CUE sheet support as this is both lossless and means I can get back the original CD if I want/need to and gapless playback is not a problem. I can also pretty simply re-rip the FLAC to .mp3 should I want to put it on a mp3 player (in fact, quicker than I can transfer it to the player). And no, I don't use an iPod because I like to be able to just transfer stuff to the mp3 player without having to sync it.

Basically, apart from the video recode (which I do to reduce storage requirements) everything else is held in the original format from the source material - which means DTS for most BRs, DD/AAC for broadcast and DD for DVDs.. This means should my playback equipment improve, I still have access to the original source data without recourse back to the silver disc/original broadcast.

The beauty of an open system for playback is that if new formats appear (as happened with DTS and AAC in the time I've been streaming video) they can be implemented with an improved codec pack.
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Wow, I bow to your knowledge!

John
 
arad85 said:
Noooooooooooooooo. Living in a walled garden doesn't make you a fanboy. Living in a walled garden and saying "this is the best walled garden ever because it does exactly what I want it to do and that is surely enough for everybody" makes you a fanboy....
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and what does living outside the wall but constantly peeking over and shouting things at those in the wall make you?
 
joescrivens said:
and what does living outside the wall but constantly peeking over and shouting things at those in the wall make you?
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An irritated next door neighbour trying to mind his own business but finding it impossible to do so with all the anti-social behaviour from next door...
 
arad85 said:
An irritated next door neighbour trying to mind his own business but finding it impossible to do so with all the anti-social behaviour from next door...
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no, it's more like a busy body who can't keep his nose out dispite the rest of us happily going along with our lives and never even inviting or interupting said neighbour.
 
joescrivens said:
and what does living outside the wall but constantly peeking over and shouting things at those in the wall make you?
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A realist?

The iPad is good, but certainly not perfect, and it's pretty daft to claim that it's a panacea.

The lack of any inbuilt hardware port, apart from the standard apple interface is a PITA, and restricting the file system is just plain petty.

'There's an App for that' - yup, there is, but if you hadn't locked everything down so far, then I wouldn't need one!
 
DemiLion said:
A realist?

The iPad is good, but certainly not perfect, and it's pretty daft to claim that it's a panacea.

The lack of any inbuilt hardware port, apart from the standard apple interface is a PITA, and restricting the file system is just plain petty.

'There's an App for that' - yup, there is, but if you hadn't locked everything down so far, then I wouldn't need one!
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It's not perfect. But it is the best tablet in the market (in my opinion).
 
Apple make something that just works, you work within their boundary and everything works. Their products become your slave, they work for you.

Outside this platform, people who moan about this, they want an open system. Fine. It's your life but why do they come and tell me I am wrong for my choice?

You might have the time to google the codec to make it work, or have the time to rip this and rip that or learn about the latest and greatest lossless format. Frankly that is your choice and your life. My life is such that I don't have the time or energy to learn these anymore. I rather spend it on other aspects, such as go taking pictures for fun or work, or spend time with my friends.
 
joescrivens said:
no, it's more like a busy body who can't keep his nose out dispite the rest of us happily going along with our lives and never even inviting or interupting said neighbour.
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Joe: I'm not going to feed the troll in you any more. You only ever reply to my posts to pick a fight in some way or other.
 
arad85 said:
Joe: I'm not going to feed the troll in you any more. You only ever reply to my posts to pick a fight in some way or other.
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you mean you're not going to feed yourself?

The only person trolling here is you as pointed out many times above. Why come into a thread about a device you have no interest in? It's not like this was a generic thread about tablets - we're talking ipad here and you dont like ipad - so why the hell are you wasting your time in here if it's not just to flame and claim superiority because of your flac lossles blah blah blah open system jargon?
 
Raymond Lin said:
Outside this platform, people who moan about this, they want an open system. Fine. It's your life but why do they come and tell me I am wrong for my choice?
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I certainly don't - I haven't said one bad thing in this thread about the iPad. I question Apples business practices though and as a consumer of their products it would probably be in your interests to as well.

Raymond Lin said:
You might have the time to google the codec to make it work, or have the time to rip this and rip that or learn about the latest and greatest lossless format. Frankly that is your choice and your life. My life is such that I don't have the time or energy to learn these anymore.
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I find it interesting to understand how everything hangs together and I haven't installed a codec pack for years. Computing and building the network I have here is just another hobby. Nothing more, nothing less, but I do get pleasure from understanding the system and making it all just work for those in the house.

Raymond Lin said:
I rather spend it on other aspects, such as go taking pictures for fun or work, or spend time with my friends.
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Oh dear - veiled insults by insinuation. You were doing so well until that point too....
 
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