Here's something we can all look forward to......

[areptiledysfunction]

.............these new CW 64 bit drivers are being developed for XP 64, right?

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... a_cost.txt


how about some OSX drivers???..pretty please?????

[valis]

OSX drivers would make OSX users happy for sure, but if you think that moving to OSX will prevent this in the long run you're kidding yourself.

In regards to the 'antipiracy' measures coming with Vista (as per the article above), you need to consider that it's more than just Microsoft/Vista behind this.

Apple was the first company in the 'technology' sector to cave on the protected drm front with iTunes. Certainly they never would have gotten the media companies to go along without iTunes drm, and theirs isn't as restrictive as some, but it's a fact. Fact2 is that Apple is actually AHEAD of Microsoft when it comes to using drm built into the hardware to 'secure the OS'. The MacIntel boxes use a TPM module to 'secure' OSX86, and you can be sure they want to tie iTunes into this in the long run. They've been bashing Longhorn/Vista since early 2000 for its built in DRM, and meanwhile they've been the first adopters 'in the field' so to speak (since Vista has only now started shipping). Once compliant hardware is out you can be sure OSX will 'have' to support it, and when that is in place you'll have OSX locked down just as tight as Vista (iTunes & the motherboard already have it in place, the rest of the hardware just needs to catch up).

I mention all of this not because I think Windoze SUXOR, nor is Apple the boogie-man either, but because I'm of the opinion that this is really the the major media conglomerates who have been pushing for this stuff since at least 1998 (remember the p3's 'serial number'?) and are 'behind' what is currently unfolding now. Now that computers are becoming more of a commodity and meant more to 'consume' than to 'produce' simply due to the numbers of consumers who are 'online' these days, I think that the slippery slope is sliding faster & faster.

Make no mistake, the major media companies also have it in mind to make it harder for independant content to be made available. It's not just the point-of-sale they're losing control over these days, but the entire production & distribution process.

And the hardware companies are going along not because the media companies have their best interests in mind, but because Apple also has something else Dell & co. would love. Single sale boxes that you replace every few years, rather than the decades old 'incremental' upgrade process most current PC users go through. If you're not allowed to manipulate the hardware without incurring 'antipiracy' measures, then you'll eventually wind up (in 5-10 years) with boxes that you can barely upgrade at all, again making it even more convenient to do a complete system replacement when you want a simple 'upgrade'. This is ALREADY the solution that many inexperienced users opt for when confronted with something as simple as a machine overloaded with malware.

Consider how much of the gear you buy these days is easily 'repairable'. On the professional front most gear can still be serviced, but the closer you get to consumer commodities, the more the price for the repairs versus the price for new shiny crap makes it attractive to simply replace an entire piece of hardware with a new item rather than trying to find someone who is actually willing to repair the item in question. It's understandable from the corporate standpoint. Why support independant repair technicians who you mainly profit from when selling 'technical manuals' and 'proprietary' testing tools, when you can have 'authorized' repair technicians that are actually working on your timeclock in 'authorized' repair centers. And since we now largely have 'authorized repair centers' and 'Returned Merchandise Authorizations' (which makes it almost easier again to just buy a new HardDrive etc rather than pay the shipping & wait 6 week to get your computer working properly) why not just take it even further and you can just replace the repair tech entirely with a sales clerk who is paid a low wage & works to generate sales on new shiny crap.

[hubird]

I just send in my MachineDrum for repair...
Nice analysis, Valis
You don't expect open source systems to get a real alternativ in the future?

[areptiledysfunction]

OSX drivers would make OSX users happy for sure, but if you think that moving to OSX will prevent this in the long run you're kidding yourself.

In regards to the 'antipiracy' measures coming with Vista (as per the article above), you need to consider that it's more than just Microsoft/Vista behind this.

Apple was the first company in the 'technology' sector to cave on the protected drm front with iTunes. Certainly they never would have gotten the media companies to go along without iTunes drm, and theirs isn't as restrictive as some, but it's a fact. Fact2 is that Apple is actually AHEAD of Microsoft when it comes to using drm built into the hardware to 'secure the OS'. The MacIntel boxes use a TPM module to 'secure' OSX86, and you can be sure they want to tie iTunes into this in the long run. They've been bashing Longhorn/Vista since early 2000 for its built in DRM, and meanwhile they've been the first adopters 'in the field' so to speak (since Vista has only now started shipping). Once compliant hardware is out you can be sure OSX will 'have' to support it, and when that is in place you'll have OSX locked down just as tight as Vista (iTunes & the motherboard already have it in place, the rest of the hardware just needs to catch up).

I mention all of this not because I think Windoze SUXOR, nor is Apple the boogie-man either, but because I'm of the opinion that this is really the the major media conglomerates who have been pushing for this stuff since at least 1998 (remember the p3's 'serial number'?) and are 'behind' what is currently unfolding now. Now that computers are becoming more of a commodity and meant more to 'consume' than to 'produce' simply due to the numbers of consumers who are 'online' these days, I think that the slippery slope is sliding faster & faster.

Make no mistake, the major media companies also have it in mind to make it harder for independant content to be made available. It's not just the point-of-sale they're losing control over these days, but the entire production & distribution process.

And the hardware companies are going along not because the media companies have their best interests in mind, but because Apple also has something else Dell & co. would love. Single sale boxes that you replace every few years, rather than the decades old 'incremental' upgrade process most current PC users go through. If you're not allowed to manipulate the hardware without incurring 'antipiracy' measures, then you'll eventually wind up (in 5-10 years) with boxes that you can barely upgrade at all, again making it even more convenient to do a complete system replacement when you want a simple 'upgrade'. This is ALREADY the solution that many inexperienced users opt for when confronted with something as simple as a machine overloaded with malware.

Consider how much of the gear you buy these days is easily 'repairable'. On the professional front most gear can still be serviced, but the closer you get to consumer commodities, the more the price for the repairs versus the price for new shiny crap makes it attractive to simply replace an entire piece of hardware with a new item rather than trying to find someone who is actually willing to repair the item in question. It's understandable from the corporate standpoint. Why support independant repair technicians who you mainly profit from when selling 'technical manuals' and 'proprietary' testing tools, when you can have 'authorized' repair technicians that are actually working on your timeclock in 'authorized' repair centers. And since we now largely have 'authorized repair centers' and 'Returned Merchandise Authorizations' (which makes it almost easier again to just buy a new HardDrive etc rather than pay the shipping & wait 6 week to get your computer working properly) why not just take it even further and you can just replace the repair tech entirely with a sales clerk who is paid a low wage & works to generate sales on new shiny crap.

OK!!! OK!!!!......so we're all gonna' die and OSX won't save us!!!!!

http://www.northernsounds.com/index.php ... 4&Itemid=2

Lyin' bastard!!!!.............but maybe just a nice XP64 driver before the grim reaper shows up???

[dawman]

We still have a few years before Gates owns VSTi's and AMD Octo core CPU's.

[valis]

OK!!! OK!!!!......so we're all gonna' die and OSX won't save us!!!!!

http://www.northernsounds.com/index.php ... 4&Itemid=2

Lyin' bastard!!!!.............but maybe just a nice XP64 driver before the grim reaper shows up???

That interview didn't say a whole lot. He had some musical experience in High School (30 years ago?) that qualifies him with the abilities to foresee algorithmically generated music to accompany you filling out Excel spreadsheets & they've made more concessions to make it "easier for an entry-level user to produce music on a PC with an on-board audio card". Sounds like they're really thinking of the pros

I suspect most of us will still rely on whatever version of ASIO will run on the respective version of OSX that you're using.

It's worth noting also that audiophiles will always bypass the Windows 'preferred soundcard' & directsound drivers and either use kernel streaming mode or ASIO to listen to music, as window's muxer seems to always degrade sound quality. I doubt that moving the audio operations out to user mode (along with the graphics subsystem etc) improved that a lot, regardless of what other changes they have made.

The real question is whether our pro soundcards will be able to access a datastream from an HD-DVD or BD drive without a downgraded signal. It would be especially interesting to see if the downgrading still occurs if there is no copyright flag present (for instance you're trying to access content from a client).

I just send in my MachineDrum for repair...
Nice analysis, Valis
You don't expect open source systems to get a real alternativ in the future?

You can already use real alternative using Wine or Crossover Linux can't you?

[areptiledysfunction]

OK!!! OK!!!!......so we're all gonna' die and OSX won't save us!!!!!

http://www.northernsounds.com/index.php ... 4&Itemid=2

Lyin' bastard!!!!.............but maybe just a nice XP64 driver before the grim reaper shows up???

That interview didn't say a whole lot. He had some musical experience in High School (30 years ago?) that qualifies him with the abilities to foresee algorithmically generated music to accompany you filling out Excel spreadsheets & they've made more concessions to make it "easier for an entry-level user to produce music on a PC with an on-board audio card". Sounds like they're really thinking of the pros

I suspect most of us will still rely on whatever version of ASIO will run on the respective version of OSX that you're using.

It's worth noting also that audiophiles will always bypass the Windows 'preferred soundcard' & directsound drivers and either use kernel streaming mode or ASIO to listen to music, as window's muxer seems to always degrade sound quality. I doubt that moving the audio operations out to user mode (along with the graphics subsystem etc) improved that a lot, regardless of what other changes they have made.

The real question is whether our pro soundcards will be able to access a datastream from an HD-DVD or BD drive without a downgraded signal. It would be especially interesting to see if the downgrading still occurs if there is no copyright flag present (for instance you're trying to access content from a client).

I just send in my MachineDrum for repair...
Nice analysis, Valis
You don't expect open source systems to get a real alternativ in the future?

You can already use real alternative using Wine or Crossover Linux can't you?

I'm thinking Linux as well. I don't have any experience with it, but WTF??. I didn't have any experience with Windows at one time either and I managed to bend it to my will. We all did in one form or another. Maybe MS didn't like that?
I've got quite a few friends who speak to me in languages with strange and wonderful word like Debian, Gnome, Apache, Perl, etc. Seems Nuendo was coded for Unix back in he late 90's. It would be funny if Vista was the best thing that ever happened to boost l development of audio apps and drivers for Linux OS. If you've ever used a Muse Receptor, you can get some idea of the power that was BEOS. It wouldn't surprise me if proprietary interfaces like UAD-1, POCO, Duende, Liquidmix could process audio in near real time (as in zero audible latency) on BEOS with properly written drivers . It's that amazing. Anyway, I'm getting ready to build a new computer for some beta testing chores. Guess I'll get myself a HD for a Linux OS and start to wrap my head around this. Been meaning to to do this for a while anyway.

[valis]

Another interesting tidbit, it's well known that DirectX 10 (for gamers) won't be released on XP (although who knows if next year some 'compatibility' mode for DX 9 or OpenGL won't be released). The CrossOver guys & Wine guys are already talking about porting DirectX 10 to WinXP via... Crossover & Wine Vista compatibility layers running under Xp.

Unfortunately since Linux will probably want to be compatible with this same hardware, it will eventually run into the same problem as OSX, it will need to become compatible to be widely used with these new technologies. Producers might not have that need but we're still a small segment. The other downside to Linux is that unlike OSX nothing for Linux is going to be provided outright by many vendors (except those who cast a favorable eye on open source).

Anyway it really remains to be seen about Vista. What producers need to know is how to secure their signal chain DURING the production process as well as with final product. How many of us would be running Scope if we weren't able to access & share info relevant to it? As of now what we have is info gleaned by a few professionals based on info MS has surely cobbled up to please the major media companies.

What all of this basically means is that the community is saying: It's time to give the smaller guys the info on these new technologies if you want to continue being a competitive platform.

[valis]

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/12/2 ... #more-1784

[valis]

From Slashdot:

"Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content. As a company creating music and video products, how can we use Vista to create, distribute, and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during, and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the realm of content creation and editing. How do others deal with these issues?"

Vista and the Music Industry - http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/31/2150255

[bill3107]

very intersting analysis man... tahnks !

Jo