Aug/090
Virgin Media Broadband Traffic Management ‘SUCKS’
- Traffic Management
There has been a lot of activity in various forums about Virgin Media’s so called Traffic Management system, I hadn’t come across it, let alone heard about it until I fell foul of it recently.
This systems runs at peak times, and basically throttles your broadband for 5 hours if you download too much, well too much according to Virgin is 750mb, that means a 10mbps connection is throttled to 2.5mbps for that 5 hours.
Let’s say on a Saturday night you fancy watching an HD film from the ones on offer on Xbox Live, they weight in at about 1.2gb, you can watch half the movie until your connection slows making the rest unwatchable.
This is comparable to driving your car at 75mph for some of the journey and then you can only do 25mph because you’ve reach your maximum amount of mile for that day, ludicrous as it sounds this is exactly what Virgin are doing.
So you’re paying £25 per month for this fast 10mbps connection but some of the time you can only surf at 2.5mbps, dose this sound fair?
Well the bottom line for me is that I’m not paying £25 per month for a 10mbps connection when it’s running at 2.5mbps at a time when I need it, might as well pay a £7 a month for an O2 connection at 3.6mbps, lucky for me my contract is up with Virgin so they’re going to loose my business.
You can read Vigin’s information on Traffice Management here http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php
Any comments?
Aug/090
Novation’s Automap VST Controller for the iPhone
Novation’s Automap has already revolutionised the way we control music production software now. Automap is set to do the same with the iPhone and iPod touch.
The power behind Novation’s award-winning SL MkII, SL Compact and Nocturn MIDI controllers is now available for your iPhone / iPod touch, providing an instant and intelligent, wireless, palm-sized MIDI controller. Now you can use iPhone / iPod touch to control all of your music making software.
Aug/090
iPhone Push Email App
GPush is the missing link between GMail and the iPhone. For the first time, receive instant Gmail message notifications on the iPhone. For best results, place the GPush app icon above your mail icon – this will allow you to quickly open your mail app if new messages come in through GPush.
Aug/090
What’s in store for HDMI 1.4
This latest version of the HDMI specification will, among other advancements, offer networking capabilities with Ethernet connectivity and will add an Audio Return Channel to enable upstream audio connections via the HDMI cable.
Version 1.4 will support such additions as an Enthernet Channel for high-speed bi-directional data, Audio Return, 4k x 2k Colour as used in many Digital Cinemas and 3DTV, allowing dual channel 1080p.
Aug/090
Aspect Ratios – A Wider Vision
Aspect ratio is becoming more widely talked about, particularly with the advent of high quality DVD. Most DVD’s contain a couple of different versions of the movie, in different aspect ratios. What is it, and why does it matter? In simplest terms the aspect ratio of a movie is the size of hole you look at it through, or more explicitly, the ratio between the width and the height of that hole. If this all sounds as boring as logarithms wait till it gets complicated.
Jul/090
Avatar
Avatar
AVATAR takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption, discovery and unexpected love, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.Release Date: 18th December 2009
Official Site: http://www.avatarmovie.com/
My Take: 3D movie from James Cameron, well most of you have seen the trailer, I myself was a little underwhelmed to be honest, the guys in the walker tanks are a little reminiscent of Ripley in her loader from Aliens and the Walking Tanks in Matrix Revolutions, the cgi looked a little too computer game to me, just my 2cents, I guess December 18th will tell.
Official Trailer on-line http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/
Jul/090
Tron Legacy
Tron Legacy
Sean Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is the 20-something son of Tron protagonist Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), whose curiosity about his father’s disappearance leads him to the now-abandoned site of Kevin’s old arcade. Inside the old building, Sean is transported into the Computer World and embarks on an adventure in which he learns what has happened to his father, and of the shocking new threat to the Computer World.
Release Date: 2010
My Take: The VFX trailer looks stunning, looking forward to this is 3D towards the end of 2010.
Jul/091
High Definition Audio
There are several HD Audio formats available and at this time the only way to enjoy these is via a Blu Ray player, these formats can then be passed to a capable AV AMP, such as the top selling Onkyo SR507.
| Dolby Digital Plus | Dolby TrueHD | DTS-HD High Resolution | DTS-HD Master Audio | Linear PCM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bit rate | 6.144Mbps | 18Mbps | 6Mbps | 24.5Mbps | 27.6Mbps |
| Bit depth | 24 bit | 24 bit | 24 bit | 24 bit | 24 bit |
| Sample rate | 48Khz | 96Khz | 96Khz | 96Khz* | 192Khz |
| Channels | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7.1 |
Jul/090
Surrogates
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates.
Release Date: 25th September 2009
Official Site: http://chooseyoursurrogate.com/
My Take: iRobot anyone! Nah just kidding, this looks pretty good, Bruce Willis is always good in a SciFi flick, 5th Element is one of my all time favorites.
Jul/090
Gamer
Gamer
Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player from a game called “Slayers” looks to regain his independence while taking down the game’s mastermind.
Release Date: 4th September 2009
Official Site: http://gamerthemovie.com/
My Take: Reminds me a little of Running Man and Death Race, could be worth a watch, will keep blog updated when I’ve seem more.