[ home | about | dec'04 | nov'04 | 2004 | 2003 | rss feed ]

news of 2004-07-05

MacRumors' 2.5/2.0 GHz benchmark comparison flawed

As you can read here at MacBidouille (if you understand French), MacRumors is comparing apples and oranges (although both machines are by Apple) when showing a dual 2.5 GHz's Cinebench numbers (using a beta optimised for the G5) vs. a dual 2.0 GHz's numbers (using a non-optimised version). The 2.5's numbers are okay. But the 2.0 would do better using the same code.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-07-05 at 15:21 CET ]
[ contact (e-mail) ] - [ story link ] - [ back to top ]

2005: The Year of Movies?

Now let's see. DVD quality video, encoded with H.264. A 90 minute movie fits onto a CD-R if encoded by H.264. Including 3 language and 5 subtitle tracks. With broadband connections, such movies can be downloaded in acceptable amounts of time. Apple has the technology (QuickTime, iTMS) and the connections (Akamai for networking, Pixar for the movie industry) to do this. Will we buy H.264 (MP4 would make a good name for those) flicks for 10 USD (or 9.99 for marketing reasons) a piece in 2005?

Some people argue (even Steven P. Jobs) that while people want to buy music, they want to rent movies. While that might be a very generalising truth, there are also a lot of people who actually buy movies. A whole industry has been built around DVD sales. I'm pretty sure that licensing issues would be huge (well, at least as difficult as the music industry), but the music industry is just learning that 'the internet' is not only a danger (which it already also is for movies, not just music!) but also a means of cheap sales (i.e. no packaging required). And it's not as if the movie industry was made of entirely different people/companies, either...

So... I hope we'll see a convergence here. Let iTunes and iPhoto become iMedia (and give it a better name), let it handle your photos, your songs, your movies (iMovie!) - let it also be the player and store, of course - and voilà: Apple is your one-stop media shop and entertainment center. Will it happen? I don't expect an answer from you or myself. I expect one from Apple, though, one day.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-07-05 at 10:32 CET ]
[ contact (e-mail) ] - [ story link ] - [ back to top ]