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Why I'm hopeful
By the end of the decade, I think DRM is going to be a non-issue. It's not going to be more Draconian -- it'll be more transparent. Sony, a company infamous for their rootkit copy protection, still had the foresight to eliminate the region protection between the US and Japan for the PlayStation 3 and Blu-Ray.
In some ways, the HD ecosystem is going to buy time to help DRM reach that magic steady state that we enjoy with books. With HD movies requiring huge amounts of space, there's already a barrier to casual copying if only for HDD space issues. The HD-DVD rips that have been unleashed onto the Internet still represents gigabytes and gigabytes of storage. As bandwidth and HDD space increases, technologies such as BD+ potentially will maintain sufficient copy protection to prevent casual copying while still ensuring that the optical disc is a) not counterfeit and b) can be used for managed copy (allowing you to transcode the content to portable players). Potentially being the key phrase – the industry has had rough enough start with HDCP.
People buy more DVDs than music CDs because they see it as a better value. Fortunately, HD content remains aggressively priced. Although Blu-Ray and HD-DVD products are more expensive than DVD products, prices will see more parity as production ramps up and more consumers transition to HD. DVD players launched at $1000 (FiringSquad’s retired Editor-in-Chief Kenn Hwang spent that much on his Sony DVP-S7000) and by 2009 there will be no more analog TV in the United States.
I'm even hopeful about Hollywood increasing the visibility of screenwriters in the industry. As movies like Fight Club and TV shows like 24 and Heroes continue to push the envelope of storytelling and captivate an increasingly sophisticated audience, writers are increasingly forced to write more sophisticated movies. A screenplay from a 1990's Van Damme movie wouldn't fly today. Would any movie which uses "it was just a dream" as a plot device work today? Only if it's told like A Beautiful Mind. The elite group of screenwriters who are capable of writing such movies is relatively small, and that is good news because it means Hollywood only needs to spend a lot of money on a few number of people. So if anyone you know is a creative executive at a studio, debate with them why stories like Thank You For Smoking, Good Will Hunting, Napoleon Dynamite, Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Nemo or God forbid, Titanic were more successful than Stealth, Lady in the Water, Basic Instinct 2, Poseidon, and Flushed Away...
Left 4 Dead Review
Is Left 4 Dead really as fun as everyone says it is? YES! With its fast-paced gameplay, nonstop action, and co-op support, Valve's zombie shooter is sure to delight. Read on for the full review!
Sapphire Toxic HD 4870 512MB Review
At load ATI's stock 4870 cards can push 80 degrees during gaming, and over 60 at idle. But what if these temps are too high for you? If that's the case, you should take a long look at the Sapphire Toxic 4870. The card ships with vapor chamber and heatpipe cooling technology, delivering GPU temps that are drastically lower than ATI's stock cooler. The card is also OC'ed for increased performance. See how it stacks up against other cards in its class in this review!
XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition Review
So you've got $300 in your pocket for a VGA upgrade but you're not sure which card runs best for Left 4 Dead? In this article we examine the performance of 5 different cards in the $200-$300 space with all-games like L4D and Call of Duty: World at War. See how the cards stack up against each other in this review!
EVGA X58 SLI Sneak Peek
With 8-phase power, 6 DIMM sockets, 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX support, and speeds up to 500MHz, EVGA's X58 SLI motherboard is designed for enthusiasts looking to push their Core i7 CPU to its limits. Our board just arrived off the truck for review, but before our benchmarks are done we figured we'd share this quick preview of the motherboard.
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Review
With a street price of just $130 Gigabyte loads the EP45-UD3P up with tons of goodies. For starters its PCB sports twice the amount of copper as traditional motherboards in the ground/power layers, allowing the motherboard to disperse heat more effectively. The board also has tons of FSB options for overclocking. But that's not all, the board also has heatpipe cooling and CrossFire support. Read our review to see why we were so impressed with this motherboard!
AMD CPU Roadmap Update 2009-2011
Wondering what AMD's got in store for the next 3 years in terms of new CPUs? If so you'll want to check out this article. Inside we've got AMD's latest CPU roadmap, with analysis of their upcoming desktop and mobile CPUs. Find out what AMD has in store for the future in this article!
3D Performance with Fallout 3 Part 2: Mainstream Cards
After testing Fallout 3 with the latest high-end cards last week, we're back again to see how the card performs with one dozen mainstream GPUs ranging from the 9500 GT up to the latest Radeon 4850 and 9800 GTX GPUs. Which cards come out on top and where? Read the article to find out!
3D Performance with Fallout 3: Part 1 High-end Cards
Wondering which GPUs perform best in Fallout 3? Then you'll want to check out today's article. We've rounded up 11 of the fastest graphics cards on the market ranging from the GeForce 8800 GTX up to the Radeon 4870 X2. See how the cards perform in Bethesda's latest RPG under both 4xAA and 8xAA!
Intel Core i7 (Nehalem) Performance Preview
Performance junkies look out: Intel's next-generation Nehalem CPU has arrived! The CPU's architecture has been designed from the ground up to deliver improved IPC, while it's also capable of dynamically OC'ing itself to further enhance performance. See how the new Core i7 CPUs stack up against CPUs ranging from the Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 6000+ up to the Core 2 Extreme QX9700. We also managed to OC these chips to really high levels. Read the full scoop inside!
ATI Radeon 4830 Performance Preview
Last week we posted our review of ATI's Radeon 4830. Unfortunately the board we used for testing only had 560 shaders enabled. We've now flashed our board to run with all 640 shaders and rewritten the conclusion. See how the fully-featured Radeon 4830 now fares in this article!