What do you mean the window size? If you mean the box on the page, it shouldn't stay the same size.

In a lot of cases it does seem that way; that is not YouTube's fault though. A lot of cameras that will save in HD resolutions don't have HD sensors so use interpolation and various tricks to increase the res. Even those that do have HD sensors often don't look HD due to poor focusing etc. I'm also pretty sure some people who capture in SD upscale before uploading. I have seen some really good HD uploads onto YouTube, be it in 1080p or 720p, but most of them, as you say look little different than 480p (or sometimes even 360p)

I'm fairly sure that's not what munzli meant, but when the discussion is about video quality from consoles it makes no difference anyway - the signal used is the same so the phrase "which is as good as HDMI for me." is pretty moot; they have the same video signal so of course it's as good. Support for things like 12-bit is only available on HDMI 1.3 (not all HDMI 1.3 devices though, such as the PS3, which doesn't utilise it)*, but since all consoles use 8-bit colour it is irrelevant. YCbCr offers no improvement in quality or colour depth, it is simply a different way of encoding the picture. Besides, the only console that supports it is the PS3 and that's only when video files are natively encoded in YCbCr.

In a nut shell, when talking within the context of consoles, DVI and HDMI are the same (assuming the DVI connector used supports HDCP) other than the audio capabilities, as munzli said.

*Just to be clear, just in case you are under the misconception, the "full range RGB" used by the PS3 and 360 refers to using the full 0-255 range of bits instead of 16-235 used by many TVs, not 12-bit.

What SDTV has DVI?

As for the expense of high-quality analogue cables, it's usually not that high unless you go ridiculous quality or Monster cables. The VGA cable that was included with my monitor (READ: cheap) is almost indistinguishable from DVI and my setup is right next to my Wi-Fi router, so there's quite a lot of interference. More expensive cables (maybe £10 or so for 2m) are even better. There is no inherent difference between analogue and digital in terms of quality.

P.S. Generally speaking even the highest quality cables for consoles are not up to par with much cheaper non-console equivalents - you are paying for the unique connector (which raises costs due to lack of ability to mass-produce to the same level) and with official cables the badge as well. As a side note the best console component cable I've used is the GameCube one. It is a fairly chunky cable so presumably is well shielded and shows no visible interference almost all the time. The one I use for the PS2 on the other hand (official PS3 one) certainly has evidence of it, being less well shielded.

Well that's just plain false. If you are comparing a specific analogue signal to a specific digital one then sure, it's valid, but to say there is an inherent difference (presumably in quality) between analogue and digital is false. Comparing the Wii's component output to the PS3's or 360's HDMI would certainly put the PS3 or 360 ahead, but in general it is possible to get just as good a signal from analogue as digital if you are using the right standard - VGA for example. VGA is capable of the same depth of colour, refresh rates, resolutions etc as DVI/HDMI. AFAIK the only real differences to the user are it's lack of 12-bit colour (which consoles don't even use anyway) and the fact that interference can cause noise in the signal. With a properly shielded cable, VGA will give an identical picture to DVI/HDMI at 1080p (1920x1080@60Hz, 8-Bit colour). The main reasons component is beaten by HDMI is that a) most TVs don't support 1080p over component; this is due to the movie studios wanting the DRM available on HDMI for 1080p video and b) component outputs in a range equivalent to 16-235 or something in that vicinity and often the resolution of the colour components (Pb and Pr) is lower resolution than the luma (Y). This is not because it is analogue, but because due to the specific YPbPr standard.

Besides when using an SDTV as the GP said, I'd like to see you find a HDMI port. The PS3 and 360 may be better overall solutions, but if you have an SDTV the best you will get is component (YPbPr) or RGB SCART, depending on your location, so the quality should be identical, or at least pretty close (depending on the cable quality and the software).

That sounds to me pretty much like the Steam business model.

The amount of money Valve's got out of me by putting games on sale for 40%, 20% or even 10% of their normal sale price is ridiculous; most of them I wouldn't have bought if not for the sales. When digital media is concerned, once it is made there is no cost beyond server maintenance etc. If you have normal pricing most of the time the early adopters will pay and you will get normal sales numbers and make a moderate amount money. Lower the price later on and people will be more likely to pay and seeing as it's not the new hotness it can only drive interest. Have a sale at 10% normal cost and you maybe get 100x the number of normal sales, so 10x the normal income from the cheap-skates and impulse-buyers. I don't have a link to the actual stats, but from what I've read about the profit margins on steam sales, my figures are fairly conservative.

Of course games and movies aren't the same - you don't have quite the same "new hotness" factor with movies, so sales would have to be less extreme, but other than that it's pretty much the same and the lower price of movies compared to games would more than make up for it anyway.

I may be wrong, but to me it seems that logically a "checkuser" cannot establish innocence in any way.

As far as I understand it, it checks IPs and other info from servers, so basically allows you to see who a person is. It can tell you if someone has the same IP or is the same user on an ISP at best. The problem is that this can change.

If two accounts have the same info, then it is either the same person, or two different people using the same account on the same ISP (like to people in one house sharing a connection). If other evidence is there, then it is pretty good evidence that one account is a sock-puppet or a meat-puppet. If someone changes ISP, their IP and other identifying info will be different. As a result, if it come up negative for IP etc there are two possibilities: sock-puppet using a different connection (a friends, wi-fi hotspot etc) or an innocent. Therefore, a check-user cannot establish innocence, only guilt, since negative result != different person. Should "negative" users be given the benefit of the doubt? Probably. If further evidence presents itself (sock-puppet-like behavior continues to happen), then no.

I'm fairly sure laws regarding grievous bodily harm override EULAs, but I may be wrong. Guess I was just being a bit crazy

I really don't think you mean literally there. That would likely be illegal.

It would seem I also missed the fact that you were the parent just now...damn the lack of an edit button.

I did. Perhaps I didn't phrase my post clearly enough (I was in a hurry). I wasn't using the numbers from the article, I was trying to explain why percentages don't matter when it comes to how much money you save. I was using a different hypothetical scenario. All I was trying to do was show that two different scenarios can save a different percentage of the initial usage (for that car), the actual saving in gallons/dollars/environmental impact is the same.

The parent to my post seemed to think that it was about percentage difference (which it could be if you take the overall use by both cars, but not on a per-car basis) not absolute volume of petrol (gas) saved. Notice that I never mentioned the figures from the article, only hypothetical figures which were chosen purely because they would both give a saving of 2 gallons per 100 miles. In MPG of those examples would obviously translate to 20mpg -> ~33.34mpg and ~14.29mpg -> 20mpg.

Looking at the parent again now, I think I may have misread it the first time, so my post was kinda pointless anyway (as I said I was in a hurry, so I obviously read it too quickly or something).

The question still has nothing to do with percentages or proportions of the initial value. Going from 5gallons/100miles to 3gallons/100miles saves 2 gallons, and saves 40% of the fuel used initially. Going from 7gallons/100miles to 5gallons/100miles saves 2 gallons, and saves ~28.6% of the fuel used initially. The first cuts the percentage by much more, but the actual petrol (gas) saved is the same, so the price difference and the pollution difference are the same. Percentages like that are only useful when comparing two things with the same initial value (since both are essentially calibrated to the same scale).

Probably by asking "But will it run Crysis?"

I don't really care if you like it. Unless you can convince me that my gripes are invalid or that they are outweighed by the positives (they would have to be significantly outweighed) the point is moot. I don't care if you can add a clickwheel for the iPhone, since it isn't supposed to be used that way (it's a smartphone, not a dedicated music player) and the fact that you can add your own controls doesn't make the UI better.

You can easily get a cheap IrDA dongle for under $30. In fact my TV tuner came with an IrDA receiver and a remote and it only cost £50 (about $75), so the remote and receiver probably cost me about £5-7 (~$8-10).

I don't exactly know what you mean by "a Tag program" but windows indexes files so they can be searched in much the same way as in OS X, allowing for the examples you gave (file type, file name, contents for certain file types etc). For the language thing you can use any character you want in windows filenames (other than those used by the filesytem such as slashes). If you want to search using Chinese characters you can. The only way in which languages aren't supported in that way is in the UI, and you can download language packs to do that (although I think it may be restricted to business/enterprise and ultimate editions).

Regardless, giving examples of things which do work does not negate the things that don't, so saying that "It just works" is still false. I don't deny that there are good things in Apple software or bad things in Microsoft software (in fact other than their OS most MS stuff is awful IMHO), just that the "It just works" claim is false (and other things such as their UI being simpler or better etc). Oh, and WE don't live in America. Maybe you do, but I live in the UK; don't make assumptions. Long live competition. Quick end to fanboys, zealots and evangelists.

Perhaps a UI or visual settings tab. There are other things which could go in there as well, such as the "keep mini player on top of all other windows" and "keep film window on top of all other windows". Wouldn't hurth them to add a few more options to the video player either (like UI timeout)

Well I'm no software engineer, but I get your point. not really the kind of thing that needs to be hidden away though.

I don't think that the amount of stuff it does is a problem. The problem is that the UI wasn't designed for it so they have just tacked on the additional features and options to the original UI. Things that made sense before don't due to awkward groupings and ambiguous labelling. That, and the UI was designed with far fewer options in mind.