A Tech-Biased Perspective

100Mbit will be reserved for the nerds - for it to reach the mainstream, DRM has to go!

2007-02-12T19:29:00.000+08:00

Now that Starhub has given us the wonder of 100Mbit/s download, how many takers will there be.

MANY, but not enough.

Without wading through the complications of bypassing traffic shaping (read `choking') targeting bittorrent protocol packets, without widespread education on peer-to-peer download technologies, and without massive download technologies like Bittorrent getting to the mainstream consciousness because of the perceived `illegality' of these services, most of this country can't really use the 100Mbit/s speed.

Online music is not uncommon. Only that the Digital Rights Management makes even the nerds falter. No standard DRM exists today, nor will it foreseeably exist tomorrow. Apple's boss Steve Jobs is lambasting DRM (just last week). We all know how sucky DRM can be, and that at least there's some complication for you to transfer your Itunes music from one PC to another.

The underground is fiercely `torrenting' terabytes of content every day and night. And this underground is so small compared to the total number of internet users.

Let me again call for the abolition of DRM, which is no use to most people anyway - complicating the life of legal users and totally bypassed by those who choose to bypass it, and ignored by those who, not knowing how DRM works and not knowing how to bypass it online, get their stuff from their friends' thumbdrives or portable hard disk drives.

Let's have the MDA make a scheme where all subscribers to internet services pay an additional 10 bucks or so a month, for the RIGHT to download and distribute whatever they want online, and this money goes to a fund to pay the content providers according to their popularity indexed in P2P indices worldwide.

This blogpost seems cryptic simply because the background knowledge required is difficult, and I don't have the mood to babyfy it. But those who read it and understand it, please consider it and write about it yourself. Because, I REALLY WANT the content providers to survive. The torrenters will always be there, in some form or another. It's the content providers I'm worried about.

Adventures with Stahub's Maxonline MOL Ultimate 100Mbit/s FAT GREEN PIPE!

2007-02-12T15:09:00.000+08:00

I got my Starhub Maxonline account for 3 months already, which I contracted with them for an entire year with 30Mbit/s down and 1Mbit/s up. I KNEW they were going to increase it to 100Mbit/2Mbit and sure enough, they did.

Only problem was that my existing modem, my old DOCSIS 2 Motorola SBV5120 couldn't give me the 100Mbit/2Mbit. I had to get the DOCSIS 3 Motorola SB6100 modem to achieve that kind of bitrate. But my account was already provisioned for 100mbit, and every day which passed was another day I kicked myself for paying full fare for 1/3 of the performance I was entitled to.

This was a great strategy Starhub had for sucker nerds like me, so I set off to prepare to get the SB6100.

Not an easy task though. The SB6100 did not have VOICE capability, and since I was on Starhub's VOIP Digital Voice service, by itself, the SB6100 can't make it. A quick enquiry told me what I had to do - keep the SBV5120 to use it as VOICE only, and buy a new SB6100 for the Internet bandwidth. Easy enough unless you're a sucker nerd like me - I worried about the signal quality, since keeping the SBV5120 would necessitate another split of the cable, with proportional losses.

This was what I planned:

| (from SCV)
|
|
(splitter1)---------(cable modem)
|
|
(splitter2)----------(VOIP for Digital Voice)
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
(6 way to room outlets for video)

Now I set off to buy a top grade splitter and found the Monster splitter. It cost me S$60. Here it is... a little different from mine, but sufficient to illustrate.

• Ultra low-loss, high-performance video signal splitter for TV & satellite
• 5 MHz - 2 GHz bandwidth is digital ready for splitting DSS & TV signals
• Internal impedance-matched network for accurate 75 ohm load to all outputs
• Precision die-case, 24K gold-plated contacts
• 24K gold-plated contacts ensure high conductive, corrosion-free connections

After doing the change from Regal 2-way splitter to Monster 2-way, this is the result:

Signal strength from the single layer Monster 2-way splitter, increase from 82% to 86% (somebody please tell me, why I split the signal, should half, why still get such high number? Is BS izzit? I don't have meter, so I use my HD set top box to test the signal)

Practical differences:

+Highest DL speed from 30 tries increase from 28Mbit/s to slightly higher than 29 Mbit/s (from utilities.starhub.com)
+Before this, I use 3 way splitter, everytime I press START, I only have a 30% chance of the download proceeding to 100% ... most of the time stuck halfway. After my change to Regal 2 way aplitter, I achieved 100% success, but sometimes need 8 steps of the download bar, sometimes need 6 steps. After change to the Monster, maximum steps is 7 steps, sometimes 6, and very rarely 5 steps. PLEASE NOTE HOWEVER THAT STARHUB INCREASED MY THEORETICAL BANDWIDTH FROM 30MBIT/S TO 32MBIT/S. SO ALL MY RESULTS MAY BE INVALID LIAO.
+Signal quality STAY at 99-100%. No difference between Regal and Monster for Signal Quality. Signal Quality got no difference across all my splits, even the 2nd layer split also SQ is about 99-100%.

Result:
1) Technical wise, not worth S$60. The changes are so marginal.
2) Psychological buff of seeing a nice big gold color splitter, priceless. Achieved.

OK so I went ahead and bought the SB6100, when I got it, I relegated the SBV5120 to a 3rd level split - the phone still worked, so ... fine.

After a very very hard day, where I kick the hell outta myself for stupidity, here are the results for my new SB6100 modem:

speedtest.net figures:

Surprising thing is the incredible upload speed. The Ubicom based router I have detects 3030kbit/s uplink speed, which I thought was wrong, until I saw the speedtest figures. This is the happiest thing, because the downlink speed is something like `too much' at this time, and the great upload speed will help achieve more download speed.

Starhub figures:

Connecting to Server ...
Logging on to Server ...
Starting download
Download Successful !!

Download Stats:

Transfer Time: 9782 milliseconds
Total File Size: 83886080 bytes

Top speed attained: 68.44 Mbps

All these tests done with the normal idiotic overconservative WinXP settings for RWIN with no frame multiplier. I can achieve more speed - up to 83Mbit/s with Starhub util and 37Mbit/s for speedtest, but with these my upload speed cannot be consistent.

As for why I was stupid, I hardcode a lot of numbers into my ubicom router instead of autodetect, so for half a day, I worked with a hardcoded 30Mbit/s down and 1Mbit/s up figures based on my old connection.

Only after I slept a bit then woke up at about now, I thought of it. Sorry starhub for spamming your mailbox and calling you up so many times. I am an utter idiot loh!

After going to www.dslreports.com and optimizing my RWIN and putting a timestamp on all my TCP/IP packets, this is what I got:

Starhub:

Connecting to Server ...
Logging on to Server ...
Starting download
Download Successful !!

Download Stats:

Transfer Time: 8312 milliseconds
Total File Size: 83886080 bytes

Top speed attained: 78.81 Mbps

Real world: It took me like less than 5 seconds to download the 50MB Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0: x86 (KB928416) ... LOL!

This was a successful installation, and it was every bit as I expected. But its effect on me is profound, I find myself thinking of all ways on how to use the connection. It's a real change if downloads don't take any time at all relatively.

Anyway, money well spent!

First HD-DVD Disc Torrent - HD-DVD copy protection broken?

2007-01-16T17:40:00.000+08:00

Quite quickly, without supercomputers, unencrypted HD-DVD high definition content has been made available for bit-torrent download.

Reference: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8622.html

Usually, if an AACS device has been compromised, there is a key revocation system which revokes the keys, disallowing further playback.

But this has been rendered irrelevant, as the torrent available for download is unencrypted, free of any copy protection system. So any key revocation system will be unable to stop further playback of the file, in this case, Serenity.

A ripper exists: BackupHDDVD, which uses keys separately available from the internet, to rip the contents of a HD-DVD disc. A key was also passed on to the internet recently, which works
with BackupHDDVD. This is a full recipe for a HD-DVD rip, and this presumably resulted in the unencypted file available via torrent.

Reference: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070107-8564.html

So, my speculations:

If all goes well for the content protection camp, the compromised key available on the internet and any connected keys, will be revoked.
So future content will not decrypt using the compromised key, but all current content will still be rippable
AACS' key revocation system is utterly useless in any other respect, because the ripped content is not protected at all. It is naked HD video.

One more point for my call for a blanket license covering all content. Utterly impossible to protect anything which relies on human integrity, honesty and diligence. :)

Clean up Windows XP memory with 1 click!

2006-12-08T16:36:00.000+08:00

From Hardwarezone forums:

Make a shortcut in Windows XP, location of file, put `%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks' without the quote marks.

Clicking on this shortcut will clean up your Windows memory by clearing up the idle processes. Works for me, and it is better and I feel safer than the freeware/spyware on the net which claim to do the same. At least this one is from Microsoft.

Original source.

Government sues Streetdirectory.com who sued so many people!

2006-11-24T17:17:00.000+08:00

Virtual Map, the owner of streetdirectory.com , has made quite a good living enforcing their intellectual property rights against large and small companies in Singapore - when these companies used the unprotected jpg maps from streetdirectory.com, boom! they got threatened with a suit, and they'd settle out of court. And their licensing fees and `penalties' were not cheap. They succeeded against several parties, including the most famous case of all, NTUC! The fees were quite outrageous as I recall.

All the map data was licensed from SLA. They were trading in the license.

And SLA has started an action against Virtual Map, as reported by TODAY here. SLA states that it terminated their licensing to Virtual Map in July 2004.

Well, let's just see what happens. Virtual Map has only gotten hate from what I read in the papers the past few years, with their victims claiming entrapment, inducement, `making a living outta suing people', etc. Nothing flattering coming from the victims of course.

Well, let's see whether the SLA succeeds. If the SLA wins, Virtual Map might have to pay back all the license fees it collected from its clients since July 2004, with interest. Facts from the case and rulings might also put holes in Virtual Map's license even before July 2004, and the payback may extend even before July 2004.

After everything, their victims might hope that somebody might have the bright idea to allege that Virtual Map KNOWINGLY licensed their maps without having valid title.

Let the Discovery process reveal interesting internal emails! This will be fun to watch.

more blogs on this: Cnet Gin's Tonic

Finally, Picasa can post to Blogger Beta

2006-11-18T13:01:00.000+08:00

Since I upgraded my blogs to blogger beta in August, I've had nothing but problems when I try to post pictures to the blogs using Picasa. But I saw others with utterly no problems after the October Picasa patch which enabled dual logins to either Blogger or Blogger Beta.

Why? Because of this obscure point: If Backlinks are enabled in your Blogger beta blog (how's that for a tongue twister???), Picasa cannot post pictures there. Thanks to http://knownissues.blogspot.com/search/label/picasa :

You cannot post from Picasa to Blogger in beta if you have backlinks turned on.

OK now that I've turned off the backlinks to my baby's blogs, the pictures come alive again!

Goosync syncs your cellphone with Google Calendar

2006-11-15T13:43:00.000+08:00

Goosync has made me the happiest man in the world today. The happiest! Really! How happy am I? Well, for the first time in my life, I've put an image at the centre of my blogpost! That's how happy I am.

The DREAM of synchronizing my cellphone with Google Calendar has almost been forgotten until today. I tried various ways of doing it, using the iCal specification, using various MAPI hacks with Outlook, sharing here and sharing there, and all of these either don't work or work with so much resource overhead, or have serious deficiencies.

FORGET ALL THAT NOW!

GOOSYNC ENABLES YOU TO SYNC YOUR CELLPHONE OVER THE AIR WITH GOOGLE CALENDAR!

Here's how it does it.

Register at Goosync.
Enter the normal crap, and then, they will want your google password. If you're afraid, do this.... make another google account (new google account), just for this, empty of everything, and share this new google account calendar with your normal google account or google hosted account. Then share your google hosted or normal google account with this new google account's calendar. So now it reads and writes both ways. This way, you'll protect your normal google account and any hacker who gets the new google account password is only limited to seeing your calendar, so that limits the damage. [Edit: Shared events don't seem to update anymore. Also, you can use your google hosted account by entering myname@domain.com at the username under Google Credentials.]
Goosync will send you a SMS message with autoconfiguration code. Enter the password Goosync gives you and Accept the changes it contains.
Then go to your cellphone's remote sync function, and run the goosync code, and you're synched both ways via GPRS, 3G GPRS or any damn internet connection your phone has.

Now this fulfils my dream in more ways than I anticipated. Now I can sync without my computer. I don't need the cable and all the problems which come with USB synchronization.

Now, Google, please go buy Goosync. They've earned it. Just 5 million bucks. They've made me happier than you have. Goosync, I love you. I love you. I love you.

Soon: Synthetize a 3D environment using your pictures (and others')

2006-11-13T11:07:00.000+08:00

Microsoft Photosynth is going to revolutionize the way you sort pictures. Right now you sort pictures according to your own tags, labels, or folders. Photosynth synthetizes a 3D environment based on the images in your pictures. Example: if you go to India, take pictures all around the Taj Mahal, Photosynth can arrange your images according to WHERE you took it around the Taj, in a 3D space, presumably merging with data available from the pictures of other people all around the Internet.

And this would add a further dimension to your pictures, much more than GPS geotagging. It will augment reality, give you a much more powerful view, and from a human point of view, evoke more intimate emotions about your pictures.

Check out the video here:

Thatcher's Advisor Debunks Assertions of Global Warming

2006-11-07T10:03:00.000+08:00

Read here.

I've recently been greatly influenced by reports of global warming, not that I'm an expert, but it sure is intuitive that with all the heat pumped from our cars, factories etc. to the atmosphere, something bad's gonna happen. And Climate Change has become such an all-pervasive religion that I've scarcely heard any authoritative source.

So when a Thatcher fanboy like myself read Christopher Monckton's pop-science article at the Telegraph, it was something I wanted to spend a few minutes on. Read it yourself and judge.

Google Calendar now supports SMS in Singapore

2006-09-21T11:49:00.000+08:00

Google Calendar now supports SMS in Singapore and other countries! This is lovely! SMS notifications of events etc. FREE OF CHARGE.

This has been a long long awaited feature, now I'm investigating how the other Google services can use my cellphone. Stay tuned.

Vista Readyboost - FAT or NTFS, what flash drive to use ...

2006-09-13T14:11:00.000+08:00

Vista features a caching technology called Readyboost, where, small files which take the hard disk drive a lot of time to read, are cached in a USB flash drive since USB flash drives have a far faster seek-time compared to Hard disk drives - yes, even Raptors.

There is a lot of talk on Readyboost on the web, but the details are lacking. After googling a bit, here's my take:

1) FAT or FAT32 or NTFS?

Though FAT and FAT32 use less CPU overhead, I thought that FAT would be fastest. Turns out to be not so... I guess it's because today's CPUs are so fast that the CPU overhead is nothing at all. Here're some experimenter data:

http://www.msblog.org/?author=7

Test run #1 (without thumbdrive):

* Average boot time: 1:10m ~ 70s

Test run #2 (FAT32 formatted, 1840MB ReadyBoost swap file):

* Average boot time: 1:13m ~ 73s

Test run #3 (NTFS formatted, 1840MB ReadyBoost swap file):

* Average boot time: 1:05m ~ 65s

2) Format the USB drive at what sector or cluster size?

This is simple. If you have tons of small files, cluster size is an issue, since the smallest files which can be generated and stored is the size of the cluster. So if you have a 4KB cluster size, a 1KB file in fact would still take 4KB. Since Vista uses ONE HUGE FILE, just the default cluster size would be fine. Or any cluster size would be fine. The one detail I haven't worked out is `whether USB drives have a native cluster size'. Anybody can tell me this? I'd be grateful.

3) Which USB flash drive works?

I used the Imation Thumbdrive Micro 1GB, and it worked like a charm.

Discussion thread here, almost everything covered!

Vista RC1 Keys available from Microsoft

2006-09-13T13:57:00.000+08:00

Microsoft released Vista RC1 for public download, but did not give the keys. At this time, the official position was that only beta2 testers could get Vista RC1 working.

After googling a bit, I found that Microsoft left a backdoor for us to get the keys even though we are not beta2 guys....

procedure to get beta2 keys:

http://www.jkg.in/34-how-to-obtain-the-windows-vista-beta-2-key-serial-for-free.htm

Edit: Arrgh I think the link above is dead, I have dragged the following code from the depths of my desktop cache, hope it works:

Select your country and click the button labelled ‘Go’ or try using the form here:

(please click on the country selector. The country selector is the backdoor. Do not go to the microsoft homepage, coz it's changed)

YOu can now download vista http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/download.htm

Until July 07 then deactivate. I tested keys, all activated Vista without problems, to get ultimate edition.

Enjoy!

Get More Bandwidth by using a better Cable splitter

2006-09-13T09:48:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the thread in here: the threadstarter found that his cable splitter was rusty, and changed it with positive results - more bandwidth.

That got a discussion going. And sent me shopping. Here's what I found.

Most cable splitters have these attributes:

Frequency: the best are 0-1000Mhz, but what I could easily find was 5-1000MHz.
dB loss: Signal loss for 1-Split-2 and 1-Split-3 is 3dB, but Signal loss for 1-Split-4 is 7dB.
Isolation: some of the splitters have electromagnetic noise isolation, ranges from 80-120dB, I bought the 120dB one.

There is also a proper connection method: this post details it well:

To achieve a 4 way split, it is advisable to get a 3 way splitter together with a 2 way splitter, rather than to get a 4 way splitter.

4 way splitter will result in at least a 7dB drop in RF signal stregnth to each of the 4 taps. By using a 3 way spliiter, you at least get 2 taps with a 3.5dB drop. My recommendation is to connect your modem to one of the 3.5dB tap, and connect the 2 way splitter to the other 3.5bB tap, together achieveing a 4 way split.

My results? I'm happier with my optimized connection than before. It's little trouble, so doing it gives you peace of mind and at least a psychological boost.

Starhub changes HDTV programming

2006-08-26T14:35:00.000+08:00

After being subjected to months of old World Cup matches, finally Starhub is showing samples of DiscoveryHD and National Geographic HD. And they look BEAUTIFUL.

Using the power of Blogger Beta

2006-08-26T12:27:00.000+08:00

From a `user' of blogging technology and not really a power blogger geek, Blogger Beta's new features are a god-send. I especially like the enhanced way that archived posts are presented in the javascript applet on the sidebar. And the organization of the page elements enable code to be put into a neat little box in authoring mode, makes things so much more clean and configurable.

Here we are - the Tech-Biased Perspective in a new look.

MDA has some HDTV-related events coming up soon

2006-08-16T17:44:00.000+08:00

Just received an email from the MDA a few minutes ago. Here it is ad-verbatim.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

UPCOMING HDTV EVENTS

Keen to learn more about High Definition (HD) Technology? Want to experiance HD broadcasting?

We've got several interesting events that you can attend in August to discover more on HDTV and the benefits it offer. You can walk away with exclusive HDTV premiums or even stand a chance to win a 26” HD-Ready LCD TV. Read on for details!

A. Exhibitions:

1. HDTV Mobile Exhibition
Date: 8 Aug to 31 Aug
Venue: Level 1, Tampines Regional Library

Discover the difference between High Definition and Analogue signals at our ongoing exhibition at the regional library outlets. Visitors stand to receive an exclusive HDTV premium when they complete a simple survey form.

2. Evolution of TV: Getting You Ready for HD
Date: 10 Aug to 31 Aug
Venue: Level 7, Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, National Library Board Building
Organized by Sony Singapore and supported by the MDA and NLB

Experience the evolution of television technology from the first black and white sets to today’s state-of-the-art systems. Visitors stand to win a 26” HD-Ready LCD TV from Sony worth $1,599.

B. Talks:

1. Demystifying HD & Setting up a complete HD Cinema
Date: 19 Aug, 20 Aug
Venue: Changi/ Simei Room, Level 3, Tampines Regional Library
Presented by Snazio

Demystifying HD & Setting up a complete HD Cinema
Discover the myths and realities of High-Definition (HD) technology and the various ways you can enjoy HD-quality entertainment.

Time:

Date: 19 Aug
1.00pm - 1.30pm – Demystifying HD
1.30pm - 2.00pm – Setting up a complete HD Cinema

5.00pm - 5.30pm - Demystifying HD
5.30pm - 6.00pm - Setting up a complete HD Cinema

Date: 20 Aug
1.00pm - 1.30pm – Demystifying HD
1.30pm - 2.00pm – Setting up a complete HD Cinema

2. The Big Picture & Demystifying HD
Date: 27 Aug
Venue: Changi/ Simei Room, Level 3, Tampines Regional Library

The Big Picture presented by Chi Mei
High Definition TV (HDTV) broadcasts are on the way! What kind of television will bring the richness of multimedia into your living room…now and into the future?

Demystifying HD presented by Snazio
Discover the myths and realities of High-Definition (HD) technology and the various ways you can enjoy HD-quality entertainment.

Time:

1.00pm - 1.30pm - The Big Picture
1.30pm - 2.00pm - Demystifying HD

5.00pm - 5.30pm - The Big Picture
5.30pm - 6.00pm - Demystifying HD

Admission is free to all events.

For more updates, please visit www.hdtv-trial.sg for the latest HDTV developments and happenings.

See you there!

Best Regards
Community & International Relations
Media Development Authority

Starhub Maxonline Blocks Port 80 incoming

2006-08-15T15:35:00.000+08:00

OK I'm quite pissed. I spent a whole day configuring my Network Attached Storage (more on that in another post later) just to see that a normal http://xxx.dyndns.org didn't work from outside, but did work from inside. I did get the https://xxx.dyndns.org and ftp://xxx.dyndns.org to work though.

After hours of terminal services out to get back in etc, my MIS Vincent suggested that Starhub may have blocked the port. I gave them a phone call, and they told me - yeah, all (incoming) port 80 connections are blocked to protect us from a virus.

Hah! Likely story. Well I gave them a bit of my mind. Here it is, the text in full!

Michael Tan

MaxOnline Connection - Port 80 (A/c: XXXXXX)

Michael Tan

Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 3:16 PM

To: "helpdesk@starhub.com"

Thank you for your message.

Many many ports, are vulnerable to attack, including:

port 135: Denial of Service, necessary for RPC
port 445: sasser worm
port 5554 sasser worm
port 9996 sasser worm
port 25: DOS, necessary for SMTP
port 53: DOS, necessary for DNS transfers

and the list goes on.

You have not closed any of these ports, and in fact, opened up ports 135 - BUT left port 80 blocked. In the same breath, you state that closing port 80 does not interfere with `normal' use of the internet - where your opinion of the `normal usage' include surfing, gaming and email.

For clarity, here's the governing clause:

9. Use in a Network Environment
a. You must not use or permit the use of the Service for the purposes of providing or operating any server services (including but not limited to HTTP/web, SMTP/mail and FTP/file transfer services).

First, I take issue with your definition of `normal' usage. As we progress in the golden age of information technology, the use of the internet has expanded to many many other uses:

1) Bit-torrent technology to download software (linux packages), game patches (world of Warcraft patches), etc. - in this application, your PC at home acts as a server to supply data to other bit-torrent clients - in many cases, port 80 is used, and blocking port 80 slows down the data flow.

2) Linking a readily available IP camera to the web using Dynamic DNS technology, for your customers to view what's happening at home while they're at work. Port 80 is commonly used as default.

3) Use of private storage as in Network Attached solutions readily available today, for your customers' data to be accessible anywhere in the world.

So, your restriction 9A is now too wide for today's environment. The technology employed is so simplified today, and the applications so relevant to today's environment, that keeping point 9A unamended to reflect the new internet, is becoming untenable.

I am not advocating full blown usage, but your initial position in 9A is untenable today. Perhaps, `no commercial use' should be a better filter of intentions to keep the spirit of the rule.

Aesthetic considerations - today, incredibly easy Dynamic DNS free services give you a url to link to your dynamic IP address. To litter it with a hard to type `port suffixes' makes it rather user unfriendly, and requires complex configuration beyond the ken of normal users. Take a look at this address: http://niceaddress.dynamic.com:8081 - very cumbersome, right?

Thank you for your email, though. I would appreciate it if you could forward it to your management for further consideration.

--
____________________________________________
Michael Tan
michaeltanyk@gmail.com
http://miketan.blogspot.com
RSS/XML Feed: http://miketan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

On 8/15/06, helpdesk@starhub.com <helpdesk@starhub.com> wrote:

Dear Michael

Thank you for contacting StarHub.

We wish to inform you that Port 80 has been closed permanently to
protect customers against viruses, e.g. Code Red (which exploits this
port to circulate itself). This move is consistent with some ISPs
around the world.

Since Port 80 is used mainly for server applications which is against
the Terms and Conditions as stated on
http://www.starhub.com/termsandconditions/infocom_serterms_mo.html
(point 9.a), closing this port will not affect normal Internet
activities such as surfing, gaming and email etc.

If you have any questions on StarHub Digital Cable and MaxOnline
services, please call us on our Customer Care hotline at 1633 (+65
6820 1633 from overseas), email to this address or fax in to 6725
1603.

Best regards

Vincent Kwee
Customer Care - Online

StarHub Ltd. Reg. No.: 199802208C This email is confidential and privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not view, disseminate, use or copy this email. Kindly notify the sender immediately, and delete this email from your system. Thank you. Please visit our website at www.starhub.com

The Human Mind vs the mindless march of technology

2006-07-28T10:40:00.000+08:00

Check out Cnet's special feature on the ten year old Apple Newton vs the brand new Samsung Q1 UMPC. The Apple Newton wins. Surprise... yeah.

The human mind, if intensely focussed towards creating something bespoke, in this case, a Newton handheld PC, vs taking a mishmash of technology, none of them bespoke, and concentrating on the off the shelf components and trying to keep costs down, it's no surprise:

When a human mind is dedicated towards the creation of a handheld PC, SPECIFICALLY, without heed to cost nor uniformity nor UI conformity nor anything else, the result can surpass 10 years of technology advancement.

Samsung shouldn't be embarassed, being in this case the glorified mindless manufacturer. But Microsoft should be, with their billions at their disposal, and 10 years of standing on the shoulders of giants, and yet not being able even to create an OS interface and subsidiary technologies to approximate the decade-old Newton.

When is this mindlessness going to stop, Microsoft? I'm tired of it.

Creative - watcha gonna do?

2006-07-24T10:12:00.000+08:00

Here's a best guess report on the new Microsoft Zune Ipod killer. Seems to be a Microsoft branded product. While not detracting from the Ipod, it looks cool in a bland sort of way.

It's boring, period. The only thing left to speak about, is - what about those guys who used Microsoft middleware and software to make their own Ipod killers? Especially Creative - what are you gonna do now that Microsoft is rolling out their own branded PMPs?

Be a contract manufacturer for Micorosoft? Not a bad idea though, considering the quantum of success Creative's had with their own brands.

JAJAH - free phone to phone, anywhere, any phone

2006-07-19T15:08:00.000+08:00

Just take a look at http://jajah.com

Finally, phone to phone conversations, potentially free, between any phone anywhere in the world. All you have to do is to register your phone numbers at Jajah, access a web page, key in your call receipient's phone number, and press call. Phone to phone VOIP, simply!

`Potentially free' is because it's only free if your receipient's phone number is also registered with Jajah. But this isn't an issue. You could simply register your `computer blind' friends with Jajah using other email addresses under your name, and their numbers are registered, not strictly correctly, but sufficient to make free calls to them.

And you can SMS too, through the browser, but at US$0.045 per SMS, even between registered users, I think there're cheaper solutions elsewhere.

So, what if you're out without a computer? Shouldn't be a problem, if your mobile phone has a web browser. I faced issues though, accessing the Jajah webpage gave me parsing errors on my Sony Ericsson M600 phone browser (Opera 8.6). Will be looking for a solution.

In the meantime, just call away.

Update: The thing is that Jajah checks your IP, determines the network location, then fixes your country code. So this limits you to some extent if you try to register for people outside your country. Some countries (specifically Malaysia) have a problem - they can't register. Perhaps Jajah withdrew support for Malaysia.

For the lucky ones in free countries, my M600 is working now, with Opera Mini 2.0, downloadable from http://mini.opera.com

New Firmware released for Starhub's ADB 3800C box

2006-07-17T12:14:00.000+08:00

New Firmware for Starhub ADB 3800C box was released last week. After updating, the audio dropout issue has not been rearing its head so far. I'm monitoring and will keep you posted.

Update: I've monitored, the dropout issue is less, but yet, still occurs.

TVUplayer - Peer to peer streaming playback

2006-07-12T13:22:00.000+08:00

Imagine a video player, with the capability to suck streaming video from your peers, connected to all the broadcasters of the world. Broadcasters will not need to have huge fat connections as feeds will, after the initial seed is planted in a peer, be fed peer to peer without needing any more service from the broadcaster itself. Stuff of nerd utopia?

Well, this is now reality. TVUnetworks is offering such a player, in beta, for free. How he handles the legality, I don't know. It seems to be legal. He is open to the world, even his address is available. The World Cup was rebroadcasted to tens of thousands using this technology.

What does this mean? The quality is excellent, with a 100kB/s total feed from 15 peers, we have better than Starhub SD quality. Do cable operators have to move up to HD totally just to escape TVUnetworks and its brethen? Even then, there is no theoretical limit to the delivery capability of peer-to-peer streaming. Even 6Mbit/s HD can be delivered now if the upstream datarate in a region is good. With Docsis 3 bonding, wow, we'll have even less limits.

What is sure, is that Slingbox is dead. TVUplayer does not need any configuration, any hardware, etc. Any broadcaster wanting to go it alone, like Mediacorp's Mobtv.sg better review their business plan, perhaps to work with TUVnetworks, solving all their bandwidth issues.

Incredible stuff. I'll keep you guys posted. Now for HBO on TVUplayer.

Audio Dropouts - ADB 3800C HDMI

2006-07-11T10:13:00.000+08:00

Since the very beginning of the Starhub HD trial, I faced an audio dropout issue. Every few minutes, the audio would drop for 2 seconds or so, then resume. After the single firmware upgrade available, I still face the audio dropout problem, but less. This problem occurs in HD, and SD channels too. Just to clarify, this issue ONLY happens for me if I use HDMI audio. I did not try the AC3 out - but the stereo jacks don't give the issue.

The last time I faced such an issue with digital video, in digital video editing, this is the problem - I'm not saying that the SCV HDMI audio dropout problem is exactly this problem, but perhaps the problem I faced years ago can raise some ideas on how to troubleshoot among the SCV people.

The old steadfast Sony M1 DV codec chip used in some video editing systems, supports a standard called 'locked audio' in DVCAM systems. In locked audio format, the audio output must be set to exactly 32032hz per second, otherwise the chip will not accept the audio in sync. The Sony consumer DV cameras are also designed to record/output audio in and around that frequency, averaging around 32032hz for every second.

However, in the Canon XL1 the audio frequency changed heavily for every second, sometimes with differences of more than 20 to 30hz between seconds. This caused the average audio frequency was around 32053hz for every seconds. When Canon 32053hz audio mixed with Sony 32032hz audio, in a video editing system using the Sony M1 DV codec chip, the audio sync will be way off, and unusable. The symptom is EXACTLY what I see in the Starhub HDMI audio - dropouts at irregular intervals. I remember the dropouts very well, the resemblance is uncanny. The dropouts will happen once the sync goes to hell and the audio buffers reach their limit, the chip will try to flush the buffers to reset the sync, causing an audio dropout in the process.

The solution: When capturing, the video editing system will look at the first second (store it in the buffer) and measure the sampling rate, and if that sampling rate was outside the range of 32026hz to 32038hz, the editing system will consider the camera as an XL1 and capture audio as 32053hz per second. After sampling as 32053hz per second, it will convert the audio to 48048hz, and then convert back to 32032hz, to create an .AVI file. This is to create an .AVI file that is compatible with other cameras.

Credit to Charles Burmeister in DVinfo.net in jogging my memory.

What this means to Starhub broadcasts, is that the sampling rate of the audio streams broadcasted by Starhub's DVB-C system, may be `slightly' out of the max and min parameters which the set top box's HDMI transmitter can handle. OR, the ADB 3800C box does internal audio conversion (HDMI stage), and outputs the audio via the HDMI which sampling rate are out of the min or max parameters of the TV's audio system can take, again causing a sync issue. Or both, of course. Both ways, it points to the HDMI transmitter chip - since stereo jacks don't have an issue. I've yet to experiment with the AC3 optical out, but Starhub guys can do that, I don't have time for that now.

Because the sampling rate may not be fixed, this will create dropouts not at regular intervals, but irregular intervals. It can range from hours without a dropout issue, or just 30 to 40 seconds.

Starhub officials who see this, may it give you a little idea on how to fix it. Worst is that the ADB box has a stability issue with the system clocks.

If it is indeed an audio sampling issue, the following problems can be eliminated:

1) TV's AC3 decoder problems - cannot be, because everybody here have different TV, and most experience the issue. Anyway, our TVs work fine with the AC3 output from our HDMI DVD players.

2) Source video issues - cannot be. All your source is like that. Worse, I am experiencing lipsync issues with your mediacorp content! Which I did not experience with the old Digital set top box or analog set top box.

3) Cable issues - cannot be. I used 3-4 different HDMI cables already.

4) Signal Strength - Nah. I have 100% quality with very low Biterror rate according to the Starhub contractor.

It might be a HDMI transmitter issue (most probably Silicon Image)... other devices have this issue also: see http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/162876.html

Anyway, over to you, Starhub.

Edit: With more research, so many similar problems on the net, just search for `HDMI audio dropout' in google. I am indeed quite convinced that the HDMI transmitter chip on the ADB 3800C has some issues. Refer to this link here for best evidence. I quote:

Observation; audio would drop every few seconds and "digital" would blink on amp indicating no optical sync at all. Each time audio would come back there would be a slight glitch in a part of the picture as well. Appears to have been recorded this way as I could replay the problem.

So every audio drop, optic sync is `gone'. The HDMI transmitter is probably emptying its buffers. Then the sync comes back. C'mon, this is a good lead for the troubleshooting!

And I urge Starhub to try with AC3 out (optic) and see whether you have the same issue or not. I would expect that the AC3 out has no issues. If so, wham, you got your culprit - the HDMI transmitter.

Removal of Mr. Brown link

2006-07-07T21:45:00.000+08:00

I've had a Mr. Brown link since the Te Kwa days in my small collection of links. I'm removing Mr. Brown's link at this time. I'm disturbed by the implications of Mr. Brown's act of censorship of certain comments in a his comments page where hundreds of people are commenting on the lack of free speech.

mrbrown `Today' column suspended

2006-07-06T18:56:00.000+08:00

This has nothing to do with tech.

I don't give much heed to what mrbrown says, as his issues don't concern me much. But he sure is funny. Since I like TRANSPARENCY, and since the entity which suspended him is a newspaper, and since a few thousand people visit this blog, just be informed of the suspension. Original here: http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/regarding_today.html

Edit 6pm 7 July 2006: Also in the interests of TRANSPARENCY, I declare that at least 1 comment, by a user who calls himself IRCTP, who posted some comments not in line with that of most of the other commenters on the `regarding today' blogpost, was deleted by mrbrown at or around 5.45 pm today. To be clear, Mr. Brown has a right to delete that blogpost as he controls the site. It shows that in certain circumstances, he does not feel that open debate is the best thing.

Which is similar to the reputed government behaviour of course.

While I am not endorsing any censorship, I merely with to put on record and public view the act of deletion - which he did without notification or explanation.

More Support for Progressive HD tranmissions

2006-06-27T18:28:00.000+08:00

My letter to MDA chief for HD has not yet been answered. Anyway, here's something I came across while doing some other research in my line of work.

EBU recommendation for a progressive approach to HD in Europe

I'll write more about it soon. In any case, the EBU supports HD transmissions in Progressive, and gives well weighted reasons for it. Take a look yourself.

Excerpt:

EBU Project Group B/TQE looked objectively at the technical case for retaining interlaced scanning or using progressive scanning. Although it may be surprising, the group has not been able to find technical arguments to support the continued use of interlaced scanning in the circumstances being considered. These are the delivery of new HD services to progressively scanned receivers, in an environment where advanced bitrate reduction is available. The technical arguments that we have found come down in favour of progressive scanning.

If any of this means anything to you, you could drop an email to the MDA chief of the HD programme: yeo_chun_cheng@mda.gov.sg Do it before it's too late. We stand at the cusp of HD adoption in Singapore. If we are too late, we will never be able to do the right thing. For those who came in late, MDA has announced that they will standardize on an interlaced 1080i format as reported in the Straits Times. It may be a wrong decision, and one should let the government reconsider or at least address this question. After all, it is taxpayers' money, and I am a taxpayer and so may you be.

Why Wimbledon HD not shown through Starhub?

2006-06-27T17:46:00.000+08:00

The Wimbledon championships is yet another golden platform to show off Starhub's new HD service.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/news/2006.06.14-n_BBC.shtml

WHY IN THE WORLD is Starhub not showing Wimbledon HD during our Starhub trials? The content is already licensed from ESPN, does it cost so much extra to put it into channel 300 or 301???

Toshiba's HD-DVD player is a PC!

2006-06-27T14:05:00.000+08:00

Actually, Toshiba's first HD-DVD player is actually a .... PC! Isuppli tore down a player, and the secret's out!

http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189600999

It's an Intel PC with 1GB memory and tons of other subsidiary chips.

This is why I say, this year, the HTPC is really gonna boom! Even Toshiba has bowed to the power and flexibility of a PC.

When are you gonna get a HTPC? Abit can supply you a HDMI motherboard real soon for the new Conroe chips. I'll probably build a expandable, customizable ultra high quality HTPC as soon as Conroe ships.

Hands Off the Internet

2006-06-23T17:38:00.000+08:00

This is an animated cartoon about the future of the Internet:

http://www.internetofthefuture.org/

This site set up obviously by telcos or a group of telcos, hosted at 1and1.com. The summary of it - Telcos who spend lots of cash to put in more bandwidth, want to segment the bandwidth to `premium' bandwidth and `normal' bandwidth, where presumably the premium bandwidth will be more expensive but offer assured service levels. But te US Congress wants `net neutrality' - and if the US Congress gets what it wants, it will be illegal for any company to segment bandwidth this way at least within the US.

This affects us. What is illegal in the US will mean that we don't get the technology to do all this in Asia. And we probably can't depend on Europe.

To me, hey, more power to you, big business. Do what you want. Let the public decide.
Nobody knows the business as well as business. And I believe that free market Competition will suffice to act as a check and balance against overcharging.

Obviously not what the commies at The Register believe ... to hell with questioning the justifications. If Big Business wants to charge more, so be it. Why has our faith in the invisible hand of the free market wavered so far???

Let's put it this way - if government wants to control, they probably gotta pay (unless they put a gun to the telco's head, and I believe the USA has not reached this desperate situation, yet) and if government pays, it's the public money. If the government of the USA decides to pay for it, it might create a dangerous precedent for OUR government. And I'd really rather not pay since I really don't use that much bandwidth. Look, just a thousand or so visitors to this blog (which is in the USA) don't take as much bandwidth as Mr. Brown's 50K visitors! Let Mr. Brown pay!

Conroe - the new King?

2006-06-23T17:08:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I was invited to the Intel Channel Conference held at The Legend at Fort Canning Park, as one of the small-time speakers.

The most interesting thing at that event, was that Intel commissioned Terence from VR-Zone to build 2 systems based on the $1600 AMD FX62 and the top end Intel Core2Duo (at around the same price). No other constraints, according to Terence. He tried his best for both, and the sysconfig only differed from the motherboard chipset and CPU. The AMD system used a nForce5 chipset and the Intel system used a 975 chipset, all other things equal. No overclocking was allowed, everything ran at stock speed. Various benchmarks were prepared, but 2 were used - MPEG encoding and a Half Life Timedemo.

In both the tests, the Conroe system beat the FX62 by a margin of about 40%.

Seems now that it is indisputable that the Conroe is king for now. Until next year, that is.

HDMI version 1.3 finalized and published

2006-06-23T16:58:00.000+08:00

Reported in The Register today that the HDMI version 1.3 specification has been finalized and published. If you buy a HDMI v1.3 device today, you will not face some of the `unanswered issues' for audio which I discussed in my other blogpost HDTV in Singapore - which is, how will HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 support Dolby Digital Plus and DTS HD, which are contained in the newest releases for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, which can easily be supported by both 1.1 or 1.2 but is disallowed by the licensing authority.

That being said, WHY in the world they screwed the early adopters of HDMI by disallowing direct support for DDP and DTS HD as a `policy' and not a technical limitation is beyond me, and some real explanation from the HDMI licensing authority is sorely required.

ADB confirms that the ADB 3800C can output in 1080p/24

2006-06-22T19:04:00.000+08:00

I spoke to the Vice President of Asia Sales of Advanced Digital Broadcast, David C. Tung, at the ADB booth in Broadcast Asia 2006, and happily he confirms that the ADB 3800C can output in 1080p/24 if Starhub broadcasts in that format.

Just a point of interest - pressing the # key to change the resolution, you can NEVER get 1080p, so I guess if what David says is correct, the box will definitely require a firmware upgrade to do that in any case.

Now, let's just hope that the MDA boss replies my letter!

Letter to MDA Chief Technology Officer

2006-06-20T16:28:00.000+08:00

I felt compelled to write to MDA HDTV Programme Director Yeo Chun Cheng to suggest the use of Progressive Video delivery mechanism in the eventual rollout of Singapore's broadcast HDTV. Below is the letter ad-verbatim:

From: Michael Tan <michaeltanyk@gmail.com>

Mailed-By: gmail.com

To: yeo_chun_cheng@mda.gov.sg

Date: Jun 20, 2006 4:20 PM

Subject: High-Definition TV trials use widely adopted HD standard

Mr. Yeo,

I am one of the HDTV enthusiasts who have jumped on the HD bandwagon with gusto. I work in
the technology industry, in the IT environment.

A lot of us are so enthusiastic that we have made HD a chief topic of our blogs and post enthusiactically at forums. I maintain a blog at http://miketan.blogspot.com and a majority of our posts have been on HD.

Because we are at the trial stage of HD, and your organization has a large influence on HD formats, I would like to state a preference that most of us at enthusiasts forums in Singapore, including Hardwarezone and Xtremeplace, for PROGRESSIVE VIDEO FORMATS.

I include an article in issue 109 of WideScreen Review, an enthusiast magazine, on why progressive is better, technically. This article, Progressive High Definition Video, by Joe Kane, include the following points:

1) Interlace introduces artifacts, progressive escapes this.
2) Our video compression technologies for digital media content today are more efficient dealing with Progressive than Interlaced.
3) HD is our chance to escape the legacy of analog, embrace it - Interlace is an analog compression technology serving no good purpose in today's digital video environment.
4) Progressive reduces bandwidth, giving better quality at a given bandwidth. 1080p/24 takes up less bandwidth than 1080i/60, with significantly better picture quality.
5) Most of the masters for newer content is done in 1080p/24 already, not interlaced.
6) The majority of new displays appearing on the market today support progressive signals
7) We cannot always sell what the consumers want, because they are not qualified to know what better they can have. Some technology shift is necessary to reach the next stage. IF HENRY FORD GAVE WHAT THE CONSUMER WANTED, HE WOULD HAVE MADE A FASTER HORSE.

From the Singapore perspective, I would add the following points:

1) Singapore is now usually now at the forefront of product releases, almost at par with the USA. In a way, we are really quicker than the USA because our customs policies encourage free trade, and Singapore is almost totally a free-entry port. We have the newest products from USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, and our tradesmen are very up to date in their product offerings. The smaller market make niche purchases more viable, our distributors do not keep containers of stock, and our product salesout are frequent, making it easier for the Singapore
market to introduce new models.

2) Singapore does not have a huge legacy of set top boxes which are incompatible with the 1080p standard. We are starting afresh, and it is imperative that we start with the most sensible, logical mode - Progressive Video.

3) The broadcasters can easily purchase content in 1080/24 at almost no additional costs - the bulk of the costs of programming is the license fee, but the media fee is minimal in comparison.

4) One of the considerations when 1080p was not made a standard in the broadcast industry was because manufacturers cited difficulties in making a decoder which could decode and output in 1080p. Today, 5 years later, this is not an issue. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both are in mass
production stage, and decoders outputting in 1080p are easily obtainable, competitively priced with economies of scale offered by the giants selling 1080p-capable playback devices.

Mr. Yeo, we are at the true crossroads today. Mediacorp has the ability to deliver via DVB-T and IPTV, where Starhub can deliver via DVB-C, all of which video endpoints exist today. I felt compelled to try to write to you regarding this, at least, at the end of the day, I can't say I didn't try.

Thank you for your time.

__________________________

Michael Tan
michaeltanyk@gmail.com
http://miketan.blogspot.com

HDTV in Singapore - The story so far

2006-06-19T16:18:00.000+08:00

Revised Blu-ray and DVB and LCD or Plasma topics 20 June 2006, thanks to feedback from Jeffong and karlie over at Xtremeplace. Thanks Jeff & Karlie.

HDTV information in Singapore is framgmented, so I attempt here to summarize here what I know about HDTV in Singapore as of today. I include information on HDTV display choice, content availability in whether broadcasted, in loadable media form of from the internet, future trends, etc. This is highly summarized and I may not include links within - so if there is anything which you need clarified kindly treat Google as your friend. This is targeted towards the mainstream public, as the serious HD geek has no need for summaries - they know it all and more.

What's HD?

HD is capable of showing much higher resolution than DVDs - and DVDs are the best which our Standard Definition screens can offer. What we have known until now, on TV, is SD. If you thought that SD was good, HD is breathtaking if properly shown with the proper equipment and configurations. Here are some sample shots of the World Cup HD broadcasts.

What kind of content can we get on HD?

Broadcast content, Cable transmission from Starhub, and DVB-T transmission from Mediacorp. 1080i/50 is the standard transmission standard.
HD-DVD - this is a format with Toshiba as the chief hardware contributor - up to 1080p content with enhanced audio.
Blu-ray - Sony and Panasonic are the chief hardware contributors - up to 1080p content with enhanced audio.
Internet content - there is a whole host of content, legal or illegal, which is available from the internet, downloadable from ftp sites or using peer-to-peer technology. A lot of this content is now in HD. Microsoft's WMVHD site also offers a lot of sample clips, all of them beautifully encoded.
HVD - High Definition Versatile Disc, up to 720p resolution. But content is `inexpensive' and has great variety.

Singapore HD Broadcasting Trials

On Wednesday, May 31, 2006, Singapore kicked off the HDTV trials officially. 2 broadcasters are involved, Mediacorp (broadcasting HD in DVB-T) and Starhub CableVision (DVB-C). Both broadcast in 1080i/50 which is the traditional PAL which Singapore uses. Triallists were selected from applicants who have been applying since 2 weeks before May 31st 2006, and it is reputed that there are a total of 1,000 participants of the trial. These trials will end at the end of the year, presumably then, or before that, Starhub and Mediacorp will open it up to all subscribers to receive HD.

Just a word on DVB-T and DVB-C. DVB is a suite of international standards on how to broadcast digital television signals. DVB-T broadcasts the digital television signals `over the air' like traditional television, and uses the same antennas too, where DVB-C broadcasts the signals over cable as you've been receiving SCV for the past decade or so. In high-rise Singapore, it's pretty hard to get a decent signal from DVB-T transmissions if Mediacorp doesn't improve the signal strength, but again, look at all the buses having TV Mobile!

HD-DVD

HD DVD was launched April 2006 officially, and Toshiba had the first player (HD-XA1) shipping in the US. It is unfortunate that the first iteration of the product outputs only until 1080i/60, and Toshiba has acknowledged this, and promises to have 1080p output in the 2nd revision. The first content is shipping also, courtesy of Warner Brothers, and the following is confirmed (by WideScreenReview.com and Stephen Nickerson, Warner Studio executive) with regard to the content:

All the HD content in the first launch was mastered in 1080p/24
The Image Constraint Token (ICT) is not activated, meaning, the content will not be degraded when played via Analog Component
All the titles are not using discrete 8-channel PCM uncompressed audio.

So it is clear that for an optimal performance, one should wait for the 2nd version of the Toshiba players, or at least, wait for a player which outputs in 1080p instead of an interlaced format. But the true message is - HD-DVD is here!

Blu-Ray

The official release date for Blu-Ray is June 20, 2006 (today) but major backbone backer Sony's Blu-Ray player has been delayed to August 2006. Samsung has announced that they will ship their player on June 25, 2006 but seems to have pre-shipped some quantity of players.

Blu-Ray content will start shipping in the older MPEG-2 compression method instead of newer codecs like VC1 used in Warner's initial HD DVD releases, since Sony had focus group sessions which preferred the MPEG2 instead of the AVC at high bitrates. This seems to be a wrong conclusion, however, see here. However, they will also support MPEG4 AVC and VC1 among other codecs. Warner has promised to ship their first Blu-Ray discs in VC1 compression.

The consensus on the forums like AVF, is that the first round of Blu-Ray (Samsung) vs HD-DVD (Toshiba) went to HD-DVD, suspected because of the content, but once Warner releases its VC1 discs for the Blu-Ray formats which they have promised are the SAME for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

The main message is, as with HD-DVD, it is serious, it is surely coming, and the HD age is upon us.

Internet content and HVD

This has been with us for at least 1.5 years. Those in the know would be playing the content using a PC, which brings me to an easy prediction that Living Room HTPCs would be in good demand this year.

What do you need for HDTV?

The official requirements by Starhub for purposes of trial:

1) The minimal vertical resolution of the HD-ready display must be at least 720 lines in an aspect ratio of 16:9;
2) The display device has an interface to accept HDTV signals such as Component interface (Y-Pb-Pr), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) or DVI (Digital Visual Interface); and
3) The HD inputs is capable to accept the following HD video format:
-1280 x 720 @ 50Hz progressive (720p)
-1920 x 1080 @ 50Hz interlace (1080i)

Please note that the official Starhub HDTV listing is hopelessly outdated, and you should do your own research for newer models. There is no reason why you should limit yourself to old models - preferably get a good new model instead.

The following are not official requirements, but from correspondence and phone calls and speeches, they are required if you are buying a new display:

4) HDCP should be implemented on your digital ports, preferably both DVI and HDMI ports. Component only is not recommended since HDCP cannot be implemented on Component analog ports.
5) Since some of the content may be straight USA content, your set should also support 1080i/60Hz framerate also.
6) Get a set with the HD-Ready logo - this logo is insufficient, but at least a HD-Ready TV fulfils the minimum specifications.
7) For optimal viewing experience with near future HD Loadable media formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray, the 1080p format should also be supported.

The above 1-7 are MY minimum requirements for anybody considering buying a new HDTV display.

What kind of screen should I buy?

Before anything, let's get something out in the open - What signal a screen can take in, does not means that they can render it at perfect 1:1 resolution. So if a screen takes in 1080i resolution for example, they may not be able to render it in 1920x1080 because the screen lacks pixels, so it will be `downscaled' to fit the screen. Therefore, I'm going to talk from the perspective of screen resolution, not so much what the screen can take in.

There are LCD, Plasma, Front Projection and Rear Projection screens available today. I shall not delve much into the Projection arena, though they are popular today, because it is not exactly `mainstream' though they are very very cheap for the size of the screen they project, especially front projection. Just that Projection type screens, especially front projection screens, require pitch dark rooms for optimal performance.

Previously, the `trust your eyes' worked because most of the shops pumped DVD content to the screen, so it was a good approximation on what you'd get at home. Now that we are buying for HD, pumping DVD content to the screen is MISLEADING. DVD has a 576P resolution, and on plasmas it looks good. But if you pump 1080i HD content to the screen, many screens actually have to re-scale the content to fit their resolution.

Nevertheless, the `trust your eyes' principle should still hold. So you have to get a powerful laptop, download a 1080 video, and pump it to the HD DVD screen in order to achieve this. Instructions here. What kind of videos to download? I would suggest ANIMATIONS with a lot of TEXT and SUBTITLES - because TEXT degrades most in any downscaling operation. And Animations reveal problems more easily than normal videos. I would suggest 3 clips - a horror movie with lots of dark scenes, an animation probably a kid's show or the Simpsons, and a sports broadcast with lots of stats (in text) on the screen.

How many shops allow you to do that? It's a matter of being nice to the sales guy. He may let you do it just to get a sale. And just don't waste the sales guy's time - he's trying to make a living. Be fair. If he lets you do it, buy from his shop. Don't be an asshole.

So LCD or Plasma? Trust your eyes, you must. All the LCD vs Plasma arguments you can find on the net, still hold sway. But just some background information only with respect to the new consequences brought to us by HD:

Plasmas have typically a lower resolution per screen size compared to LCD. In MOST cases it would need to rescale, and for 1080i, it is almost assured that an affordable plasma screen needs to be rescaled. Some upscaling technologies might be so good that you will not perceive a difference.
The name of the game for perfect resolution reproduction, is a concept called 1:1 pixel mapping. This means that the entire image of the video, can be put into the screen without having to sacrifice lines, or without an electronic device having to make algorithmic decisions on which line to keep and which line to discard, and which line to interpolate. With 1:1 pixel mapping, EVERYTHING is dumped to the screen. And the magic of full 1080 line HD, in my opinion and that of many early reviewers of the Toshiba HD-DVD player, is all about CRISPNESS of the image, the incredible SHARPNESS. To achieve 1:1 in the Singapore HD environment and in view of the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, the screen must be exactly 1920x1080 in size. Plasmas don't have that easily attainable or affordable. There have been reports that, when a multiburst test pattern for 720p or 1080p is pumped to a typical plasma screen with a resolution 1024x768, 1024x1024 or 1024x1080 it is unable to resolve perfectly. Note however, perfect resolution does not mean `best quality' - for that, you'd have to trust your eyes.

One important feature in a HD display which is important, now that we have HD, is some sort of enhanced de-interlacing technology, like Faroudja's DCDi, in the display. When we were dealing with DVD progressive technology (with progressive decoding), it didn't matter so much, but now that we're dealing with an interlaced 1080i signal, technologies like DCDi can do a lot to improve the display quality. The Starhub ADB 3800C box has been shown to have unsatisfactory deinterlacing - many people who have scaled the image to 720P report obvious degradation - at this time the ADB web is down, can't check the specs, but signs are that it uses a cheapo scaling/deinterlacing solution as described by JasonYeo in Xtremeplace.

Other accessories to consider

Video enhancer/Deinterlacer - if your LCD TV has a bad deinterlacer, coupled with unsatisfactory deinterlacing performance from the Starhub ADB 3800C box, you'd probably need an external deinterlacer box like the Digital Projection VIP 1000 to quote a high-end example.

AV Amplifier with HDMI inputs and output - Because so many HDMI boxes loom in the horizon, you'd not have enough HDMI ports in any LCD TV you buy today. Since Digital Audio will be in a lot of the HD content, it'll make sense to buy a good AV Amplifier to increase the number of possible HDMI ports you'd be getting content from, and also have a decent digital audio receiver and amplifier to handle the digital audio from the HDMI. An example of this class of products would be the Yamaha RX-V2600 which might offer some kind of deinterlacing but most importantly, 2 HDMI input ports to handle your Starhub HD receiver and one more Media-based player, probably a Blu-Ray or a HD-DVD player/recorder in the near future.

A universal remote control - Because the current ADB 3800C Starhub box does not output a continuous downscaled 576 signal which can be recorded by your present DVD-Recorder, you'd make mistakes for sure if you try to record a HD broadcast - blank screen. What you'd actually need to do to record a program you're watching, would be to downscale the HD to 576i and record that signal. All this requires control of your DVD player, your TV set, your Xbox, your deinterlacer, etc etc. It'll surely be a reduction in the temperature of hell if you had a Universal Remote Control. The Logitech Harmony is excellent, IF it's available in Singapore.

HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Player/Recorder - Hey, you know you want one. Just get one with 1080P output capability. Which means you can't get one now.

Final Caveats for Early Adopters

OK folks. The new HD world, with HDCP, is breeding a lot of compliance issues. Take note of the following (source from Widescreen Review) :

HDCP Repeat issue: If you connect a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to a AV Amplifier, then from the Amplifier to the HDTV, there have been reports that the TV blanked out. This is because the player did not send a HDCP repeat instruction to the Amplifier, which caused the HDCP signal to stop at the amplifier. A correct implementation would be to send a REPEAT to the amplifier, so that it would be allowed to send the same signal, processed, to the TV, and since the TV does not have a HDMI out, it would be a safe measure from all quarters. Before buying a HDCP HDMI HD-DVD or Bluray player, make sure the manufacturer solved this issue first.

Multiple HDMI ports on TV switching issue: It has been reported that, if you connect a cable set top box and a HD DVD player to the same TV, using 2 HDMI ports existent on the TV set itself, once you toggle the inputs, the display blanks out. This is the TV's fault - when you toggle, some TVs switch off the HDMI port completely, so when you toggle it back on, the HDCP system has already blocked the output to a the HDMI port which was switched off previously. Even when you switch on again, HDCP will not restore the display. So make sure your multiple HDMI port TV does not switch off the port once the toggle focus shifts away from that port. How to test? I really don't know now, but in the future, having 2 HD-DVD or bluray players connected to a HDTV set, both playing, toggling should not cause the screen to blank out at all.

HDMI 1.3 issue: HDMI v1.3 (none of today's HDTVs have it yet) will support Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, DTS HD and DTS HD Master Audio. The HDMI licensing authority has not permitted manufacturers to implement full DDP or DTS HD in existing 1.1 and 1.2 HDMI ports, even though the bandwidth of these prts at 6Mbit/s is plenty enough to support those codecs. So, it is not clear now what will happen to HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 ports, which can support DDP and DTS HD, yet disallowed by the authority. The workaround demonstrated by the Toshiba HD-XA1 seems to be that it will decode these streams internally to linear PCM and output using the 5.1 output on the analog or the HDMI.
If you can't support that, it will internally decode the DTS Digital Surround and your receiver should be able to handle that.

The Fuji F30 is in Singapore

2006-06-16T14:17:00.000+08:00

Just this morning, Alan Photo Sim Lim Square received stock for this, and I became his first customer in Singapore to get the Fuji F30. The Fujifilm F30 has indeed landed in Singapore. Pricing - please enquire with Alan Photo.

Just too bad it's using XD.

Starhub 1920x1080i HD pictures of World Cup 2006

2006-06-13T11:38:00.000+08:00

This is the Starhub Channel 300 HD 1080i feed, over the ADP 3800C set top box, H264 encoding 1920x1088 pixel (scaled to 1920x1080 pixels scaling done at HDTV end) 37" Amoi LC37AF1S LCD TV, pictures taken with 7M pixel Sony V3 camera on tripod.

The resolution is incredible. Welcome to my world, HD. 720P might be great, but since Starhub is broadcasting in 1080i and since the screens are so affordable, I now strongly believe that 1366x768 screens are not a viable option - go straight to FULL 1920x1080 screens.

Bluray and HD DVD will support 720P, 1080i and 1080P, so buying a 1366x768, 1024x1080 (ridiculous) is not advisable anymore.

Plasma vs LCD: Enough Already!

2006-06-12T14:15:00.000+08:00

Previously, before I dove into research into this area, here were my considerations:
1) I prioritized LCD over Plasma simply because the plasmas were real hot and the LCDs were cooler.
2) LCD screens, when the backlight go kaput in about 60K hours, all you'd have to do would be to change the backlight CCFL tubes, a much cheaper process than changing the entire screen as you'd have to do in plasmas
3) Plasmas were more susceptible to burn-ins of continuously shown logos etc.

As if that were not enough, now I realise that HD broadcasts cannot be shown in their full 1920x1080 glory using today's plasma technology. So here's consideration 4:
4) Plasmas of today, have limited resolutions relative to similar sized LCDs, and cannot show full sized 1080i HD broadcasts without downscaling the image to fit the limited pixel arrays which plasmas typically have.

In a fit of interest, I started to buy some UK magazines like WhatHIFI and Sound & Vision, and I was shocked to see Plasma displays as a viable alternative to LCD TV screens in the HD arena. And it's incredible that some of the weird panel pixel counts like 1024x1024 or 1024x1080 screens can actually get a HD-Ready logo.

I can't stand this. Not only is there misinformation, there is actually some such `poorly designed' websites like this: http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products/proddetails.aspx?pid=1731&cid=107&tid=71 It does not list the pixel specification, only here does it list: http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products/download.aspx?file=42PD8900TA.pdf Whether this is on purpose or as an oversight, is a matter of debate, but clearly, the buyer MUST do a whole lot of research before committing to their HDTV investment and see through these little bits of misinformation or malinformation!

Worst of all, many buyers now base their decisions on the display when looking at DVD content, and that's just plain wrong. What a 576P DVD output can be rendered on a plasma is totally not the same as rendering a 720p or 1080i video on the same screen. Where DVD is upscaled, HD content is downscaled. Most of the time, visually speaking, Downscaling is much more horrible than upscaling. Where plasmas worked great in the final stand of SD - namely DVD - they suck in HD. Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself. As before, let me voice some clear messages across:

1) If you're buying a HDTV today, in today's HD-centric world, just KNOW that you can't just compare your screens using the Standard Definition DVD feeds which most of the shops give you. Go download some HD content from the Microsoft WMV-HD site, put it into your notebook and pump the WMVHD full screen into the VGA port of the HDTV you're evaluating. Bring your VGA cable along when you're shopping. From the Display Settings in control panel, make sure your LCD is output in the correct pixel resolution, and check `extend desktop' like this:

2) With LCD TVs so much reduced in price, and quality, a 1366x768 LCD screen should perform much better than plasma display using your test. With the test above, you can also take a look on how your DESKTOP TEXT appears. Text gives away any shortcoming of the display in the most dramatic fashion.

3) In fact, now that Singapore's HD broadcasters have more or less settled on 1080i as a broadcasting standard, with the World Cup broadcasting on 1080i full HD, go for a full LCD TV supporting full 1080i HD instead! Previously I mentioned that these screens are ungodly expensive, I was wrong. I bought one yesterday for under S$3000 and it was .... wow. If I was impressed with the LG L3200TF playing 1080i rescaled to 768 pixels, I was STUNNED by the Amoi 37" LC37AF1S playing the World Cup at 1920x1088 pixels. So it's now possible. Why even bother with the 1366x768 panels? This here is `for the taking!'

4) Don't be misled by the HD Ready label. I realised that if a plasma display can get this label, they must be dishing out those labels like slop in a soup kitchen. In the past I thought that the minimum requirement was that you needed at least to be 1280x720 to get that label, but if a 1024x1024 ALIS Plasma screen can get the label, it's even more irrelevant as I previously thought.

5) Most displays can `take in' 1920x1080 signals - so if any sales guy tell you that a certain TV can take those HD signals, it's almost meaningless. If a screen has a 1024x1024 pixel arrays, when it takes in the 1920x1080 signal, it's going to rescale the 1920x1080 to 1024x1024, which is a 50% horizontal downscale and a 6% vertical downscales. That's shocking. Too much rescale here to be any good. What you REALLY should ask, is ... what's the pixel array of a certain TV. Just to simplify matters, at this time, you should just look for 1368x768 or 1920x1080 pixel arrays - everything else compromises too much on the pixel count.

Looking through many of the `LCD vs Plasma' websites all over the world, I realised that they're outdated. They're looking at all the old considerations, but HD has dealt the finishing blow and put the final nail in the coffin of plasmas - unless of course they release 1920x1080 plasma displays at an affordable price. Until then, bye-bye, Plasmas.

Just an afterword - I'm not a subjective picture quality type of guy. There no method in my madness - I just cannot bear a 1920x1088 signal being shown on anything less than that. HOWEVER, you must note that sometimes, the maxim `what you don't know won't hurt you' might apply. OK, under certain circumstances, if the stream is not encoded well, a high-resolution video with artifacts such as motion smearing, incorrect white balance or color points, and grayscale rendering problems may not look as realistic as a lower-resolution image without any of these problems. Take THAT into consideration, and I apologise in advance for adding such headaches to your already-difficult decision. Read this, it's not wasting time. Sorta it debunks whatever I've written here: http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/x1080.htm and he's a HDTV expert, while I'm just a bum.

Let's face it - this is a tough choice. But in view of a sub S$3000 1920x1080 display, it may `relatively speaking' be termed as `disposable' nowadays. It's much of a no-brainer.

Tomorrow I'll post some high resolution camera shots of the World Cup matches.

Starhub ADB 3800 compatibility with LG L3200T multifunction LCD panel

2006-06-03T09:39:00.000+08:00

OK finally got my Starhub ADB 3800-series to try with my LG L3200T multifunction LCD TV Panel. Note that the L3200T is the commercial/industrial class of LCD panel which are optimized to commercial 24-hour 365/7 use in a public environment (read `tough') and are not available from superstores, but the Sim Lim Square and Funan people will order one for you on request.

The Starhub ADB 3800 can display the following modes in Singapore:

576i
576p
720p
1080i

The L3200TF is a 32 inch 1366x768 monitor which has one DVI(HDCP) digital in, besides a whole plethora of normal connections like Component, S-Video etc. I only tried the DVI(HDCP) here's the result:

All display modes have no issues with the monitor except 576i, which makes the monitor go into sleep mode. That's OK, I got HD so that I could run away from 576i
There is no SELECTOR for the ADB box to selectively output - all outputs are pumping simultaneously
Even if you select 720p or 1080i which your DVD-Recorder most probably cannot support, there is a special output called VCR (a composite/stereo port set yellow, white, red) which will remain at 576i to preserve DVD-Recorder support no matter what mode you select for the video on the other ports.
The best modes were between 720p and 1080i. However, the 1080i looked better on this screen.

OK, note this theory (I cannot confirm, but it seems logical to the best of my knowledge): if you pump a 720p native signal to a 720p capable monitor, compared to pumping a 1080i signal to a 720p monitor, the 720p is better. However, the Starhub native HD signal on channels 300 and 301 last night, were 1080i native. If you select a 720p output from the ADB box, the 1080i native signal is rescaled in the box to 720p, and after that it is pumped to the L3200TF, and the L3200TF re-scales the 720p signal to fit the 768 horizontal lines. Thus there are 2 levels of rescaling at the video endpoint itself.

If you select 1080i, the native signal is not re-scaled at the ADB box, but is merely pumped as 1080i to the L3200TF. The L3200TF will rescale the 1080i signal to 768 lines which the monitor can take. This is only 1 level of re-scale, and therefore, I guess that's why I got a better signal.

I'm very very happy. Digital Audio AC3 can be pumped form the ADB 3800 to my external AC3 amplifier, no issues. Audio was great.

Now I'm buying yet another L3200TF. For my room this time. Under S$2K, it fits my purposes great - connecting a PC to this gives fabulous results too. The Caveat: I sell LG monitors, so please, take this review with a pinch of salt. The bigger the better.

Do ALL HDMI have HDCP?

2006-06-02T12:16:00.000+08:00

When I started this blog I didn't know how much work it took to keep it relevant and complete enough for people. Now there are people asking `Do ALL HDMI connectors have HDCP support'? The short answer is NO. To be sure, it should state HDMI(HDCP) if it DOES support HDCP.

HDMI Licensing, LLC, the licensor for all HDMI partners, does not require HDCP compliance as mandatory for all their licensees. That being said, HDMI licensees get a discount for putting HDCP on their HDMI connectors:

http://www.hdmi.org/about/faq.asp

If the Adopter implements HDCP content protection as set forth in the HDMI
Specification, then the royalty rate is further reduced by one cent (US $.01)
per unit sold, for a lowest rate of four cents (.04) per unit. Adopters must
license HDCP separately from Digital Content Protection, LLC, an Intel
subsidiary.
The Wiki states:
... nearly all HDMI connections support HDCP ...

Hitachi 42" "1080 ready" advert - Caveats

2006-06-02T11:50:00.000+08:00

So Hitachi's riding on the HDTV bandwagon with frequent ads - "Are you 1080 ready?" How good is this one? Check this out by Tech Reporter Oo Gin Lee at his HDTVSingapore blog: HDTV Singapore: Hitachi's 42 1080HD Plasma - Don't buy first

In addition to Gin Lee's words, the Hitachi 42" real specifications, which they don't state on the TV ads, is 1024 vertical by 1080 horizontal. NO TYPO HERE. The 16:9 physical aspect ratio is reproduced by 1080x1024 pixels in reality, which means you have real WIDE pixels for a start. For a traditionally compliant 1080 panel, it has like 1920x1080 pixels, a perfect 16:9 ratio achieved by the pixels.

In their brochure here: http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products/download.aspx?file=42PD8900TA.pdf they state in WORDS that they are HDTV ready, but there's no HD-Ready logo, dude. And without mention of the HDCP logo and not having a pixel count within the `at least 720P in 16:9 ratio' I don't see how it can get the HD-Ready logo. I see the brochure as either INCOMPLETE or ... well, you know, excessive spin.

Anyway, I think HDTVsingapore has asked for a clarification, let's see what they come up with.

UPDATE: OK they replied to ginlee. http://hdtvsingapore.blogspot.com/2006/06/hitachi-responds-on-its-1080-hd.html

There's no magic. It is indeed a low number of vertical lines. Quoting:

To enjoy full spec of HD, the panel should have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 for
the 16:9 screen aspect ratio.For Hitachi's 42PD8900TA with resolution of 1024 x
1080, the vertical lines is actually slightly scaled to get the 16:9 aspect
ratio.

SLIGHTLY indeed. Almost a 50% downscale, and they call it SLIGHTLY. Incredible spin.

4 HD boxes, 1 HDCP port - the battle for ports

2006-06-01T16:46:00.000+08:00

Now it seems that all HD boxes would probably require a connection to a HDCP compliant display. Even if you eschew HDCP as a requirement, you'd still require port per HD box.

So, how many boxes are there vying for your HDCP compliant Digital Video input port (just one today)?

Mediacorp has their Humax box
Starhub has their Advanced Digital Broadcast box
You got your PC
Bluray players/recorders are coming
HD DVD players/recorders are coming

So you got 5 devices, all with digital outs either in DVI or HDMI, vying for your 1 DVI port and 1 HDMI port, and only 1 of them has HDCP.

How are you going to connect all of them just to ONE display? It's a big laugh. We're going down back to the dark ages where there's nothing except a TV set. What in the world were the TV designers thinking about? They give us loads of component, composite, S-Video connections but just 1 or 2 digital connectors?

There may be a saviour, but it'll put a big US$349 in your pocket, and add one more remote control to your arsenal, and.... a whole lot of workflow. Your grandma may never be able to use a TV again after you install this HD Switcher box, a 4 inputs to 1 output box: http://www.copperbox.com/lite/popinfo.php?lc_code=EXT-HD-441&rodina=yes

More about Starhub HDCP - Starhub has good people!

2006-05-31T16:45:00.000+08:00

We've reached a stage where ... sigh ... the slightest glimmer of brilliance elicits a big response. This does not belittle a staffer in Starhub called Justin Cheng though. He is VERY good. I don't know whether he's management level or just some grunt, but he's good. See this email:

----------------------------

From: Michael Tan
Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: customerservice@starhub.com
Date: May 23, 2006 1:43 PM
Subject: HD TV trial programme enquiry

Starhub and MDA definition of HD is different!

Please click on the links for details

Starhub has released HD trials. Great! BUT, Starhub does not mention HDCP at all, but MDA states that you must have HDCP in order to have HD-compliance. So how now? Well, I think Starhub will not broadcast HDCP content in the trials, but eventually they will do so. But once they implement HDCP, if our monitor do not have HDCP, the content will be degraded to 480P from 720P. Starhub should clarify! -- ____________________________________________
Michael Tan

----------------------------

And Justin Cheng answered:

----------------------------

From: customerservice@starhub.com
Mailed-By: starhub.com
To: michaeltanyk@gmail.com
Date: May 30, 2006 2:21 PM
Subject: Re: HD TV trial programme enquiry

Dear Michael

Thank you for your email.

We apologise for the late reply.

With regard to your enquiry, we would like to inform you that ourset-top box is HDMI/HDCP and it should be fully comply to TV withHDMI or DVI/HDCP.

At present, the HDCP is not triggered till there's a need, so most of the TV will not be affected. However, if it comes to a time that this is triggered, then those TV's without HDMI/HDCP should see the warning message below. Also, the viewer still can switch over to component or composite output for viewing, as they are analog transmission to the HDTV.

HDCP Warning
This material is copyrighted and your display is unable to handle its protection properly. Therefore, you will not be able to watch the program using HDMI. To watch this material, please use analternative type of video output connection from your set-top box, e.g. YPbPr

For other reference about HDMI/HDCP, please visit http://tv.about.com/od/hdtv/a/hdmidvihdcp.htm

If you have any questions on StarHub Digital Cable and MaxOnline services, please call us on our Customer Care hotline at 1633 (+656820 1633 from overseas), email to this address or fax in to 67251603.

Best regards
Justin Cheng
Customer Affairs

----------------------------

Don't you just love Justin, in an era where people reply you things which are so much bullshit? Justin, you're damn good. You may be a manager, but you probably can be king.

Anyway, let's calm down and see Justin's message content. It's shocking, right? So your S$4,000 to S$35,000 LCD TV which does not have HDCP will just display the wonderful message, rendering your digital port .... useless for HD.

One more point - I'm not sure that Justin's workaround on the analog port is accurate. Here's my additional query to Justin:

-----------------------------

From: Michael Tan
Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: "customerservice@starhub.com"
Date: May 31, 2006 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: HD TV trial programme enquiry

Justin, thank you for your excellent answer, MDA's reply paled very much in comparison.

One clarification - if one switches over to analog when you get the message, there has been talk about the HDCP scheme requiring analog output to be downgraded to 480P/576P from HD resolutions. Is this true?

This is summarized here:
http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/less-discussed-complications-of-hdmi.html

with sources from here:
Matthew Torres of About.com thinks that the signal may be blocked

On a HD DVD or a Blu-ray disc, if the manufacturer or publisher of the disc has set the HDCP protection flag set as ON, if this player is connected to a non-HDCP compliant LCD TV, the player will output a downsampled signal of 540p .

This question I think is essential, because out of 300K people who have plasma/flatscreen, 90% of them have it without HDCP.

----------------------------------

Let's hope Justin replies my question and sheds more light on this situation.

MDA Starhub Mediacorp HD Press Conference

2006-05-31T14:47:00.000+08:00

The Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), together with MediaCorp and StarHub, invited the press to a press briefing on the launch of High- Definition Television (HDTV) trials in Singapore. This briefing took place today.

From some feedback I heard, this was not terribly informative but some information was distilled from there. I think they intended this to be a Rah Rah affair but somehow, the Q&A pretty much drew a lot of blanks and difficult issues out. Kudos to whichever reporter sharp enough to ask the tough questions.

A hearsay distillate (I wasn't there):

HDCP would not be implemented during the HDTV trials
HDCP MAY be implemented during the commercial HDTV rollout pending evaluation (MT: wow. Who said that MDA, Starhub and Mediacorp had enough clout to determine the future of HDCP inclusion in today's bit-torrent enabled world?)
A full two hundred to three hundred sets of flat screen LCD/Plasma screens exist in Singapore today (MT: wow again. How many of these are really HD ready? 10%? We're in for a load of troubles once people start to receive HDCP feeds with the broadcast flag enabled to degrade picture quality on non-HDCP TVs! And pity those guys who have ... errr.... 1024x1024 plasmas.... )
One of the powers-that-be mentioned that, if HDCP were implemented, no problem, just get the analog component and all will be fine. A reporter queried him - hey, won't there be degradation if you pump a HDCP enabled signal through the analog? (He was referring to `plugging the analog hole' as mentioned here and referred to here - which in summary, that there are moves to make HDCP equipment degrade content if played through analog in an attempt to stop the bypass of HDCP content protection by recording HD through analog.) The speaker said - NO. Analog will not degrade the quality, you will still get very good quality content (MT - this betrays a total lack of understanding on the part of the speaker about the brewing battles between the content providers, broadcasters and the device manufacturers, where they are fiercely fighting the battle on how to plug the analog hole)
Starhub's flagship content for this trial starts with the World Cup, and Mediacorp's flagship content for this trial starts with the ... err... Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers .... OMFG! << (not particularly an exclamation of joy.)

Well, now we know that they know little more than us, and perhaps a lot less than some of the enthusiasts who have been watching the developments hawkeyed. We're in for a load of forum complaints, I'm certain.

HD Ready Logo INSUFFICIENT!

2006-05-31T10:13:00.000+08:00

The official stand by most HD device marketeers when somebody asks them - which HDTV to buy? They'll say: "Simple! Look for the official HD Ready logo!"

NOT so simple!

The HD Ready logo was announced by the European Industry Association for Information Systems, Communication Technologies and Consumer Electronics (EICTA) in Jan 19, 2005 with regard to DISPLAY DEVICES ONLY. Who can display this logo? Simple. Anybody who pays a license fee to the EICTA and proves that their set meets the bare minimum of requirements set by the EICTA, can display the logo. So let's distil the requirements (see Annex A in this link):

Must be able to display HD sources at higher than PAL (576i resolutions)
At least 720 physical lines at a 16x9 picture aspect ratio (widescreen). Note: this is merely a requirement for physical lines. This does not mean that the device has to render to the maximum of 720 lines, and the mere fact that there are 720 lines already means that this requirement is complied with.
Device must accept HD content using Component, DVI or HDMI interfaces, and able to support 720p AND 1080i
HDCP content protection must be supported.

Problems:

A false sense of security - the introduction of a logo like this, gives buyers a false sense of security. It implies that `you're all set if you get one with the logo' but does not readily imply the caveats below.
Source-display incompatibility - well, if you get a transmission at 1080i, and you get a LCD TV with 768 physical lines, your picture may be downscaled to 576p, and you'd not get the 720 line display which you so dearly want. This is already happening in the Singapore Starhub HD trials with the Advanced Digital Broadcasting box.
Older models which are indeed HD Ready do not exhibit this logo - if the authorities or broadcasters spin that HD Ready is required for their transmissions, that'll spur a lot of unneccessary HDTV changes!
The HD-Ready specification does not care HOW MANY ACTUAL LINES ARE DISPLAYED, it merely states the physical requirement. It does not require the device to actually render the video on the screen in pixel perfect resolution. This is a real ass!
Broadcasters will not dare to advertise HD Ready as a requirement - they won't. It'll kill their HD sales! Everybody who bought a LCD panel before the EICTA announcement, before the existence of the logo, will have second thoughts about subscribing to the HD service simply because they don't know for sure whether their HDTV will support any HD service which is advertised to require the HD Ready logo. So they won't do it unless they're forced to.
Lack of publicity of the HD Ready logo - if the broadcasters won't advertise the requirement for the HD Ready logo, who will? A big part of the user education should come from the broadcasters, and what comes out from the broadcasters is authoritative. If the manufacturers advertise their HD Ready logo, and the broadcasters don't require it officially, makes it a pretty futile exercise, won't it?

I really think there is no alternative to the broadcasters publishing detailed technical requirements. The use of the HD-Ready logo is misleading, and anybody who passes the buck to the HD Ready logo scheme is irresponsible, and could do better than that. For the HD Ready logo scheme to be really relevant, they should have 2 versions: HD-Ready720 and HD-Ready1080 - at least, and these 2 versions should require PIXEL accurate reproduction to 720 or 1080 lines.

So those who think, don't leave it all to the logo. Demand an exact specification from your broadcaster, and try to understand the concepts, then buy your HDTV. Don't let them sweep it all under the carpet just with a mention of the logo scheme.

ERP accidents-Tougher Penalties Please

2006-05-30T09:51:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I saw a typical accident in the Central Expressway, JUST before the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantry. More than 5 cars were involved and it was the type of accident which in some cars the entire trunk was crushed.

Just a normal ERP accident I thought, where some idiot saw the gantry and stood on the brakes because he didn't have enough funds on his card or his card was not inserted - just to avoid a S$12 fine. I see these kinds of accidents so often, it's become `normal'. Just that in this one, an ambulance was racing to the scene with obvious difficulty since this accident caused a fair bit of congestion.

When I saw a baby in the arms of one of the accident victims, my blood boiled though. The survivalability of a baby without a car seat, is relatively low. Even with a car seat, he'd be traumatized. I know - somebody slammed to the back of my car before and my 4 months old baby went berserk for a few minutes.

First, who in the world took the `easy' decision to eschew collecting monthly payments in favour of the prepaid cashcard system, only he knows whether the blood of accident victims is on his hands. Look - offenders have to be mailed anyway, and mature billing systems exist for almost every public utility and telecommunications service in Singapore, why not have a billing system for the roads? At least it'll minimize ERP accidents!

If the government doesn't budge from this fateful decision, then let's have the government do the easy thing. Slap an enhanced fine on people causing ERP accidents. By no means is this going to be easy - the guy in the front of the pileup is probably not the one who stood on the brakes, it's probably the guy a car or two in front of him. Still, just bring on the big stick. Put them into prison, cane them, whatever. It's the easy thing to do, and hopefully, it'll save a life or two. And reduce all the congestion caused by the damn ERP accidents!

Fuji F30-world's best P&S camera

2006-05-29T18:45:00.000+08:00

The Fujifilm F30 is easily the best point and shoot digital camera in the world right now. hpicckcy of DPreview forums has given us the first installment of his incredible pictures, and it's fantastic. In lousy conditions, it gave such perfect quality I could not believe that it came from a cheap P&S DSC. The possibilities are endless - just by stepping up the ISO up to 3200, you can handhold most of your shots, even night shots for that matter!

Christmas seemed to come early this year. My previous blogpost on What Next for Digital Cameras came to life with the F30 for point and shoots. This F30 has such incredible dynamic range, such low noise levels, that ... for anyone in the market for a point-and-shoot digital camera today, it simply HAS to be the F30, even though it uses XD.

Probably, XD will find a new lease of life with this one. So will Fuji.

HDTV-Plasma or LCD?

2006-05-29T14:40:00.000+08:00

Before you go out and buy a nice big 42 inch screen for HDTV, ponder on this first.

My assertion is that an LCD display is more suited for HD than Plasma, because Plasma usually comes in real small resolutions.

LG is the world's largest Plasma manufacturer, so taking a look at their website:

Model : 42PX4RV Resolution 852x480 (WVGA) eerrr... a 42" Plasma Display which supports 480P only?

Model : 42PX5R
Resolution 1024x768 (XGA) - what a weird resolution... for 720P at 16:9 ratio, the number of vertical lines should be 720/9 x 16 = 1280, 1024 needs to be rescaled.

This is not comprehensive, but just before you buy, take a close look at the plasma's resolution specification. for 720P, you need 1280x720, and for 1080I or 1080P you need 1920x1080. I've limited my discussion previously to LCD TVs only, so if you elect to buy a plasma, which is way cheaper, take a few minutes to look at the brochure!

HDTV confusion - I'm not alone!

2006-05-26T22:31:00.000+08:00

Look at the UK - one in 5 TV viewers in the UK don't know they have to get a HD TV to view high definition TV. And then half of them don't know they have to get a HD set top box, and 2 thirds of them don't know that they have to pay to get HDTV.

Looks like I'm not alone in my confusion. In Gadget Crazy Singapore, people will get a HDTV whether or not they want to view HD or not. SO it's different. BUT our broadcasting authority, the MDA, must make clear statements to the people, so that they know what to do. If we're gonna get struck by HDCP, they must tell us. And they must tell us what happens if our TV isn't a HDCP. And they MUST TELL US NOW. Because so many people are buying new TV sets in preparation for the world cup, the urgency is even greater now.

And IF THEY DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS, THEY HAVE TO SAY SO. Not saying so, and still implying to be the `know it all', gives people a false sense of security. If they don't know, PERHAPS people may hold off purchases until they do.

Granted, their website has stated many things. Among them, they stated plasma technology. Hey, PLASMA may not give you the resolution you need for HD. Did they tell anybody that? Or it's not their job? Whose job is it anyway? Mine?

They're having a press conference next week. I fear that some of the answers that the fully prepped press will ask might not be answered there. And I fear, if the MDA doesn't know, then why are they into HDTV at all. So much money spent now at HDTV's infancy, on equipment which may well be outdated once things become clearer globally. The whole wide world is rife with rumours, misinformation, half censored marketing information, and real uncertainty.

And if some of the things I said come to pass, like HDCP blacking out your analog outputs or degrading them, tons of people will NOT be happy - as late as 1 year ago, many LCD TVs and Plasma TVs were sold as HD-ready devices, without HDCP!!!!! And since TVs last a normal human being in Singapore for 5 to 10 years, won't they be pissed?

The way it's going now, why do we even need a broadcast authority? One broadcaster's going on about having MPEG4 HD based on what was previously known as H264, and the other's probably gonna broadcast on MPEG2 HD, and nobody knows whether HDCP is going to be embedded or not. That's the state of affairs in Singapore, and yet, they're gonna charge us for the HD trials. Nobody knows nothing, and let's face it - the MDA's not gonna change the minds of any of the content owners, so what's the use anyway? There's no standardization, no information, no real insight, no nothing. So, might as well leave it to the free market huh? And save a few million bucks a year not having an MDA.... after all, isn't it ideal to have the free market without extraneous funny considerations, like national pride of being the first in Southeast Asia to have widespread HD Trials, to blur the distinctions between what is best for me/us and what is best to the regulatory body?

But yet, the allure of watching the World Cup 2006 on HD is .... intoxicating.

Intel Woodcrest Benchmarks Claimed WRONG!

2006-05-26T16:27:00.000+08:00

I spent the entire half of today in the Intel seminar launching the Bensley platform, a new platform with allegedly great improvements over their old stuff. The Platform Manager himself showed us some `recently available' benchmarks showing that Intel had finally caught up with AMD and will NO LONGER PLAY CATCH UP.

I thought, Wow. Opterons had so much lead over the Intels, and nothing much has changed except for the CPU, what must have changed, I thought, was that the new 0.65nm process gave the Woodcrest processors so much more lead. I even asked the platform manager WHEN he was about to integrate their memory controller unit into their CPU, and he told me that this is not necessarily yet (in view of the benchmarks) and in a few years they'd do it.

Imagine my surprise, when I came back, I found this thread in my Instant Messaging:

Intel Woodcrest performance claim a fraud

In summary, the blogpost content includes:
1) Intel based their results on the tpc.org results, but Intel claimed that the AMD Opteron machine was using 64bit software like the Intel machine, but at the tpc.org website, the Opteron machine was loaded with 32bit software.
2) The AMD machine was using different, smaller hard disk storage compared to the Intel machine

Anyway, let these guys clarify this first. Intel Server Platform Group has been informed of this blogpost, and he'll respond.

Writely Integration with Blogger/Blogspot

2006-05-25T18:01:00.000+08:00

I've been curious how Google integrated writely with Blogger/Blogspot, and here is the result (if it appears).

We can easily put in tables:

Row 1	Column 2, row 1
Row 2	These table cells can be sized to content!

Best thing about Writely was that you can cut and paste with all the hyperlinks intact. Can this be done here?

From Internet Explorer:

XpertVision has again expanded its lineup of graphics cards to take into consideration the new DDR2 and DDR3 designs for mid-end and entry level cards, to create an incredible performance boost - the highest performance cards in its class. Please download the XpertVision specification chart for details.
Click Here for complete product line specification chart.

From Excel: (table deleted coz can't publish to blog if it's here)

Looking better!

What about pictures?

Wow! Now just hope that it can be pumped into blogger!

Under Blog, you can set your blog settings, and sure enough, Blogger is the easiest one to handle.

Well, life is good! But damn, I'm getting this error from blogger: "object reference not set to an instance of an object"

A search in the Writely forums http://forum.writely.com/showthread.php?t=489&highlight=object+reference+-set reveals that I'm not alone. This seems to be a blogger problem and SOMETIMES IT WORKS. Seems that if you try like tons of times, it might work once. So here I go pumping and pumping .... If you see this post, means I've succeeded.

OK I must have tried a hundred times, and 2 different errors came out of it.

Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) responds: Commercial Rollout of HD WILL have HDCP!

2006-05-24T15:14:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I emailed a query to MDA:

Subject: Starhub Minimum Requirement Different From MDA minimum requirement for HD

Anyway, a summary of events:Starhub has released HD trials. Great!http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/starhubs-requirements-not-matching.html

So how now?

Well, I think Starhub will not broadcast HDCP content in the trials, but eventually they will do so. But once they implement HDCP, if our monitor do not have HDCP, the content will be degraded to 480P from 720P. http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/less-discussed-complications-of-hdmi.html

They responded:

From: MDA CIR Staff4
To: michaeltanyk
Date: May 24, 2006 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: [SPAM] Starhub Minimum Requirement Different From MDA minimum requirement for HD

Dear Mr. Tan,

Thank you for your email.

With regards to HDCP, MDA aims to keep the public informed of developments and to future proof consumers' purchase of HD-Ready TV.

For this HD Ready TV Trial, the broadcasters are to determine the best operating mode for their business which will include the activation of HDCP for content protection in the eventual commercial rollout.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Community & International Relations
Media Development Authority

So what this this all mean? It's not clearly written at first look, but carefully reading this email reply together with their FAQ and our current knowledge now, here's my try.

Statement: With regards to HDCP, MDA aims to keep the public informed of developments and to future proof consumers' purchase of HD-Ready TV.

My interpretation: MDA's FAQ is not wrong. Their HD requirements are future proof. So, it is clear: You MUST have HDCP to future proof your LCD-TV purchase.

Statement: For this HD Ready TV Trial, the broadcasters are to determine the best operating mode for their business which will include the activation of HDCP for content protection in the eventual commercial rollout.

My interpretation: Broadcasters are free to determine the best way to represent themselves and the requirements at the time of the TV trial, optimized for their own business. HOWEVER, eventual commercial rollout WILL include (not 'MAY', MDA used 'WILL') HDCP.

So, this means, go buy a HD screen with HDCP, this is clear. Also, if MDA is right, commercial HD, by any broadcaster in Singapore, will activate HDCP. This further means that, questions of whether the content will be degraded when it goes over analog or to a non-HDCP compliant TV, will best be answered in - it's up to the HDCP parties, the content providers, the broadcasters, the device manufacturers, etc.

I asked MDA to comment on whether content will be degraded if played to a non-HDCP compliant TV - they did not respond yet, but once they do, I'll post here.

Microsoft and Sony may have agreed not to degrade HD resolutions output on non-HDCP compliant ports

2006-05-24T11:18:00.000+08:00

OK things move really fast. Since I don't read German, I had to wait until some smart guy in Daily Tech to post a comment on a German article on Spiegel online that HDCP may not be necessary until after 2010.

I held my horses and took a good look at the article. After all, it might have been groundbreaking news! But turns out to be pretty old news. Or at very best, insignificant news.

First of all, there are `rumours' that Microsoft and Sony agreed not to degrade HDCP content on non-HDCP compliant ports. This has already been reported in the Wiki entry on HDCP at least only for Sony.

However, the Hollywood guys did not agree. And it's the Hollywood guys who are important, aren't they? Sony WAS a major supplier of playback and display equipment, but today, they're no longer as great as they were a decade ago. And their major preoccupation is the Playstation 3, which judging from the PS2's history, few people use a game console to play Hollywood content - it's a Game Console for god's sake.

Since the Hollywood guys did not agree, I'm gonna piegonhole this piece of news to the KIV folder.

So there.

Getting hung up on HDMI and eschewing DVI?

2006-05-24T10:30:00.000+08:00

Many people have responded and criticized my selection of DVI over HDMI in my previous blogpost here. Many have also questioned the need to connect a PC to the LCD TV in the living room. I was looking for an opportunity to spend a bit of time to post my counter arguments on this.

Thankfully, a certain gentleman Samsas at the MDA HDTV trial forum posted the gist of most of these objections, so I took the effort to write my comments on his reasons for HDMI and against DVI. Here's the post and my reasons:

-------------------------begin---------------------

samsas wrote:
That's an interesting article. But I don't agree that DVI is the way to go over HDMI. The reasons for this.

1. DVI does not support audio. Period. We're talking TV here, and the HDTV signal will have multi channel sound whenever available in a program. Now if you are going to use a fibre connection to a reciever for audio and DVI for video its highly probable that there will be a sync problem. The sound and video signals won't be simultaneous for the most part, so you will need a reciever that can adjust for this and believe me it's not a simple task.

MT: All receivers will have AC3/Optical out. If you connect via DVI, which does not multiplex digital audio inside itself, you can use the AC3/Optical out to connect to external AC3 receiver or the TV itself since all TVs which support digital audio will have AC3/optical. It is assured that there will not be a sync issue, since this technology has been used ever since DVD was born. We are now using AC3 with DVI for most DVD output even, in computers, and in some China players. NO sync issues as long as encoded stream do not have sync issues.

2. Wer'e talking TV again here. How many of us are going to hook up desk top computers to the living room TV? It's a logistic problem. Even if we did we'd need a tuner for the TV signal going into the PC. It's a bit easier with portable lap tops, but you still need a laptop with a tuner built in. And even if you get one not many laptops give you 5 channel sound output, so you need a card from Creative or whatever.

MT: This is 2006. Intel has released the ViiV, Apple release Mac Mini with frontrow. Many people have content based non-standard codec, and require the flexibility of a CPU to decode. Singapore IPTV service by Mediacorp mobtv.sg is right now PC-only. Many people view football with Asiabookie web page on the same screen, half half. See Donald Trump Apprentice #1? It's an LCD TV connected to the computer leh. Surfing has become a lifestyle, to be performed in the living room, not only the study, bedroom and computer room.

Just surf forums.hardwarezone.com and you see tons of people trying to connect their computer to the living room. The era of a living room PC is here already. LCD TV last you for 10 years. Within this 10 years, you're willing to bet you not gonna connect your PC to the TV?

3. Every upscaling DVD player I've seen in the shops now outputs the upscaled DVD signal via HDMI not DVI.

MT: Upscaled DVD content can traverse whether over HDMI or DVI. There is no issue. HDMI can easily be converted to DVI and vice versa, and yet DVI has the advantage of computer compatibility. This is not a point to get hung up on.

4. Correct me if I'm wrong but the new HD DVD player on the market in US (Toshiba) has only HDMI out.

MT: Toshiba is one of the smallest major brands in the market for DVD, and I don't usually follow them. In any case, HDMI is equal to DVI when it comes to the video protocol profile, therefore, HDMI can easily be converted to DVI using a direct mapping cable. This is also not a point to get hung up on.

5. I don't think HDTV will go beyond 1080i for some years to come, so if you want resolutions beyond 1080i you're back to scalers again. So your PC internal DVD or HD DV player must be able to upscale to the higher PC resolutions above 1080i and 1080p (HDMI ver 1.3). You're going to need a top range desktop to go anywhere near the processing power you need.

MT: My point on preferring DVI to HDMI is not because I want higher resolutions. It's because of PC resolution compatibility, since DVI supports ALL and HDMI by definition only supports 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, pending further developments. Today, a S$1K PC with a nVidia 7600GS card can already drive a WQXGA display very satisfactorily, and that's 2560 x 1600, in 3D even.

So unless the TV came with both DVI and HDMI in, I'd go with the HDMI option. Its the most practical.

MT: As stated in my blogpost at http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/less-discussed-complications-of-hdmi.html most of the dual HDMI+DVI options you can find, only have HDCP on the HDMI port and not the DVI port. The trick is to look for a LCD TV with only DVI and the HDCP will be implemented on the DVI port. if you see Vincent's post here at http://www.mycarforum.com/forum/Help_on_LCD_tvs_P1356966/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1346681;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=-1;guest=2398 he found a LG 32" which did exactly that.

ALWAYS REMEMBER, the TV and DVD and set top box manufacturers will manufacture an entire range of products with every Input output available, since it's almost free for them. They're not gonna limit the number of outputs and inputs, because more outputs and inputs will make their player more flexible and for reverse compatibility. Don't get hung up on HDMI because it's `newer', because it's not. It's same as DVI for video, and multiplex normal AC3 into is own transmission envelope, nothing we can't do normally even now with AC3 out and DVI combined.

-------------------------end---------------------

ALL THIS MAY BE MOOT! I have just been informed by VincentV that HDCP may not be necessary until after 2010 ... I'll read it up and repost.

Starhub's requirements not matching MDA's requirements for HD

2006-05-23T10:31:00.000+08:00

I just want to post that Starhub's requirements do not match MDA's requirements for minimum requirements for HD-Ready displays.

See here: http://www.hdtv-trial.sg/faq.htm

Under point #7: http://www.hdtv-trial.sg/faq.htm (update 6Jul06 - they took out point #7 from the web. LOL)

7. What are the minimum requirements for “HD-Ready” displays?
7.1 The minimum native resolution of the display must be at least 720 physical lines in aspect ratio of 16:9. The display must be able to resolve either 720p, 1080i or 1080p.
7.2 The display device must accept HD input via:
Analogue Component Y-Pb-Pr, and/ or HDMI ( High Definition Multimedia Interface) or DVI ( Digital Visual Interface )
7.3 HD capable inputs must accept the following HD video formats:
- 1280 x 720 @ 50 Hz progressive ( “720p”)
- 1920 x 1080 @ 50 Hz interlace ( “1080i” )
7.4 The HDMI or DVI input must support content protection , HDCP ( High- Bandwidth Digital Content Protection System )

Point 7.4 is critical. STARHUB DOES NOT MENTION HDCP COMPLIANCE IN THEIR WEBBIE HERE: http://www.vocanic.net/hdtv/crs/edm/appendixA.html

MDA seems to require HDCP, but perhaps NOT NOW.

What they fail to state, is that if one uses Analogue Component, there is a big chance that the video will be downgraded from 720P to 480P. And they fail to tell us what happens if you connect the display to a non-HDCP DVI/HDMI port.

Rocket science it is, but these guys are rocket scientists, can't we have more clarification?

All in all, it is still worth to get the Starhub HD, because a component, DVI or HDMI interface is a big sight better than the composite connection offered by Starhub Digital Cable. But I think it is imperative that more details are given to the public - after all, this is a PAY trial, not a FREE trial.

Starhub readies HDTV trials

2006-05-22T14:29:00.000+08:00

Starhub makes ready their HDTV trial here: http://www.vocanic.net/hdtv/crs/edm/

OK, you gotta pay: a one-time trial fee of $52.50 and basic install charge of $31.50 applies. But World Cup will be in HD though, so that's cool.

What do you need to be HD-ready according to Starhub? Quite lax requirements, actually! See this here: http://www.vocanic.net/hdtv/crs/edm/appendixA.html

1) The minimal vertical resolution of the HD-ready display must be at least 720
lines in an aspect ratio of 16:9;

2) The display device has an interface to accept HDTV signals such as Component interface (Y-Pb-Pr), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) or DVI (Digital Visual Interface); and

3) The HD inputs is capable to accept the following HD video format:
-1280 x 720 @ 50Hz progressive (720p)
-1920 x 1080 @ 50Hz interlace (1080i)

Wow! The way they say it, means you don't need HDCP! Cool! Ready to record the HD content totally unprotected? This is like sex without a condom, people!

More implications for this:

1) Starhub's HD broadcasts are gonna be WideScreen.

2) The box will have component out (analog) and DVI and HDMI as digital outs! Excellent, especially for the DVI part!

3) As expected, 1080P will not be resolution of choice. As such, a 720P view would be better than a 1080P.

4) No mention of HDCP! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, say that if you successfully get a picture, then later, Starhub gets a directive to put HDCP into their content. What then? Your subscription is screwed? You pay money to get 480P back all over again?

Anyway, you can sign up here. I'm gonna do it now and if I am selected, you'd be the first to know.

Edit: Do you get HD on all the channels? No, only the channels with HD, like World Cup, but all the other channels which don't have HD content will look MUCH BETTER because of the component/DVI/HDMI interface will be a BIG SIGHT better than the sucky composite/RCA interface now.

The Less Discussed Complications of HDMI, HDCP and DVI in our HD world

2006-05-19T10:27:00.000+08:00

The following article is my attempt to understand this technology and its complications. It is RAW (Researching As I Write) and comments as to mistakes are greatly appreciated.

It seems to be a daunting task to buy an LCD TV today, in an era where the world's laws are reeling from an onslaught of digital content piracy, new distribution methods and usage paradigms for video content, powerful processing power of consumer electronics and a new renaissance for Digital Rights Management after a multitude of failed attempts. It was for me. 3 factors inspired my research culminating in this blogpost:

My company has become one of the major players for LCD panels and PC VGA cards in Singapore
I had to buy 2 LCD TVs in the past month for personal usage, and embarassingly, I did it blindly despite the fact that we sell thousands upon thousands of LCD panels.
Most of all, an excellent forum thread in Hardwarezone titled 'Discussion on LCDTV vs LCD monitor'

Don't let the acronym-heavy title intimidate you. After some research which results pissed me off, that's like playing to the hands of the powers that be. Just to prime you up, here's a very simple glossary I found from about.com:

HDCP - HIGH-BANDWIDTH DIGITAL CONTENT PROTECTION

HDCP stands for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection and was developed by Intel Corporation. This link stands for how it works, Electronics Engineer version. MT - One comment about HDCP - it's Content Protection, not Copy Protection. What's the difference? Copy protection prevents copying/recording and all the consequences like time shifting, pausing, etc. which is stupid, as these functions are DESIRED and USEFUL. Content Protection does not prevent copying of content, but allows the Licensor and Licensee of the Content Protection scheme to control the usage of this content - putting the control of who can view this content, in what quality level to show it, what devices can view this content, what devices can record this content, how much of this content is permitted to be stored, etc. on the hands of the device manufacturer, who can do whatever he wants within the terms of his HDCP license. This is an essential, but subtle difference - it makes the desicions of the Designer of the a HDCP licensed product FINAL, and not subject to second guessing by hackers etc until HDCP is indeed irretrievably broken. And it enables future changes to rules, without needing to change the entire content protection scheme. So, CONTROL, not PREVENTION.

DVI - DIGITAL VISUAL INTERFACE

DVI was created by the Digital Display Working Group, and stands for Digital Visual Interface. It allows for a high speed uncompressed connection between a digital television, personal computer, and other DVI-based consumer electronics devices. The input is something like you’d find on the back of your computer. One big benefit of DVI is the uncompressed transfer of high definition video.
While you don’t see it when you receive HD programming, it goes through a conversion from the source to the set-top box to your screen. Usually, component cables are used to transfer the red-blue-green signal. The advantage of DVI is that it only requires one cable to transfer the red-blue-green signal, and the speed it transfers an image is significantly faster than the analog component cables, which benefits the overall viewing experience on DLP, Plasma, and LCD televisions.
Combined with HDCP, DVI was the standard for digital television until a few years ago when HDMI was introduced.

HDMI - HIGH-DEFINITION MULTIMEDIA INTERFACE
HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, and like DVI, it allows for the uncompressed data transfer of video between a digital TV and HDMI-enabled consumer electronics devices. The big difference between HDMI and DVI is that HDMI transfers the video and audio signal. DVI only carries the video signal.
According to the HDMI’s official Web site, the advantages of HDMI are:
1) The highest quality video seen and audio heard
2) Fewer cables behind the TV means less mess and confusion-free connection
3) Automatically configures remote controls of devices connected by HDMI
4) Automatically adjusts video content to most effective format
5) HDMI is compatible with DVI, which means it will allow connection to PCs
Because it combines the audio and video signal, HDMI has tremendous support from the MPAA. It was created by some of the heavyweights in the consumer electronics industry - Hitachi, Matsushita, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson, and Toshiba. The HDMI input is similar to a USB connector on a PC.
HD
High Definition video, comprosing of a picture higher in resolution that what we were using for the past 30+ years. The only variants worth considering are 720p, 1080i and 1080p, where the numbers signify the number of horizontal lines, and p and i signify progressive and interlaced line drawing patterns, a legacy from the old electron gun scanning paradigm for traditional TVs.

Now that you have the basic official stand, now get the dirty secrets from my perspective.

First of all, if you're buying an LCD TV today, there's a lot of bullshit which is going to hit your face courtesy of salespeople, forum posts and magazine articles, and worst, official positions which don't tell you the whole story. Well what I write here may be bullshit too, and misinformed and ill-researched. So read this article AND many other articles on the web. Google is your friend.

Keep it simple if DVD quality is good enough

There is one kind of guy I can simplify life for, just instantly! If you:

1) are NOT the kind of guy who downloads video torrent files, and not planning to connect your PC to your LCD TV, and yet
2) want need to buy an LCD TV right now, because your old CRT TV is failing, and
3) need the ability in your life sometime within the next 3 years to play all those HD broadcasts on your TV in DVD quality at least,
4) Want to play all your DVDs at the best possible resolution the DVD can garner, and
5) Firmly believe that DVD-quality is good enough

then keep your selection process simple. Get ANY widescreen 16:9 LCD TV with a component input. These sets, you'll be equipped to enjoy DVD-quality video without issues and without needing to worry about anything else. And they can get really cheap if you don't ask for stuff like DVI, HDMI, HDCP etc. Most of the sales may be stock closeouts, you will really get a great bargain without trying hard.

Why not worry about HD? Why is my recommendation above devoid of any recommendation for any digital video interface and I cut through all the HDMI/HDCP/DVI complications? Simple, LCD TV and DVD player and Set top box manufacturers, and broadcasters, are not going to eschew the component interface. They DARE NOT. If they take out all the composite, S-Video and component connections - NOBODY WILL BUY THEIR TV OR BOX. And it costs them next to nothing to implement these interfaces on their machine anyway. So, you'll still get HD in some way - the component, S-Video and composite RCA interfaces will still be there, and you can play future HD content using the component interface at least in DVD quality, assured. You're covered for playing any HD stream in at LEAST DVD-quality anytime from now to a forseeable future 3 to 5 years from now. Case closed.

The rest of this blogpost will be focussing on the digital interfaces, and more on what they have been engineered TO UNDERPERFORM THE TECHNOLOGY'S POTENTIAL, and less focus will be placed on what they CAN do. Suffice to say, these interfaces, DVI and HDMI, can do MUCH MORE beyond what is reasonably demanded of. DVI today, with DUAL-Link function capability, can support stratospheric resolutions like 2560 x 1600 WQXGA - so there are NO technical limitations with these interfaces which we can reasonably push against within a foreseeable timeframe of 3 years or perhaps 5 years.

Most of all, now I'll speak about things close to the hearts of people who want to connect PCs to LCD TVs, and want to really use their LCD TVs to the highest resolution and people who are treating their cable and terresterial and satellite feeds as secondary, and want to use their LCD TVs as new media devices, having the LCD TV to display their Windows Desktops, high resolution web pages, photos, very high resolution videos, or combine all the windows on 1 screen.

OK, the way things are going, here are the pitfalls not usually discussed, but you can find them on the web.

1) Video Degration because of HDCP, or the lack of it

If the FCC (US government) and MPAA (Hollywood guys) have their way, any television displaying a program encoded with HDCP not connected through DVI or HDMI might be degraded – meaning a high definition signal of 1080i will be automatically converted to a lower resolution. Matthew Torres of About.com thinks that the signal may be blocked, but I think that's not ever going to happen. You'd still at least get DVD resolution. In a limited way, I've already been proven right: On a HD DVD or a Blu-ray disc, if the manufacturer or publisher of the disc has set the HDCP protection flag set as ON, if this player is connected to a non-HDCP compliant LCD TV, the player will output a downsampled signal of 540p. (More good news: Sony has declared that they will NOT set the downsample flag and a US court has already struck down the FCC's broadcast flag regulations)

It is clear that sometime in the near future, bad things (from the perspective of a pixel geek) are going to happen if you use a TV not equipped with HDCP to view HDCP encoded video. If you MUST view your official, legal content, like high definition Video discs of the future, HD cable, HD Digital Terresterial Video broadcasts, HD Satellite feeds, HD Cable feeds at the very highest resolutions it was transmitted at, AT THE EXPENSE OF COMPUTER VIDEO FEEDS, you MUST get a LCD TV with the evil HDCP embedded in its heart. There is no alternative short of breaking the HDCP scheme with some third party device like Spatz-Tech's DVIMAGIC which might be illegal. What's more, breaking the HDCP scheme is not as straightforward as obtaining the keys, as compromised keys can be revoked as part of the HDCP scheme.

Still, if you do get a HDCP-enabled LCD TV, you are signing on to HDCP's draconian terms. Note that HDCP licensees all sign agreements with the HDCP Licensor, Digital Content Protection, LLC, to LIMIT the capabilities of their products. These agreements are both private and public, some limitations may be more draconian than others. The money you spend on the technology is already substantial, and paying MORE for HDCP just to have it cripple the technology your purchased, is pretty much a bad deal.

2) The HD-Ready Label - without it, can I play HD?

Yes you can. On January 19, 2005, the European Industry Association for Information Systems (EICTA) announced that HDCP is a required component of the European "HD ready" label. However, HDCP is NOT a technically essential component mandatory for the playback of HD content, and it ignores HD content not encrypted with HDCP, for example, titles from Sony, PC-generated HD video without HDCP, or any HD video in general not employing HDCP for example high quality videos from Usenet or some peer-to-peer download.

There are gems of LCD TVs not having the HD-Ready logo, which might give you (the pixel geek) better technology without HDCP in it. If you exclusively play torrent files, you need not care about any HD-Ready label nor HDCP. Just get a LCD-TV with DVI and not HDMI-only (discussed below).

3) If you buy a HDCP compliant LCD TV, there is a possibility that your HDCP keys may be revoked sometime, anytime.

Heck, the original agreement is here ... I don't know how up to date it is. The plain english is here, and the excerpt below reworded in the context of LCD TVs.

For instance, let’s assume that you’ve purchased an LCD TV with HDCP. Everything is going fine, until one day, it's no longer working with your some new HD-DVD discs you just bought and some channels you're watching on your HD cable. What happened is that your cable box just used some signals, within the architecture of HDCP, to invalidate the keys used by your LCD TV. From that point on, your cable box and HD-DVD player will treat your LCD-TV as a rogue device. As such, it will not allow it to play HDCP content, or at best allow you to play it at lower resolutions.

Why did this happen? HDCP has the capability to revoke `compromised keys'. Say the HDCP keys of your LCD TV, which are essential for its proper operation, have been hacked by some hacker in Brazil - the HDCP licensor can initiate a procedure to invalidate the keys on almost EVERY HDCP device in the world which has that key, online or not, by using a myriad of methods including the signal from broadcasters of HDCP-embedded content and HD-DVDs.

In short, if you buy a HDCP compliant LCD TV, you MAY be worse off than not buying into HDCP if your keys are revoked. Fancy that!

Simple lesson - if you read about some easily hackable LCD TV model on the forums, avoid that. Yes, this is a paradigm shift from buying DVD players - where you'd go for the most easily hackable model. In the HDCP world, eventually that LCD TV would act worse than a non HDCP box. Your legal remedies are unclear, but now that you're forewarned, why would you want to place yourself in that position?

4) You may not be able to feed a high resolution signal into a HDCP LCD TV

So far, all that I have posted, points the way that the only LCD TV I should buy, is one which has HDCP built-in. Don't jump the gun. HDCP is evil to some people.

What if you feed a video signal with no HDCP whatsoever in that signal, into a HDCP-capable LCD TV? What about the high resolution 1600x960 desktop? Can you feed it into the HDCP LCD-TV? With partial aid from about.com I have compiled the feed-display matrix below and the issues involved:

Computer to LCD-TV connection matrix. Computer is an May 2006 computer built with readily available parts, the VGA card with or without HDCP license (2 matrices below), using both a DVI (digital) and VGA (analog) output. Assume that you have a Media Player software with HDCP support capability and the requisite drives.

With non-HDCP compliant VGA card
	HDCP LCD	non-HDCP LCD
HDCP content, digital output	Content downsampled since VGA card is non-compliant	Content downsampled since VGA card is non-compliant
non-HDCP content, digital output	OK	OK
HDCP content, analog output	HDCP bans rendering full resolution to Analog, video degradation by computer	HDCP bans rendering full resolution to Analog, video degradation by computer
non-HDCP content, analog output	OK	OK
With HDCP compliant VGA card
	HDCP LCD	non-HDCP LCD
HDCP content, digital output	OK	Content downsampled since LCD TV is non-compliant
non-HDCP content, digital output	OK	OK
HDCP content, analog output	HDCP bans rendering full resolution to Analog, video degradation by computer	HDCP bans rendering full resolution to Analog, video degradation by computer
non-HDCP content, analog output	OK	OK

What does all this mean? A lot. We can deduce some rules from this, and some parts of the conclusion is based on these 2 matrices.

Rule 1: HDCP is adverse to analog
Every time HDCP sees analog, it degrades the resolution of the HDCP content.

Rule 2: HDCP needs all devices in the chain to be HDCP compliant for full resolution
If you break the chain, HDCP degrades the resolution.

Rule 3: HDCP does not affect non-HDCP content
This might be obvious, but it took the most time in my research. Some forum posts I encountered in my research, gave me a sinister suspicion that HDCP would be adverse to high resolution non-content as a measure to plug the torrent hole. Continued research and my own testing, disproved this suspicion.

5) HDMI will fully be backward compatible with DVI, but ...

Aside from HDCP, all DVI-only LCD TVs today will be supported by HDMI sources now and in the future video-wise. Read that carefully though - video-wise. The multi-channel audio of HDMI will not be supportable in its native form, but surely there will be stereo downmix - in LCD TVs and playback devices, all present HDMI outputs have a corresponding analog audio output, and all present DVI inputs have a corresponding analog audio input. So audio shouldn't be too much an issue.

Quoting from HDMI site's FAQ:

Is HDMI backward-compatible with DVI (Digital Visual Interface)?
Yes, HDMI is fully backward-compatible with DVI using the CEA-861 profile for DTVs. HDMI DTVs will display video received from existing DVI-equipped products, and DVI-equipped TVs will display video from HDMI sources.

The big BUT - what's worse about using a HDMI connector (compared to a DVI connector) in an LCD-TV with a PC is this: HDMI supports only 720P and 1080I/P, as stated here:

What types of video does HDMI support?
HDMI has the capacity to support existing high-definition video formats (720p, 1080i, and 1080p/60). It also has the flexibility to support enhanced definition formats such as 480p, as well as standard definition formats such as NTSC or PAL.

This is brought to a head by Solano in Hardwarezone, who stated in the Hardwarezone forum posting - In the scenario that you use your computer's DVI graphics port, convert it easily (just a pin remap) to HDMI and connect the computer to your LCD-TV's HDMI port, and if your screen HAS resolutions like 1366x768 (commonly), and you pump a standard computer output like 1280x720 into that, the LCD-TV has got to scale it to 1366x768, you'll get the horrible fuzziness. Here is his text quoted ad verbatim:

In case you don't know, both DVI and HDMI support two formats: computer format and video format. Computer format goes by 1280x720 or 1920x1080. Video format
goes by 720p or 1080i. These two formats are not compatible. Okay maybe I should
rephrase it - What TV makers do is making their HDMI port NOT to support the
computer format at all. So the LCD TV is always expecting a video format from
the HDMI connector. So you will have to output a video format though DVI, which
can be done actually. But for 1366x768 LCD TV neither 720p nor 1080i matches its
native resolution, so the TV's scaler start working and gives you a fuzzy picture, which is exactly what IceShelterX has got into. This fuzzy picture, although is digital, is much worse than the analog VGA connection, so I don't even consider it as workable.

What Solano says, I have found corroboration in various other sources on the web, and in my opinion it is true. As a consequence, the preponderance of text in most computer applications other than games, the screen looks horrible on an LCD display. LCD displays are razor sharp in their native resolution, but if you have to scale it to another resolution, it looks horrible.

When you connect a computer to an LCD screen through the HDMI port, WHY can't you choose 1366x768? Because HDMI doesn't support it, at least, not for what we can buy currently. When you connect a PC to an LCD TV, the LCD TV in question will supply Extended display identification data (EDID) to tell the capabilities of the monitor to the PC's graphics card, and 1366x768 native resolution won't be among the supported resolutions because HDMI doesn't support it.

Can we bypass EDID? Sure! Current NVidia (and perhaps ATI) drivers allow you to bypass the EDID. Uncheck "Hide resolutions that this monitor does not support". Then just select from the big long list. BUT, that doesn't mean the monitor will accept the custom resolution, and timings etc have to be specified in addition to the resolution and even if everything were specified correctly, the firmware and design of the LCD panel or your graphics cards may have critical bugs which prevent the custom resolution from working. So you're back to square one.

Can we connect the PC's DVI port it to the LCD-TV's DVI port? Sure, if it has the DVI port. And if the DVI port reports the EDID data correctly as 1366x768, which it should unless the manufacturer of the LCD TV intentionally sabotages it. From what I've seen, DVI ports on LCD-TVs have faithfully supplied the correct EDID to date as far as I know.

So, let's use the DVI port! What's the catch? From reading the specsheets of several LCD-TVs, for LCD-TVs equipped with both HDMI and DVI ports, the DVI ports are the DVI-I type of port - meaning they're digital AND analog. Why, I don't know. I always thought that DVI-I were important for outputs, not inputs. And LCD-TVs which have both HDMI and DVI ports put HDCP support at the HDMI port, not the DVI port. This is a double whammy - HDCP doesn't like analog, and the manufacturer doesn't put HDCP on the DVI. This means, if you connect your computer to the DVI-I port of an LCD-TV which has both HDMI/HDCP and DVI ports, your computer isn't going to be able to play HDCP content on this LCD-TV in full resolution.

What about VGA? VGA is analog, and if HDCP sees analog, it's going to degrade the HDCP video to a lower resolution. And analog is slightly fuzzier than a digital interface. Besides this fuzziness, the EDID should be correct, and the full 1366x768 resolution would be offered to your computer without the need to scale. So, this is not a perfect solution.

Is there a perfect solution? Happily, yes, at least in theory. Certain LCD-TVs - which were designed for no-nonsense corporate use, like the LG L3200TF, have DVI/HDCP inputs. I find these kind of monitors few and far between, mainly because consumers PREFER HDMI/HDCP inputs as the HD interface of choice, mainly because of the industry's push towards HDMI for products meant for the general home user, for reasons unknown (I can only speculate that the industry pushes HDMI to the consumer, and DVI for industrial use, as internal corporate politics to segment the market between their consumer electronics and industrial/computer electronics departments). Anyway, the DVI/HDCP LCD-TVs looks like it is the perfect solution for now. And somehow, they're cheaper.

So why don't the LCD manufacturers make 1280x720 panels to exactly match HDMI's resolution? I don't know. Really. Do any of you LCD manufacturers wanna tell me? Email me, all names will be kept confidential.

Update 22 May 2006 - Solano has some suggestions on why the LCD manufacturers do not make 1280x720 anymore here.
A summary of his suggestions: 1280x720 LCD TVs do exist in the past, but they are no longer in vogue now, and a lone Toshiba 27" exists in that resolution. Then when Sharp came up with a non-matching resolution like 1366x768, then everybody followed suit into that marketing black hole. He also mentions that since most future Blu-ray content would be 1080i, the manufacturers thought that since that video content would have to be rescaled anyway, might as well rescale it to 768 and not 720, for more detail (MT - but that would screw PC users, as I have stated). And the most compelling thing which Solano said in his excellent post, was that most TV is shown overscanned, and now that we have 768, we can see the entire size of the video now since 768 is 6.7% more than 720, fully accomodating the traditional 5% overscan. MT - All this is nice for traditional settings, but today when more and more people want to usefully connect their computers to LCD TV, the `enhancements' they did by upping 720 to 768, makes it very difficult for us to connect PCs to LCD TVs. The best compromise is to to use the DVI interface. It it that difficult to sacrifice HDMI in favour of DVI even though you lose nothing?

6) Is HDMI going to be THE standard for the next 5 years?

Looks like the answer is NO. A new standard called the Unified Display Interface is poised to take over the torch from HDMI. Another new standard by VESA called the DisplayPort, backed by pretty much the same guys who backed UDI, is also competing. With big names like Intel, Apple, LG, nVidia, ATI, Dell, LG, Samsung backing one or both of these standards, looks like HDMI may have very serious competition in the near future. How near? How does 2007 sound like?

7) Are graphics cards available as of May 2006 capable of supporting HDCP?

There's a class action suit against ATI at present, where it's claimed that `ATI has begun to revise its website materials to delete reference to video cards being HDCP ready or compliant. A respected PC hardware site, Firingsquad.com, has an article on the Great HDCP fiasco where they claim that none of ATI's or nVidia's cards support HDCP.

8) Can a driver upgrade for a graphics card make it HDCP compliant?

There is an implicit assumption that no driver is trustworthy, and `upstream authentication' which detects driver cheating `masquerading HDCP compliance' was not included in the original HDCP specification.

I do not know whether, in the failure of fixing an `upstream authentication', whether it is allowed for a graphics cards in a PC be HDCP compliant. A companion specification has been defined, however, but watch this space.

The keys have to be stored in a secure location, and it is unclear whether current graphics cards have a secure location within the chip to store these keys. Drivers are definitely not a secure location. The 2002 EDN article states (probably outdated, but I lack a better link):

Adding an HDCP-capable DVI output to a product such as a graphics adapter or
set-top box is a similar exercise. You still need to add the interface silicon,
the nonvolatile key memory, and the DVI connector.

Looks like a mere driver upgrade won't be able to support HDCP. nVidia seems to say, in the Firingsquad.com article on the HDCP fiasco, that BOARD manufacturers have to be responsible for building in HDCP compliance, so that's another indication that, if the board manufacturers are oblivious to the dangers and pitfalls of HDCP, if they are not HDCP licensees, the keys are not implemented, and there's no HDCP on any existing graphics board today.

More confirmation here:

An ATI representative said: “People will not be able to turn on HDCP through a software patch since the HDCP keys need to be present during the manufacturing. We are rolling out HDCP through OEMs at this time but we have not finalized our retail plans yet.”

Well, what about NVIDIA? They were actually very direct: “The boards themselves
must be designed with an extra chip when the board is manufactured. The extra
chip stores a crypto key, and you cannot retrofit an existing board after the
board is produced.”

What was the problem? It's clear to me, that the whole HDCP scheme requires a lot of reading up to understand. I spent an entire day. And I'm not exactly foreign to this. End-users, big company marketeers, salespeople, EVERYBODY, did not bother to spend this DAY. Well, this blogpost just takes a few minutes of reading, and I hope it's clear. Now you know.

In Conclusion ...

The most striking thing I found, was the surprising crap I found out about HDMI. As a video standard, HDMI is not superior to DVI or vice versa. By HDMI's commitment, HDMI has to appear in DVI TVs and DVI has to be able to appear in HDMI TVs. Whatever HDMI can do, DVI can do. But obviously, whatever DVI can do (for example, support a wide range of PC resolutions) the HDMI interface does not do yet, but it can. So it seems that right now, DVI is the superset and HDMI merely the subset of DVI, at least in terms of video.

I managed to go through all the stuff, and surprisingly, I only have 3 recommendations.

For people who think DVD quality is good enough and want an LCD TV for space and aesthetic considerations, and do not plan to attach a PC to it, buy any LCD TV you want.
For people who want to connect their PC to an LCD TV, in addition to connecting HDCP devices like HD DVD players and future set top boxes, get a HDCP compliant LCD TV with a HDCP-compliant DVI port. Most probably this LCD TV would not have HDMI, and you won't miss it.
For people who do not plan to play any HDCP content, but need to play HD content which are not HDCP-encoded, get a non-HDCP LCD TV with a DVI input. They're cheaper. Won't hurt to buy a HDCP LCD-TV tough besides hitting your wallet.

Any clarifications, please leave a comment below.

Time has come for Phones to kick Point and Shoot butt

2006-05-19T10:12:00.000+08:00

I always chose phones based on functionality, and my present phone is a Nokia Communicator 9500.

It's the last of the line though. My new phones will be based on megapixel count. The time has come that a good 3.2 megapixel autofocus handphone with a Xenon flash will kick Point and Shoot butt - the Sony Ericsoon K800i - which even comes with an image stabilizer (whether it's digital or optical remains to be seen, but .... ain't that important to me).

Dell finally will release an AMD machine, but ....

2006-05-19T10:08:00.000+08:00

Ok, they'll let customers buy AMD-based Opteron servers at the end of the year. Guess the negotiations with Intel took too long. But this smacks of ... big company slow bureaucracy syndrome. Makes them seem out of touch. Why so much sacrifice, when clearly Intel's new chips are pretty much gonna kick AMD's butt real soon?

Of course, I may be missing something.

Creative Labs users up in arms

2006-05-18T14:44:00.000+08:00

Looks like one of my posts was quite spot-on, that it was also addressed in the Inquirer:

http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/creative-long-overdue-losses-reported.html

Their X-Fi cards create incompatibilites with the nVidia nForce4 chipset by
refusing to share resources. Whether it's the motherboard manufacturer's fault
or Creative's fault, Creative was later, they should have worked around the
problem. Well it's their loss - the people who bought motherboards with nForce4
chipsets, who are actually the main target segment of the X-Fi enthusiast sound
cards, didn't bother much with the X-Fi.

From this Inquirer article:

PUNTERS using Creative Lab's Sound Blaster X-Fi card are so miffed that the
outfit will not fix its bugs in the product they have got an online petition
together.

And from the Hardwarezone thread on this, seems like Singaporeans are pretty pissed with Creative, including comments like:

Like I always said, their QC department really deserve the sack.

Vote with your wallets. Don't buy Creative.

This deserves the classic LOL!

Stupid Traffic Congestion in Singapore

2006-05-18T10:07:00.000+08:00

Well the best run country in the world now shows signs of getting all the megajams plauguing all the big cities in Asia. Trip times are multiplied by 3 in the past few years, in spite of the government's efforts to both earn revenue from high tech Electronic Road Pricing techniques with the excuse of improving traffic this way.

Well my main assertion is - people are stupid, and if you place a price on the highways, and people know no alternative route, he's screwed anyway and would have to take the same highway and pay a price. Which is great for the purposes of revenue generation but destroys any excuse for using ERP to control road-use behaviour.

Simple solution though - introduce a system where real time traffic data is streamed to a GPS unit in the car, and the GPS calculates the optimal route. This is not rocket science and is a hell of a lot cheaper than the ERP system for example. It's called RDS/TMC - Traffic Messaging Channel via Radio Data System.

With RDS/TMC it would instruct users where to go to avoid traffic. This will distribute traffic properly, making it possible for us to have tons of cars on the roads and yet move properly.

There's an entire thread discussing RDS/TMC in Singapore, including `why the government won't do it', here: http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?p=17536783#post17536783

How it works in essence, is this:

Singapore already has a pretty comprehensive traffic monitoring system set up by the LTA, called EMAS. Unfortunately, all it does is to tell you - MASSIVE JAM AHEAD when you're already on the highway. Man, this is priceless.

This traffic data can easily be parsed into TMC format, and distributed via RDS using the existing radio stations, and the in-car GPS receivers will pick up this data, merge it with their calculations and tell you the optimal route to take to avoid traffic and make your destination in the fastest possible time. A Wiki primer on RDS/TMC can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_Message_Channel The Wiki primer has model implementations, which I am sure from the variety of models there, the pen pushers at the Land Transport Authority of Singapore would be able to modify to local needs.

There were many cynical questions in the thread regarding - why would the government do it if it didn't make them money? Well, that's part of a bigger problem - THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE WITH OUR ROADS WAS THAT IT WAS BUILT BY GOVERNMENT. So everything is not based purely on market, but majorly on the notion of garnering public approval cloaked with the vague notion of the `public good' and calls go unheeded in favour of reports made by a bureaucrat who probably doesn't drive like most do. Now that we have a technology which garners microvotes in real time - RDS/TMC, where people can vote for the best road a million times a minute totally depending on the dynamics of the traffic situation, when the people can finally decide `what's good for them' the government stalls on its implementation while they spend billions on projects of questionable good like the Electronic Road Pricing system, EMAS which is utterly unreservedly useless and Speed Cameras. For the record, my personal experience is that idiots who STAND ON THE BRAKES every time they see the ERP gantry and
a speed camera, are far too common and too frequently cause accidents. I strongly believe if that we had an accident map of Singapore where a red dot signifies an accident, the ERP gantries and speed camera areas would be stained blood red.

TRULY, RDS/TMC is merely a workaround the problem. THE BEST SOLUTION BY FAR, we must PRIVATIZE OUR HIGHWAYS and ROADS. Once we privatize, the prevailing dogma is that the private companies will ensure maximum volume of traffic go through their roads. A competitor who may have less traffic on their roads, then BAM! he will advertise and and the RDS/TMC system will serve to redistribute traffic to his roads. While this does not guarantee FAST TRIPS, it will guarantee optimization to the wishes of the people! After all, people are voting by driving on the roads they choose. Pricing will be real and market based.

Now go to http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1228740 and place a post and write your suggestions, or you can write a suggestion here and I transfer it over to the thread.

A Secondary Serial Presence Detect - TRULY, LOL!

2006-05-16T10:03:00.000+08:00

In a world where memory is supplied by billion dollar companies with billion dollar fabs, retail memory sales is dominated by ONE large company and many many smaller companies vie for the remainder of the sales, what does one of the smaller companies do to increase profits and get noticed?

1) Put a voltage probe on your memory module
2) Give fancy colored heat sinks for the RAM chips
3) Send more and more memory to the review sites
4) Sell fewer modules even, much more expensively
5) Put a secondary, more complete Serial Presence Detect table on the chip and get a big name to endorse it

6) All of the above

Well, Corsair has been around for a long time, and it has done all of the above. This entry deals with point #5. The Serial Presence Detect is a chip introduced a decade ago, storing information on the general properties of the memory module so if a computer does query the memory module on the settings it is capable of supporting, the SPD just dumps the table to the computer so that it can adjust its own settings to support the memory module optimally based on the settings put on the SPD.

Let's not talk about normal people. Normal people don't know what SPD is, they just put memory inside, and normal computers have their SPD detection set ON by default.

But Corsair is NOT peddling memory to normal people here. Normal people buy whatever is cheapest and it's normally Kingston. Look at the Techreport link - they're putting it on their TwinX premium modules. These modules are usually peddled to poseurs or enthusiasts.

Let's also not talk about poseurs. A poseur who buys a Tiptronic Porsche Turbo (a 996, because a 997 Turbo Tiptronic is faster than a Manual and thus may not ONLY be a Poseur Car) is at least more easy to understand (he can show it off, it's loud, and he can be seen coming outta it) than a Poseur who buys a memory module and puts it into his PC then seals it up. What good is it to a poseur if he can't show it off?

So, poseurs being dangerous territory, let's just discuss enthusiasts. REAL hardcore PC enthusiasts like Shamino of VR-zone.com or even Macci. Or any of the thousands of them who lurk in Anandtech and Hardwarezone in search of project ideas, and who get their minds and hands dirty with their projects.

Enthusiasts have long eschewed SPD. And rightly so. Because no memory company can afford the days spent in stability testing to find the true limits of a certain memory module in relation to a customized motherboard or rig set-up, so no SPD describes the limits of the memory modules. Each motherboard is different, their tolerances and design are different, even different firmware revisions for the same motherboards differ in their tolerance for memory, at its limits, so any SPD which settings even approach the true limits of its host memory module, may work for one motherboard but not for another. Each motherboard manufacturer makes compromises and judgement calls on setting the limits of their pathways, and tweak their BIOSes either to the way of sheer performance or compatibility. One can't have their cake and eat it, though a good designer can come damn close.

So, now nVidia and Corsair now have this thing called EPP or Enhanced Performance Profiles. Basically it's a secondary, more complete SPD, which include `signal drive strength settings, write recovery and active refresh settings, and delay and setup times'. First, I must commend nVidia. This is completely to their interest. It makes their chips easy to use.

But for Corsair, ... , well, it smacks of the poseur gearbox syndrome (again, think Porsche Tiptronic Poseur Gearbox). Firstly, no way in hell can Corsair test each chip to the limits. And no way they can guarantee that, after months of extreme use, their module will be able to sustain the same limits it exhibited when new. So, the SPD and EPP will all exhibit very conservative settings.

So it will definitely help the poseur crowd, but for the enthusiast, nothing has changed. As long as the automated SPD and EPP does not reach the limits, they eschew it, or SCREW it.

Still, this EPP should be valuable for the normal human being or the poseur crowd. Probably Kingston ValueRAM should implement it, at least the normal humans of the world can take advantage of slightly better performance on default settings.

BS scanner off. Ambigious result.

High Speed Review - 2006 GS300

2006-05-15T12:24:00.000+08:00

On my trip back from KL yesterday, the GS300 hit something like 230km/h, but just for a while, because the road undulations were partly resonating with wheel natural frequency. I think that a wheel change to lighter one to move resonance freq to higher.

It felt good to feel the VVTI2 system (meaning, both intake and exhaust) working to optimize torque. Yes, you feel it at high load high rev (as opposed to hitting 4K rpm at 2nd gear only which you won't be able to feel), just like VTEC, only that VVTI2 is more gentle and got more steps.

At high speed in the bright daylight for the GS300, here are my findings:

Natural speed is at 180km/h without resonance. At 181 to 190kmh, the stock wheels will resonate with Malaysian roads which are based on TAR. On concrete Melaka roads, there is no resonance. This resonance stops at 200km/h, then increases at 225km/h all the way to dunno what speed, but at 230km/h still will have resonance. All speeds according to speedo, not real speed.

The GS300 speeds above 100km/h is reporting 5km/h faster than REAL speed as measured by GPS. So, at 230km/h speedo, actual is 225km/h. I think that the error is logarithmic, so my comment not so accurate.

Compared to E240 and C200 Kompressor, GS300 suspension so much better over mini-humps caused by bridges. GS300 you will not AT ALL feel frightened by the undulations, but on the Mercs, they demand flat road, undulations will make the car fly. The GS wheels kept contact at all times. So for Malaysia roads, the GS300 is much better than the E and C-classes.

Aerodynamics for GS300 is better from perspective of wind noise. The C classes, wind noise gets unbearable at 190km/h onwards, for E-Class, 220km/h onwards. GS300 at 230km/h wind noise is un-noticeable.

So high speed performance, GS300 beats the E and C classes all the way. Now just for BMW people to HONESTLY post about 3- and 5- series high speed performance please.

Engine? Wow. Damn. The 3GR-FE engine is smooth all the way to max rpm at high gears (could not reach max rpm on 6th gear, must do it at 5th, but if longer distance it is possible). The older 3-valve/cyl E240 engine.... engine sounds COARSE at high rpm high gear. C200 engine no need to say, both the M111 and M171 2l and 1.8l is agricultural at high rpm high gear. There is no fear that engine burst, if that's a more meaningful comment.

As for presence, I did not get much respect from the C-Class, or E-Class, kanchils still keep going on the fast lane even when they see my car. For the GS- it commanded more respect, apparently. The most respect I ever got was in a ML320, which was no use coz the ML320 could not reach anything higher than 160km/h without much complaint.

Post trip, for the C and E class will always get some squeaks from the shock absorber after high speed trip. Not for the GS though. No difference whether drove long or short difference, GS felt the same before and after the trip.

I have no regrets. The GS300 fits my expectations totally. Turns out that the only thing causing me to keep within 180km/h for most of the journey was that my baby sleeping peacefully.

What next for digital cameras?

2006-05-13T12:14:00.000+08:00

What's the next big thing? Improved noise levels? Better sensors? Motion reduction and image stabilizers? Perhaps, but these things are boring. Merely evolutionary changes, not radical enough to garner much interest.

Things looked boring until a certain remark by Herbert Keppler of Popular Photography magazine piqued my interest - a remark on High Exposure Latitude sensors by Canon. Few picked this up though, even established forums did not speak much about it. All is not lost though, here are some links which speak about this:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FfVV&tag=

http://www.popphoto.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=47746

Just a summary here. Digital camera sensors are almost as unforgiving as slide film - can't make too big an exposure error, else your picture will be shot. This is what they call low exposure latitude - no margin for error.

Print films like Fuji Superia gave at least 4 stops of exposure latitude, if you screwed up, all you'd need was to print 3-4 stops lower or higher exposure to remedy the error. And the result would almost be as perfect as if you had the exposure spot on. It would be excellent if digital sensor technology had this kinda latitude, and with instant preview after shooting, the percentage of usable shots would be of a higher ratio once high exposure latitude were possible on digital camera sensors.

The limitations of digital camera sensor technology was the same, whether using CMOS or CCD sensors. Though Herbert Keppler were to term this technology as increased exposure latitude, it would be easier to find out more about this technology if you were to use the equivalent `new age' term - `High Dynamic Range' or HDR. High Dynamic Range is roughly equivalent to Increased Contrast Ratio and is roughly equivalent to Increased Exposure Latitude - in this perspective all three terms refer to roughly the same thing.

After doing additional research, it was clear that Canon was not the first off the block with this technology. It was Fujifilm with the FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro - employing 2 kinds of photodiodes in their SR CCD sensor, ones with high sensitivity (S) and low sensitivity (R) on each pixel. With the image processor combining image data from both pixels, the system can increase the dynamic range to 400% of normal sensors' 1000:1 dynamic range, which Fujifilm equates to 2 stops. More information here: http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/review/30/page_1.html

This method is similar to that of HDRsoft's implementation - www.hdrsoft.com - where a camera takes 3 pictures of a similar scene, one underexposed (to better capture highly illuminated (bright) nuances), one normally exposed and one overexposed (to better capture low-light (dim) nuances, and combine all three into a HDR picture, then tone map the HDR to normal dynamic range, with the high dynamic range compressed but yet preserving the enhanced highlights and shadows, for that incredible effect you see in the picture at the beginning of this post.

The only thing not going well for Fujifilm is the cumbersome dual photodiode system, which may increase diffraction because of the interference of the light wavefronts. I have not seen this phenomemon but it has been reported in the forums as `chromatic abberation'. Unlike purple fringing, this chromatic abberation has colors of a rainbow, much like you see an oil film on water - classic evidence of wavefront interference.

Keppler says that Canon's first implementation would be on a SLR, and presumably it would be in a single photodiode to span the entire increased dynamic range. And His Venerableness says that this will happen in 2007 while Canon soldiers on with the EOS30D the entire 2006. So from this statement, seems that the world's first fully integrated high dynamic range mainstream sensor will be APS based.

So, DSLR folks, you can do your bit by not buying a 5D or 30D today, to force Canon's hand. Once a mainstream HDR DLSR comes out, you can bet Canon's lead over everybody else (yes, including the lead over Nikon) will increase to an insurpassable extent. And that would be the time I sell my entire Nikon lens collection and experience the joy of cheap (relatively) USM and IS.

Problem is that the initial use for printed photos will merely be that of increased exposure latitude since print film sucks at showing high dynamic range images. LCDs are slightly better but their dynamic range is only about 700:1 for current implementations (LG will have 1400:1 later this year in August). So tone mapping would probably be the only way to see HDR, and many will object to the the highly artificial looking tone mapped images, which to the film crowd, would be SUPER HIGHLY SATURATED VELVIA.

This is gonna be exciting.

Reading back ... wow, I predicted Google Trends (in some way!)

2006-05-11T17:20:00.000+08:00

Damn, reading my previous blog entries, I may have predicted Google Trends.... (released today to public).

See below:

Singapore Punches above its weight for many Google Searches
http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/singapore-punches-above-its-weight-for.html

The company which knows EXACTLY what new businesses to venture into
http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/company-which-knows-exactly-what-new.html

Fancy that!

Singapore Punches above its weight for many Google Searches

2006-05-11T11:22:00.000+08:00

Google Trends allowing one to sort through several years of Google search queries from around the world to get a general idea of everything from user preferences on ice-cream flavors to the relative popularity of politicians in their respective cities or countries.

It's incredible that a small country like Singapore appears on top for so many search terms... For example, just take `Honda Odyssey' as a search term, and you see Singapore beating the USA in frequency of searches. Just click here: http://www.google.com/trends?q=honda+odyssey

Horrific embarassment too... the answer to `Who searches the word `fuck' most?' turns out to be Iran! http://www.google.com/trends?q=fuck&ctab=1&date=all&geo=all

More revelations! Pakistanis, Egyptians and Iranians seem to be most interested in `SEX', Australians are most interested in `Porn', India, Iran and Singapore are most interested in `nanotechnology', Hong Kong and Singapore are tops with `Nikon', and India and Singapore are neck to neck tops for searching `Microsoft'.

Note that all the above, is not a percentage, but true blue absolute numbers of searches from the countries mentioned. It's crazy how Singapore with merely 4.5 million people can actually reach the top for some terms. For Nikon, I would think that Singapore being one of the few trans-shipment point for cameras in the world, Nikon would arguably be greatly searched for, but the search term `Microsoft' - wow, that boggles the mind.

Possibly, Singaporeans now might be the MOST ONLINE PEOPLE in the world who use English as their search language of choice. Certainly, this phenomenon deserves more study.

EDIT: It's now clear what's happened. After numerous posts in the forums from irate users who were getting confusing results, Google put a footnote in the search results. http://www.google.com/trends/about.html#4

Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each
city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city.

Means that my statement `Note that all the above, is not a percentage, but true blue absolute numbers of searches from the countries mentioned' is totally wrong. Might be that Google will let us have the absolute numbers thing in the future. So now we know that it IS a ratio, it IS a percentage. And our perceptions have to vary as such.

Seems sensible. Ratios are informative as to the interest of the countries. Now, it merely seems that Singaporeans, each of them, do use Google a lot and hit it with lots of search terms.

Great articles on automotive brakes in June 2006 Sport Compact Car

2006-05-11T10:21:00.000+08:00

Among all automotive upgrades, the brake upgrade is among the most misunderstood. There're 2 great articles on the June06 SCC magazine. So happens a discussion on rear brake upgrades appeared in the Carma forum, so a reply was posted here: http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?p=17539814#post17539814

Excerpts:

Read these 2 articles:
Project Scion tCPart II: Bolt-on Brakes for Geeks

The TruthWe Bust a Dozen Common Street Tuning Myths

OK just a summary:

1) Braking distance is hugely a function of tyre friction. Changing pad helps little, because you can always press the brake harder. Most of the time, tyre friction is the bottleneck and the pad friction is far far greater than tyre friction, so solve the tyre friction first before going to brake.

2) There is only 1 way to shorten brake distance by brake upgrade, is to use the rear brakes a bit more so that the rear tyres' friction can be taken into consideration. But it must be a good balance, because if you up your rear brake torque too much, car will spin (this statement is subject to electronics, below). (edit: Incidentally, a hose upgrade from rubber-only to steel braided, will decrease braking distance by a couple of metres since most of the hose balooning will be eliminated, converting all pedal pressure to servo assisted braking pressure)

3) In order to correct badly off brake balance, many people use brake proportioning valve method. However, this is NOT TRUE for cars with Electronic Brake-Force Distribution systems.

4) For cars with EBD, you DO NOT NEED TO CARE SO MUCH ABOUT BRAKE BALANCE LIAO! All you have to do is to increase braking torque everywhere, starting with the rears, and the rear will NOT lock up in a way which will compromise stability. YOU WILL decrease the braking distance significantly because you will now be using maximum stopping potential of the rear tyres.

5) The major benefit of using big brake upgrade for front, is NOT to lower the braking distance, but rather so that if you brake on track, the heat dissipation will be better and you will not have so much brake fade problem.

So in a brake upgrade, please check whether your car got EBD or not. If not, I think better don't touch because once you go into brake proportioning valve is a nightmare without experienced hands helping you out. If got ABD, just upgrade the rear first for maximum bang for the buck, then do front so that you can go on track to race.

Sandisk will NOT make Apple Sour

2006-05-10T10:20:00.000+08:00

Everybody wants a piece of Apple pie. Creative tried, but the price was high and yet they have just bought themselves a small piece and it tasted sour, slightly less sour than a $200M hit. Sony did try, after all they INVENTED the Walkman segment, and thank goodness they decided to concentrate more on the highly successful MP3 Phones instead.

Now Sandisk wants a try. Strangely, they are trying using nothing more sophisticated than evolutionary styling changes, giving a `cool' name (sansa??? Come on!) and hitting on the old price-performance argument.

Innovation is definitely necessary to survive in the MP3 arena, but after watching Apple and reluctantly cheering them on for years, I think the crucial areas where innovation breeds maximum returns, is the `usage paradigm' and `radical design' aread. Apple has consistently innovated in these areas spot on, and kept the successful innovations - their touchpad rotating selector system was incredible and until now hardly duplicated, their iTunes radically destroyed the folder paradigm in favour of the playlist paradigm, and each new design coming out from Apple, though so much more infrequent than its competitors, drew a WOW from all because of its radical nature. Somehow, it was also important that Apple maintained product stability by not offering too many models and model design changes.

As long as competitors do not take into consideration and address Apple's strengths, they won't get apple pie.

nVidia 7600GS - now we know it's every bit a 7600GT

2006-05-09T10:29:00.000+08:00

We received a 7600GS card from XpertVision with a twist - it has GDDR3 memory instead of the more common (and slower) DDR2 memory. Just a casual playing with the card, yielded us incredible results - a core clock of 540MHz and a memory clock of 750MHz x2 (1500MHz). This is pretty incredible for a card which cost so much less than a 7600GT.

Finally, it's now clear. The 7600GS is probably the same chip as the 7600GT, minus nothing. Hail the new king of the mid-high end, for a true mid-level price.

The company which knows EXACTLY what new businesses to venture into

2006-05-09T10:00:00.000+08:00

Probably the best business in the world. With the entire world hitting Google with search terms, Google has full cognizance of what's in and what's out in today's world, almost in real time to a definite exactness.

How can a company with the best brains and the most accurate database of what's closest to the hearts of its users lose? It would have omnipotent knowledge and with its cash, an even greater degree of omnipotence in execution. How could any company dare to innovate in the same space as Google, without the exhaustiveness of knowledge and the cash to do it? Even Microsoft itself might not be able to!

BMW's new ad campaign

2006-05-08T10:24:00.000+08:00

An interesting thread from the BMW-SG forums:

http://www.bmw-sg.com/forums/bmw-singapore-motoring-life/9360-bmw-slams-competitors-new-ad-campaign.html

Courtesy of BMW AG
-----------
NO. The ability to say no to compromise is a rare thing these days. Many companies would like to be able to say it, but so few have the autonomy to actually do it. As an independent company, BMW can say no. No, we will not compromise our ideas. No, we will not do it the way everyone else does it. No, we will not factor designs down to the lowest common denominator. No, we will not sell out to a parent company who will meddle in our affairs and ask us to subject our cars to mass market vanilla-ism. Because we can say no to compromise, we can say yes to other things - such as building our vehicles with 50/50 weight distribution for superior handling and control, despite the fact that it costs more to build them that way. It's thousands of little things like this that separate BMW from other car companies. By maintaining our autonomy and ability to say no, we can make sure great ideas live on to become ultimate driving machines.

My comments, and also mirroring comments from follow-up posts in the same thread:

1) Electric power steering - compromise steering feel in favour of petrol consumption

2) Active Steering (actually, invented by Toyota in Land Cruiser WAAAAY back before BMW's Active steering) - compromise is to make it easy to park at the expense of steering feel and predictability

3) Run-flat tyres - sacrifice ride and feel in favour of cost savings and to make a bigger boot?

I don't mind a company making rational compromises, in fact, all industry is based on compromises, but when a company makes compromises and then advertises that it is uncompromising, that's a little weird to me. And worse, if one claims that it resisted all compromises to make a car with 50-50 chassis balance, and yet this 50-50 chassis balance is of questionable value as supergreenhorn mentioned, then ... it's very very borderline vulgar marketing.

Here's more on 50-50 chassis balance:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/greglocock/5050.htm

clearly the best weight distribution for lateral acceleration is somewhere between 50 and 60%.

An interesting comment on the actual vote share of the Singapore Parliamentary Elections

2006-05-08T09:55:00.000+08:00

Q4 is a poster I really don't know much about, but his insights (to somebody who doesn't really care - me) are pretty spot-on.

In a comment about the official vote-share of the PAP in the 2006 Singapore Elections - 66.6% - an interesting point to note is that the 66.6% of the popular vote was alread relatively low, but taking into consideration the Singapore Democratic Party putting weak candidates into the polls and losing terribly, he thinks it is not really the true percentage.

The percentage will even be lower if the votes cast in consitituencies which the SDP contested in were excluded. And this is pretty good insight.

More reasons on why Microsoft will lose to Google

2006-05-05T13:54:00.000+08:00

Excellent article in the Inquirer, Microsoft will lose to Google, mostly about Microsoft's not having any friends to help it out.

I believe though, that WHY it will lose, is rather because as a corporation, it has no understanding of the new world centered around web applications and content. After decades of making operating systems, platforms, etc. and failing to make it work easily, the old technophobes, who always envied computer-wielding technophiles but never could hold a candle to them, have embraced a version of computer tech so insulated from the hardcore tech - it's called the Internet New Media. With the Internet New Media, the old technophobes have become the new net-savvy generation, along with some of the technophiles too.

The irony is that the Internet Media has little to do with Tech from the perspective of the user. It's all about content and the presentation and collation and distribution of the same. The ever overflowing babbling of all the inhabitants of cyberspace, the dribble from the forummers, the rapid fire posts of the demagogues ... coming to us all in emails, forum posts, XML/RSS feeds, mailing lists, blogsites, newsfeeds, Google search results, customized home pages, you name it.

And Microsoft has spent the last few decades making us tools to make this content. Nothing to do with the actual content - the closest its Office Suite has come to content presentation and manipulation is probably the Excel pivot-table - the irrelevance of which to the internet is beyond the scope of discussion here.

So Microsoft is in a different business, a dying business. The new webapps are easy to use, meaningful to use and, as in the case of my sudden blogging, INSPIRING TO USE. Does Microsoft know? Sure, some rocket scientists inside surely KNOW THIS, even better than me. But what of the thousands of employees it has, in the USA, in Singapore, in any of its offices in the world, who spend their days pushing papers, making presentations, forwarding emails, watching their stocks perform on http://finance.google.com and basically, doing all that is banal and less of what humans do best - think. It's not that they can't, but in any corporation not geared to think, any corporation which doesn't put Creativity on a pedestal to pray to, the default setting ensures a prohibition on independent thought.

Can Microsoft start to put Creativity on the prayer altar? After decades of making and refining decades old concepts like word processors and spreadsheets, I'll wager NO as the answer.

Microsoft will lose. But not to Google, just to itself.

Since technophobes have WAY outnumbered technophiles

Singapore Politics and the Internet's New Media

2006-05-05T10:28:00.000+08:00

Posted here is a thread very lightly touching on the Singapore elections 2006. http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?p=17539474#post17539474

I felt that since everybody is in the throes of election fever, it is fitting that a bit of research on the legality of Internet content in old and new media focussing on politics appear here.

In the early days of the internet, I remember that it was stated by government that it was permitted that one makes a website on anything, but it must not include illegal content and political content, unless one were a political party and licensed to do so. When I say forbidden in the beginning, it refers to individuals, not licensed political parties.

References to the paragraph above:
http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2001/yax-244.htm

The SBA’s Class Licence Scheme defines a category called "Internet Content
Providers", and says, "Internet Content Providers (ICPs) do not need to register
with SBA unless their web pages are primarily set up to promote political or
religious causes. Registration does not mean the promotion of political and
religious causes is not allowed - it merely serves to emphasise the need for the
content providers to be responsible in what they say."

Interestingly, the paragraph continues,
"For non-political and
non-religious Content Providers, they are automatically licensed under the Class
Licence Scheme and need to abide by SBA's Internet Code of Practice…."

A short summary after clarifications:

The effect of all this is to divide our citizens into two categories: those
licensed to make political speeches and send political messages, and everybody
else who should only listen and not speak, lest they fall afoul of suitably
vague rules. Once again, politics is reserved for politicians (which of course
shall be of two kinds – those in the PAP and those who suffer the PAP).
The average citizen will get the message, loud clear, that he should not use
electronic means to tell his friends his party preference; he must never endorse
any candidate.

The case for licensed political parties is different:

In 2001, there were additional guidelines on internet use for political campaigning. Now in May 2006, with the anti-podcast BS by the elections department (which really does not include much justification) it has even become more `forbidden'.

Before the hoo-haa, here's a good link which foresees this issue of AV streaming:
Singapore: New Media, Politics & the Law http://singaporemedia.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_singaporemedia_archive.html

Note these parts about individuals:

An individual who receives a campaign message from a party and then forwards it
to a group list would be in violation of the PEA. In effect, these rules limit
the “viral” effect of the internet, slowing down the spread of campaign
messages.

All this being said, I must clearly state that all this is merely research I posted here. In no way is it stated here whether I agree or disagree (though my statement about the lack of objective justification holds as my personal opinion).

When I was young, I was part of a group which made a parliamentary representation for the Computer Misuse Act. It became law, I think, but that law was faulty. However much or little our group contributed to its passing being law, whether we were noticed or not, I regret not working harder to find the problems with CMA thing. Now on hindsight, it's a faulty law of no value.

Now that I'm no longer young, I know that unless I dedicate my life to politics, I should not make any rash judgments and regret the effect later. In a blog post or forum post, what I can do is to offer some rudimentary research, not a concrete proposal.

Creative - long overdue losses reported

2006-05-04T12:40:00.000+08:00

I think this is long overdue:

Creative, which is facing an uphill battle against the Apple iPod, reported a
net loss of 114.33 million US dollars in the three months to March, reversing
the year-ago profit of 15.91 million dollars.

This is overdue. Creative speakers are never recommended on any forum. Their X-Fi cards create incompatibilites with the nVidia nForce4 chipset by refusing to share resources. Whether it's the motherboard manufacturer's fault or Creative's fault, Creative was later, they should have worked around the problem. Well it's their loss - the people who bought motherboards with nForce4 chipsets, who are actually the main target segment of the X-Fi enthusiast sound cards, didn't bother much with the X-Fi.

With the entire enthusiast community not bothering much with good sound cards anymore, instead relying on the SPDIF digital audio bypassing the analog audio circuits and leaving the external amplifier to handle the digital to analog conversion. Why bother with a good sound card, actually? If you want good sound, the external amplifier's digital audio receiver circuit would be better than any, or at least at par.

The flash memory market is a huge casino, with odds of price drops far higher than price stability or price increases. And Creative actually builds MP3 players, though in form a `build to order' model, yet offers their channel price protection. Distributors are not fools. It's a crazy decision to stock flash-based MP3 players without price protection.

To compound the problem, Creative makes MP3 players in all the colors of the rainbow - and that's a recipe for a huge inventory problem. This is however, an insidious problem, and is difficult to trace from normal performance metrics.

What next for Creative? Man, I don't know. They don't pay me to consult! But it has to be this: they have to get better people into management. People with really current market and web feel. Multidisciplinary people, and people who are proof of the politics. Outspoken fearless people. And Creative gotta do it really quickly.

But for a company with still so many millions in the bank (est. US$250M ???) it's not difficult to reinvent itself IF IT WANTS TO. So many current opportunities now, including new netphones, web engines which Google left out, a platform for mobile audio, A2DP speakers, etc. Why bother to fight the brutal MP3 war if the result is already settled years ago - Apple won.

Ego has a lot to do with it. Ego is good, but in this sense, suicidal.

Google is full!

2006-05-04T12:10:00.000+08:00

Check out this statement by Eric Schmidt in http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/04/google_bigdaddy_chaos/:

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has hinted at another reason for the
recent chaos. In Google's earnings conference call last month, Schmidt was frank
about the extent of the problem. "Those machines are full," he said. "We have a huge machine crisis."

And here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/21/business/GOOGLE.php

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has hinted at another reason for the recent chaos. In Google's earnings conference call last month, Schmidt was frank about the extent of the problem. "Those machines are full," he said. "We have a huge machine crisis."

Like the rest of the Google cheerleaders around the world, I always assumed Google to just have to add new cheap machines to their borg network and voila, a few terabytes cheap new storage, without a worry of the machines failing or data loss. This is a huge surprise to me, that they can actually be full. So it's back to earth now for a company invaded by Aliens and enhanced using Alien technology.

Now that we're back on earth, I wonder - CAN GOOGLE EVER KEEP UP WITH THE WEB? CAN ONE COMPANY HAVE ENOUGH MACHINES TO INDEX THE ENTIRE WORLD?

Way back in Altavista, they planned to keep the entire web in one machine's silicon memory. Now that this is clearly rubbish, let's wait on the future to tell us whether google is rubbish.

How the heck can the US car industry respond so quickly to these rule changes?

2006-05-04T11:34:00.000+08:00

Lately, the US was pretty much slow on emissions control while Europe and parts of Asia based on Euro X emissions regulations were tightening emissions regulations rapidly. Then now the US Attorney General himself whacks the Administration for tighter regulations.

This is pretty dire news for the American manufacturers, whose engines are antique - they got away with it for years by bypassing tight emissions regs by using the SUV=TRUCKS loophole - while the Japanese and European with their ultra-high-tech engines borne of Euro and Japanese regulations will probably rule the roost for years to come if Eliot Spitzer pulls this off.

In the light of my previous post about the horrendous sales showing of the American auto manufacturers, a further whammy courtesy of Spitzer may well do the Americans a favour by forcing them into what I see as inevitable - don't do the dirty manufacturing work, just design and market the stuff. Leave the manufacturing to the slittly eyed yellow skinned people.

Japanese Auto Manufacturers vs the World

2006-05-04T11:10:00.000+08:00

After seeing these two articles:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/206241/1/.html
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/206272/1/.html

Not surprising, but that a long overdue final confirmation of the decline of auto manufacturing in the US.

All is not rosy for the Japanese though. After trying to understand the Japanese for years, and still learning, my take on the Japanese auto industry is this: while cars are still customized bespoke products without a generic cross-industry platform and industry standard mechanical specification for building cars, yes, the Japanese are KING and will not be toppled by the Koreans or the Chinese. The Japanese actually do these things cheaper than anybody in the world - bespoke customized platformless things.

Once a industry platform arises (much like Windows is a platform for all computers) Japan will fall faster than a falling brick, replaced by China. The traditional understanding that the Japanese cannot innovate and do best in a standards based industry - eg. manufacturing fax machines - is to a large degree false. At the risk of gross oversimplification, the Japanese do innovate, and their edge over the rest of the world is their attention to detail. They do best in an industry of manufacturing products of bespoke design, without standards links to many other things outside the parameters of the product, and innovate within the rules of the game.

However, I'm fully convinced that nobody can make a platform besides the Americans, other nations' language capabilities, human resources, and most importantly, sales capability, are insufficiently well developed anywhere else in the world.

In short, ONLY the Americans can create GLOBAL platforms.

But GM, Ford and Daimlerchrysler will not make the platforms. They are too old school. A new force will have to arise, but it will be very unlikely looking at the state of the industry and the current American business attitude of short-term gain at the expense of long term planning.

So possibly Japan will forever be the world's best and most cost effective car manufacturer.

More discussion here:
http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?p=17539415#post17539415

This is pretty much an archive of my forum posts

2006-05-02T12:30:00.000+08:00

Earlier, I was wondering how one who spends so much time and effort at the forums make a blog. Just blogging in my own style for a few days, I realised even more clearly that a blog can be a purified distillation of one's forum posts.

With that, I also realised that this blog would be pretty much an archive of my forum posts. I forum so much and most of my energy is spent towards creating forum posts, and ends up that this blog will have quite a lot of content :)

A little bit more neutral commentary here though. And of course, one can't beat the permanency of your own blog compared to a forum where your posts can just be deleted at someone else's whim.

Showboating in Forums

2006-05-02T11:21:00.000+08:00

There was a thought provoking post in the Carma forums last week by weng, who mentioned that the English used was so flowery that if he read through the entire thread, his english would have improved substantially. Well, things are not so easy, my post reproduced here: (Non Singlish readers may want to email me at michaeltanyk@gmail.com for a translation :) )

http://forum.carma.com.sg/showpost.php?p=17539201&postcount=71

Sometimes, conflict forces one to stretch the capabilities of their english lah... sometimes stretch to distortion liao.... But the honest thing is this: Sometimes people use bombastic and chim words, and cliches and bromides and banal phrases, to sound impressive and to hide the low quality content of the message. They depend on this kind of language to stop the other party from responding.

For people whose native language is not english, they usually do not comment, and the people who use this kind of chim words try to sound impressive to the non-native english readers, and depend on these readers not to realise the content of the message at all, so even if one is losing the real argument, most readers will not think so.

This does not work in USA and UK forums though, so if one posts this way in those forums, they get SCREWED so bad they so pai seh. They can only do it in SG forums, at least for the next 10 years.

I may also be guilty of this. After a life of forumming, perhaps since 1988, this kind of thing become instinctive liao.

Testing the post by email feature

2006-04-29T12:19:00.000+08:00

OK it works! I can post by email now! Seems that it would only send to blogger as a draft, not realtime publish, and I need to manually publish it. Cool, though! Thanks to punisher86@gmail.com for helping me out here.

This is bold. This is Italics. This is normal.

And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture.

And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture. And this is a test of inline picture.

A BMW marketing-engineering-legislation quandary - Pedestrian Protection

2006-04-29T11:39:00.000+08:00

This is the bugger which got me banned at BMW-SG. Since my ban, so many well wishers have emailed and PM'ed to me saying that they liked some of my posts, and wanted to post a note of appreciation for a nice evening of forumming. I thanked them all (sincerely!) but asked them to post their opinions on the forum, and I thought that this quote was pretty true in the present context: The only condition necessary for evil to thrive, is when good men do nothing.

Anyway, here's the URL:

http://www.bmw-sg.com/forums/bmw-singapore-motoring-life/9190-another-bmw-marketing-engineering-legislation-quandary-pedestrian-protection.html

Just a copy of my post over there in case it gets deleted, here's for posterity:

I mentioned a quandary before, that BMW marketing for its inline-6 I suspect is compromising the packaging of their cars, where a V6 would have given them much more room and engine toughness (no need so long crankshaft) .... let's take a look at their overhangs now. As you probably already know, the 3- (E90) 5- (E60) series have cored VERY badly in terms of pedestrian protection in event of collision.
3-series: http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=3&id2=225
Quote:
pedestrian protection was very poor
5-series: http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=4&id2=208
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the car’s ability to protect pedestrians was dire
So, many manufacturers, including Toyota (GS, Camry, IS), Honda (civic, Legend), Nissan, Renault, Alfa (new 159) have designed their new cars to improve on the pedestrian safety perspective, by:
1) increasing the length of their front overhangs to create a buffer zone for pedestrian protection in front of the car, and
2) by using a 4-cylinder or a low profile V6, they have created some space between their engine bonnet and the engine itself to create a buffer there also. (see footnote also, below).
But both these features are opposite to BMW's `virtues'.
1) They boast a short front overhang saying that it promotes handling, but it kills pedestrians since the pedestrian will hit the hard engine without the luxury of a buffer zone of a longer overhang.
2) they market their I6 engine as the greatest form of engine,
but it kills pedestrians as a I6 engine is fundamentally taller, and it is impossible to create that buffer zone (eg. the M3 E46 actually had to tilt the I6 to fit their engine bay!)
How can they overcome the quandary? Or, will they continue to compromise pedestrian safety if they decide that their customer demographics do not care too much about pedestrian safety in relation to driving enjoyment? Or, hopefully, is there a link anywhere which will show us a preview of BMW's engineering principles they will employ to solve the problem?
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footnote:Toyota's engine designed with
pedestrian protection in mind:http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.toyota.co.jp%2Fjp%2Ftech%2Fnew_cars%2Fmarkx%2Fability%2Fpower_train%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
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Furthermore, new it adjusts to the hood which is designed, new designs also the surge tank, and the like by the fact that it makes the structure which guarantees clearance between the hood and the engine, the case of personal accident of 10001 it contributes to the shocking relief to the pedestrian

Launch!!!

2006-04-29T10:43:00.000+08:00

I've resisted making a blog for so long. I thought blogs were for people who didn't use forums. And I've got my hands full with forums:

http://forums.hardwarezone.com The biggest tech forum in Singapore, perhaps Asia, perhaps the world
http://forum.carma.com.sg A fledgling car forum with some smart brains in there and some car virgins
http://www.bmw-sg.com/forums An established BMW forum in Singapore now overrun by brand fanatics (I just got banned for raising and arguing the issue of NCAP Pedestrian Safety ratings and BMW's difficulty in rasing their rating from `dire')

Forums are so fast, so interactive, so easy to use, so why the heck should I make a blog?

Well in time, I realised these points:

I don't own the forums. Bums can erase my stuff at whim. I could sue, but it's questionable.
I find it beneficial to camp at some blogs to gain some insight. Some of these blogs are crap but still after reading them something connects
A blog would be ideal to amalgamate some of my thoughts in one place, since most people don't usually dig through so many forums and thousands of threads just to find out what I think and stand for, whether they be fans or enemies.
It has occured to me that blogspot may survive a nuclear war which may wipe out my usual forum servers. Which is relevant today, since Iran now has a centrifuge can refine small amounts of almost pure Uranium 235, uranium being something they have in quantity. Thank god it's still gonna be fission until we see a LiD plant to boost that.

Anyway, here goes. I don't know how to update this fast, but I'll work it out!