Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
in [Digital Cameras]
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From: Peter on 2 Jul 2010 13:55 "David Ruether" <d_ruether(a)thotmail.com> wrote in message news:i0l89h$cv8$1(a)ruby.cit.cornell.edu... > > Now the only reason I can think of for "amateurs" to buy "bleeding edge" > computers is to edit memory card AVCHD video, which is VERY CPU > intensive work, unless one can tolerate a very low-quality preview window, > or defeat the advantages of quick transfer of files by making transcoded > larger files that the CPU can handle more easily while editing. Funny, > though, > that the output of tape-based HDV HD camcorders can be edited in real > time easily with the highest quality previewing on modest computers, and > the original tapes serve as excellent archiving media for the raw > material, > which often must be thrown out with card material for space reasons. > Ah, the wonders of marketing...! ;-) The difference in speed for CS5 on my new machine is opponent. OTOH my wife has an old Win98 machine that she uses strictly for Internet, email and word processing for her investment club. An upgrade would do nothing for her. -- Peter
From: Peter on 2 Jul 2010 14:05 "Peter" <peternew(a)nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message news:4c2e282a$0$5529$8f2e0ebb(a)news.shared-secrets.com... > "David Ruether" <d_ruether(a)thotmail.com> wrote in message > news:i0l89h$cv8$1(a)ruby.cit.cornell.edu... >> > > >> Now the only reason I can think of for "amateurs" to buy "bleeding edge" >> computers is to edit memory card AVCHD video, which is VERY CPU >> intensive work, unless one can tolerate a very low-quality preview >> window, >> or defeat the advantages of quick transfer of files by making transcoded >> larger files that the CPU can handle more easily while editing. Funny, >> though, >> that the output of tape-based HDV HD camcorders can be edited in real >> time easily with the highest quality previewing on modest computers, and >> the original tapes serve as excellent archiving media for the raw >> material, >> which often must be thrown out with card material for space reasons. >> Ah, the wonders of marketing...! ;-) > > > OTOH my wife has an old Win98 machine that she uses strictly for > Internet, email and word processing for her investment club. An upgrade > would do nothing for her. > Oops! That should have read: "The difference in speed for CS5 on my new machine is apparent." -- Peter
From: Tzortzakakis Dimitris on 2 Jul 2010 15:47 � "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ news:qY-dncdzV-fE8LDRnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d(a)giganews.com... > > "Doug McDonald" <mcdonald(a)scs.uiuc.edu> wrote in message > news:i0idd8$2g5$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... >> On 6/30/2010 11:32 AM, Neil Harrington wrote: >> >>> >>> Yes, it's amazing how HDDs have grown in capacity. My first one (about >>> 25 >>> years ago) was 30 megabytes (MEGABYTES!) and when I bought it I wondered >>> what I'd ever do with all that space. Now you couldn't even put an >>> operating >>> system on a drive that small. >>> >>> >> >> Really? The first hard disk I bought, in 1971, was 256KILObytes. And I >> knew >> I would soon fill it up ... the overflow was saved on AUDIO CASSETTES!! >> (And I still have that data, transferred to 8" floppies, then to 3 1/2 >> inch floppies, then to cd-roms.) > > Wow, way before my time. I remember when audio cassettes were used for > storage, but the only computer I ever actually saw using that method was a > Radio Shack "CoCo" (Color Computer). However, I think all Apple IIs > continued to keep the cassette port, long after users had abandoned > cassettes. > > When you could buy a great 140K floppy drive for only $500, who would want > to use cassettes? :-) > Yeah, it's amazing how technology improves. I remember the Reader's Digest anecdote from the '80s, that if cars advanced like comps, you could buy a car for $500, it would run for 6000 miles on a gallon of gasoline, and you could fit nine cars in a match box. My comp cost 750 euros, complete with screen, and it's a mere run of the mill comp, not a rocket science 5 1/4" floppy! -- Tzortzakakis Dimitrios major in electrical engineering mechanized infantry reservist hordad AT otenet DOT gr
From: Tzortzakakis Dimitris on 2 Jul 2010 15:53 � "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave(a)final.front.ear> ������ ��� ������ news:i0i1nm$90e$1(a)qmul... > > "Tzortzakakis Dimitris" <noone(a)nospam.com> wrote in message > news:i0huam$4ej$1(a)mouse.otenet.gr... >> >> � "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ >> news:kYednV9TvKMt7LbRnZ2dnUVZ_qednZ2d(a)giganews.com... >>> >>> "John Turco" <jtur(a)concentric.net> wrote in message >>> news:4C2AB5F3.9E1440FE(a)concentric.net... >>>> Neil Harrington wrote: >>>> >>>> <heavily edited for brevity> >>>> >>>>> The Great Megapixel Race serves no purpose as far as I can see except >>>>> to help >>>>> manufacturers sell more cameras to people who think their pictures >>>>> aren't sharp >>>>> because they don't have enough megapixels. >>>> >>>> >>>> Hey, don't forget the hard disk manufacturers! They're the ones that >>>> are >>>> really cashing in on this "Great Megapixel Race" -- as those larger (in >>>> file size) images demand increasing storage space. >>> >>> Maybe, but I wonder how many ordinary camera users keep that many of >>> their image files. In the 35mm days I'll bet most people just had prints >>> made and eventually lost or threw out the negatives, and they're likely >>> to do essentially the same thing with digital. >>> >>>> >>>> At the moment, I'm feeling the crunch, personally. I've barely over >>>> 14GB free, on my 160GB IDE data drive. (A 500GB SATA puppy is ready to >>>> be installed, but...I won't do it, until I purchase a suitable external >>>> HDD, to back it up.) >>> >>> Yes, it's amazing how HDDs have grown in capacity. My first one (about >>> 25 years ago) was 30 megabytes (MEGABYTES!) and when I bought it I >>> wondered what I'd ever do with all that space. Now you couldn't even put >>> an operating system on a drive that small. >> Yes, you can. Msdos v 3.3. I remember in the early '80s when hard drives >> came in 2 capacities: 10 and 20 MB. > In the early 80s I brought my fist computer a BBC Micro with 16K or RAM > and used cassette tape for storage. The OS was in ROM 32K I think. > My first comp was in '99 a celeron with win 98SE. Then another in 2003 (IIRC) Celeron with win 2k and my current 3/2008 core2duo win XP,.The C64 had a Basic in ROM and exactly 38911 Basic bytes free:-) It had a cassete tape, too. Modems and printers were unheard of in Greece, and it used a plain colour TV as a monitor. > >> Now you could hardly squeege a couple of RAW files into one. And they >> were 5 1/4", not like todays 3 1/2" and slow as molasses. I remember my >> best friend had a C 64 and he had a floppy drive, which was as large as a >> shoe box, and sloooow (5 1/4"). But it was great, at the day. > > My first floopy drive was a single sided 100k 5 1/4" > Amstrad CPC 6128, a British home micro, had a 3" floppy and a separate monitor, a luxury back then! >>Our favourite pastime was to play games on the C 64 (you could hardly do >>anything else, except making trivial programms on basic-back then, home >>micros didn't even have a OS, or BIOS-only IBM combatibles had these >>features). > > Well the BBC micro has two chips IIRC one was the OS and another was > Basic. > The Standard Word processor was Word which was also in ROM, and a > Speadsheet in ROM Lots of apps were sold to load into ROM. > Yes, Amstard had also Basic and CPM which you had to run with a special command (|CPM). The famous ZX Spectrum had 48 K and only tape and again connected to a colour TV (with RF! Not AV or scart). >> >> >> > > -- Tzortzakakis Dimitrios major in electrical engineering mechanized infantry reservist hordad AT otenet DOT gr
From: Tzortzakakis Dimitris on 2 Jul 2010 16:01
� "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ news:tqqdnb_FSohh97DRnZ2dnUVZ_oydnZ2d(a)giganews.com... > > "Tzortzakakis Dimitris" <noone(a)nospam.com> wrote in message > news:i0huam$4ej$1(a)mouse.otenet.gr... >> >> � "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ >> news:kYednV9TvKMt7LbRnZ2dnUVZ_qednZ2d(a)giganews.com... >>> >>> "John Turco" <jtur(a)concentric.net> wrote in message >>> news:4C2AB5F3.9E1440FE(a)concentric.net... >>>> Neil Harrington wrote: >>>> >>>> <heavily edited for brevity> >>>> >>>>> The Great Megapixel Race serves no purpose as far as I can see except >>>>> to help >>>>> manufacturers sell more cameras to people who think their pictures >>>>> aren't sharp >>>>> because they don't have enough megapixels. >>>> >>>> >>>> Hey, don't forget the hard disk manufacturers! They're the ones that >>>> are >>>> really cashing in on this "Great Megapixel Race" -- as those larger (in >>>> file size) images demand increasing storage space. >>> >>> Maybe, but I wonder how many ordinary camera users keep that many of >>> their image files. In the 35mm days I'll bet most people just had prints >>> made and eventually lost or threw out the negatives, and they're likely >>> to do essentially the same thing with digital. >>> >>>> >>>> At the moment, I'm feeling the crunch, personally. I've barely over >>>> 14GB free, on my 160GB IDE data drive. (A 500GB SATA puppy is ready to >>>> be installed, but...I won't do it, until I purchase a suitable external >>>> HDD, to back it up.) >>> >>> Yes, it's amazing how HDDs have grown in capacity. My first one (about >>> 25 years ago) was 30 megabytes (MEGABYTES!) and when I bought it I >>> wondered what I'd ever do with all that space. Now you couldn't even put >>> an operating system on a drive that small. >> Yes, you can. Msdos v 3.3. > > Yes, of course I was still using MS-DOS when I bought that first HDD. That > was 1985, a good five years before anyone took Windows seriously. I think > it was MS-DOS 2.11 that I used in that my 8088-powered PC, and that OS > would fit on a single-sided 180K floppy with room to spare. > > But when's the last time anyone used MS-DOS? > For me, last year. I used command line to format a virus infected USB stick. Sometimes it's useful to remember those archaic commands (windows wouldn't let me format it, because it was "being used".) format k: No, seriously, those days the most storage filling application they could think of was an encyclopaedia, digitized or a whole library. Long before anyone dreamed of internet or dvds. >> I remember in the early '80s when hard drives came in 2 capacities: 10 >> and 20 MB. > > Mostly 20 MB by the mid-'80s, the ubiquitous Seagate. I'd have been > content with a 20MB Seagate myself -- I think that cheap drive probably > went into more PCs than all the others combined -- but it was $333 and the > 30MB version (essentially the same drive) was $388 from the same place, so > the latter seemed too good a bargain to pass up. > Such a bargain! With 500 euros you can buy a core2duo laptop now, complete with win 7 and 2000 times the hard drive space. >> Now you could hardly squeege a couple of RAW files into one. And they >> were 5 1/4", not like todays 3 1/2" and slow as molasses. I remember my >> best friend had a C 64 and he had a floppy drive, which was as large as a >> shoe box, and sloooow (5 1/4"). But it was great, at the day. Our >> favourite pastime was to play games on the C 64 (you could hardly do >> anything else, except making trivial programms on basic-back then, home >> micros didn't even have a OS, or BIOS-only IBM combatibles had these >> features). > > Well, they did have OSs or they wouldn't have run, but nothing like the > OSs that soon followed. My first computer was an Apple IIe, in 1983. The > Apple used 5 1/4" single-sided floppies but they were only 140K -- because > Steve Wozniak, who designed it, for reasons of reliability only used 35 of > the 40 tracks that the drives were capable of. And each and every one of > those 140K floppies had the *entire* Apple DOS on it! Every time you > formatted a floppy it put Apple DOS on it -- which only took up 10.5 K, as > I recall. > Yes, but I was talking about home micros that had mostly some flavor of Basic (I was a teenager in the '80s). > The first Macintoshes (in 1984) didn't have HDDs either, but they did have > the new 3 1/2" floppies with greater capacity -- I think they were 400K in > the earliest Mac versions. So they used a pretty small OS too. I remember the Amiga 500 that a friend had in Kozani (in college), we played mostly games, of course. Used a 3 1/2" floppy, and its OS was called kickstart 3.2:-) -- Tzortzakakis Dimitrios major in electrical engineering mechanized infantry reservist hordad AT otenet DOT gr |