New 64 bit ATA & SATA RAID
 

Yummy!! This is the type of thing we want... i cant figure out why manufacturers dont intergrate drivers so its more transparent, like these guys have. Well done. :)

nVidia has cost-effective RAID implementation in their nForce3 motherboard chipsets. Check out the RAID technical brief.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20030918753381.html

Umm, am I missing something here? If it's truly 64bit, I would think it would be running at 66mhz too, something the article fails to mention. That means you're going to need a 64bit/66mhz compatible PCI slot, which "desktop" motherboards don't have. The only ones I'm aware that have these slots are "workstation" and "server" class motherboards, which are considerably more money than desktop boards. Also they don't say if this is a 64bit/66mhz controller. It would seem pointless if it wasn't. 64bit alone does nothing, it needs to run on a faster bus. Regular 32bit pci bus is limited to 33mhz, which has a bandwidth of 133mb/s. In theory, 64bit/33mhz operation should give a slight increase over 32bit/33mhz, but in reality it doesn't. So from the article this controller does nothing more than omit the need to load 3rd party drivers, which isn't going to get me to spend that much when there are plenty of good cards already out there for a quarter of that cost.

"New Format War Looms as DVD Forum Chooses Standard"
 

Reuters story via Yahoo! News.

That's an interesting bit of news. Thanks for posting the link. On another note, I'm a Reuters follower as a great news source.

Establishing a DVD Standard
 

From Wired Magazine:

Establishing a DVD Standard

New dvcpro 50 codec from Main Concept
 

MainConcept has released their new DVCPro codec that supports
8bit 4:2:2 50mb encoding/decoding. It ain't cheap either,though they have a free demo for download.

http://www.mainconcept.com

for more info.

HD DVD:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/031128/dvd_format_2.html

Jake

Slightly Off-Topic Obituary
 

Julian Hirsch, a long-time icon in the world of stereo equipment reviews, recently passed away in New York. His name may not be familiar to young people but to those of us who followed "hi fi" to "stereo" in the old Stereo Review Magazine from the 1960's and on, Julian Hirsch was one of the most read and respected names in the business.

You can read more at the Sound & Vision Magazine site.

Julian Hirsch more or less invented the concept of "laboratory testing" of products being reviewed for consumer magazines. He did this for Stereo Review, of course. That magazine was owned by Ziff-Davis, which later also owned PC Magazine. ZD eventually created an in-house lab, consolidated for all its computer magazines but I think now used almost exclusively for PC Magazine. (I was an editor for ZD, the reason I know these things.)

Hirsch's notion of applying consistent tests that could be repeated and thus used to establish baseline results is something that is sorely lacking in the magazines in the DV industry.

R.I.P.

Will

There is a strong rumor that Griffen will be releasing a line-in capable voice recorder for the third generation iPods. Belkin already makes a voice recorder add-on but is lacks line-in capability.

Sony Truck Tour
 

From Sony's web site:

http://www.sonytrucktour.com/dloc.asp?pg=us&sort=2

This seems to be a professional product demo tour scheduled for various cities throughout the US. It's been going on for some time now. Hope they come back north when the weather gets warm.

This is the first time I ever heard of xdcam. Too chicken to ask what it costs.

XDCAM pro camera starts around 15K add another 15K if you want a deck too.

Is 2004 the real start of digital cinema?
 

Doesn't seem like it to me, but this article is hinting that it just might be.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/1...eut/index.html