Home

Special Report CES 2004

1. MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 VOL13 ISSUE 2 2 50 Kelvyn Taylor Paul Monckton Guy Kewney Prescott adds punch to P4 processor Music industry and P2P firms head back to court ATI licenses Intrinsity tech for faster chips Lotus seeks common ground UK PC sales go through the roof Donate your old PCs to a good cause Legal downloads outsell CDs Microsoft fixes eight month old flaw IBM launches lifeboat for ThinkPad buyers MyDoom delivers second payload Business shuns mobile data Palm develops twin operating systems Netgear ProSafe FWG114P Route Planner 2004 Canon EOS 300D Extreme PC Biostar M7NCD A02 Gigabyte GA 8TRS300M Sapphire Ultimate Radeon 9600XT Antec Overture case AOpen Aeolus FX5700 Antec notebook cooler Kingston Elite Pro SD Card Western Digital WD 740GD Raptor New PC Magazine benchmarks arrive CES 2004 Technology trends Computer graphics at the movies Tutor Perl for beginners Part 4 Masterclass An introduction to video jockey techniques Tutor Extra Digital audio primer wvnu business publications a k rE _ E _ 2004 intern What s hot at the world s biggest consumer electronics show THE LEADING INDEPENDENT LABS BASED SOURCE FEATURE Moule chnology ts wate a creates its ma ic 19 gi 4 am W Canon Find your X 1 way around Europe The first sub 1 000 digital SLR camera Acronyms explained Is wo
2. Typical VJ setup OPTIONAL EFFECTS PROCESSOR VIDEO MIXER PC VIDEO SERVER VHS DECK wow at Lo PROJECTOR PERFORMANCE t Oy e te MONITOR DISPLAY CAMERA J omae DVDPLAYER PLAYER n A This diagram illustrates a typical setup used by a video jockey images to the audience so at least two separate video output paths and two or more video inputs are required A typical VJ set up A typical VJ hardware performance setup includes a video mixer a display system a projector and screen for example a video monitor a video effects system and at least two video sources The video sources could include a camera a DVD or VHS deck and one or more computers During a performance one video source feeds the display system while the VJ has an overview of all the video sources and cues up and cross fades into the next source A video effects system can modify the video feed as it goes out to the audience VJ video mixers and effects units also accept an audio feed that allows the video transitions and effects to be beat synchro nised with the music producing a more inte grated performance A video camera can add shots of the audience to the projected video Although a video jockey can just use images from other sources such as library clips and stills many VJs make their own source material using popular video and still image software pac
3. Eighty per cent of the time we break the physical rules What ever makes sense in the shot dictates what we do Effects are built using particles fields and rules Particles are the individual elements of the effect such as smoke that combine to form the effect itself A field is something that has an effect on objects within it such as gravity Each field has defined vol ume within which its effects are felt and several will be combined to establish the desired basic behaviour of particles in a simulation Rules are used where fields don t provide the precise behaviour required A rule is a chunk of code evaluated according to a particle s position forcing a specific behaviour Leal describes the difference in the use of fields and rules For very complex behaviours you end up using rules to account for very special cases and for something simple youd use always use fields Some environmental effects are trickier than oth ers depending on the subtlety of behaviour in the effect s real world counterpart Smoke is fairly diffi cult in comparison to steam for example Where steam dissipates quickly and haphazardly when dis turbed smoke describes eddies and vortices as an object passes through it and also has some internal cohesion that makes it a challenge to simulate The apparent distance to an effect in the scene has considerable bearing on the difficulty For a bil low of smoke on the horizon things might be
4. Trash p p Catens pr am Prep J Todo CY Suter Wer os 4 pr m Daityone onone amp Daityone on one m Oaai Osy239 126 days lent Day 240 125 days left e 8 4 Drag Tom s Sta Divide and condi Lunet Preview a a a Edith Mone Mit a A Lotus has to keep existing Notes users happy workplace client This brings the 20 year old PC programming model into the modern world of networking he said Workplace is the future but Lotus has 120 million Notes and Domino users to keep happy IBM also announced Software Solution for On Demand Workplace which combines WebSphere portal with Lotus s Workplace software and Web content management tool Clive Longbottom service director of analyst Quocirca says Lotus is aiming to offer a choice of client technology for its customers MIYA KNIGHTS Consumer notebook sales con Wam tinued to shine with 52 3 per cent year on year growth as users sought mobility especially at the lower end of the market But the analyst firm warned that the change in consumer preferences from desktop to notebook is not a done deal With consumer desktop shipments growing 8 9 per cent year on year the rise of the multime dia oriented box as a centre for digital entertain ment within the home is an increasingly impor tant phenomenon said Gibbs To some extent this will hold total desktop replacement in check over the coming quarters Continued g
5. Q we Al Achons you can take TRENDS TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS SHUNS MOBILE DATA COMPANIES IN THE UK ARE shunning mobile data services and it is consumers who are keeping sales buoyant according to figures from the Mobile Data Association Businesses make up fewer than 10 per cent of mobile data customers and will account for only 20 per cent by 2007 The main reason for this seems to be difficulties with migration Richard Jesty senior consul tant at mobile telecoms analyst ARC Group said Small and medium sized enterprises can adopt mobile data quite easily since they chiefly just use mail and personal information manag er functions But getting into the back end of a large enterprise is more difficult It appears that some busi nesses are also waiting for the introduction of 3G networks before taking the plunge But doing so is a mistake according to Mike Short vice president for research and development at mobile operator 02 There s nothing you cannot do with a GPRS phone that you can do with a 3G phone apart from make video calls don t buy video as a market driver But in the long term hav ing packet radio in your pocket is a tremendous opportunity for all IAIN THOMSON PALM DEVELOPS TWIN OPERATING STEMS PALM PDA USERS WILL HAVE A choice of operating systems from this spring PalmSource formerly the software arm of Palm is expected to announce later this month
6. Verdict No frills mother board with a surprising array of useful utilities Very low price Not much in the way of additional features Fact file Form factor Small ATX CPU socket Socket A Northbridge nVidia nForce2 400 Memory supported Maximum 2GB PC 1600 2100 2700 3200 PCI slots 5 I O ports 2 x PS 2 2 x serial 1 x parallel 4 x USB 2 0 3 x audio 1 x LAN Cables supplied 80 conductor E IDE floppy disk drive Price 37 50 inc VAT Contact Dabs com www dabs com VNU Lab tests Yvau labs System performance Business Winstone 2004 es 23 3 ee s 18 2 Multimedia performance Content Creation Winstone 2004 es 27 3 es 27 9 3D performance 3D Mark 01 sss 7660 O 4815 Unreal Tournament 2003 10 x 7 default C S ae 32 3 BlOStar M7NCD A02 E Gigabyte GA 8TRS 00M These two motherboards are evenly matched but the Gigabyte s onboard graphics are not suitable for the latest 3D games www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 12 VNU Lab tests vnu labs Sapphire Ultimate Radeon 9600XT 3D performance 3D Mark 01 10 x 7 default 13445 13284 Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal Tournament 2003 10 x 7 default ee 82 3 81 7 Reference ATI 9600XT Sapphire s Ultimate Radeon 9600XT shows no surprises in performance compared to our reference 9600XT but its main benefit is its silence Sapphire Ultimate Radeon 9600XT GRAPHICS CARD As even ma
7. Ogg Vorbis is similar to MP3 or AAC com pression formats but with one key difference it is free unpatented and open source There are two terms here Ogg is the file container that one day should contain both audio and video and Vorbis is the audio com pression designed to be contained within it The ogg container may embed other for mats though like FLAC or Speex This is important because the Vorbis compression scheme is optimised for music and general purpose audio not low bit rate speech com pression and it has no lossless compression Vorbis supports six channel 5 1 audio and is fairly well supported by software but almost unseen in the hardware player market It s royalty free nature has made it popular with some game developers and it is used several PC games including Unreal Tourna ment 2003 Serious Sam The Second lt Figure 2 Sony s ATRAC format breaks the audio file into separate frequency bands before compression eee nee a o Encounter and Harry Potter and the Cham ber of Secrets More information source code and tools are available from www vorbis com e ATRAC Sony s ATRAC adaptive transform acoustic coding format is most widely used in its MiniDisc and solid state Walkman digital music players The original ATRAC format is not quite as good as a well encoded MP3 file though it has gone through several revisions Newer Sony hardware including most Clie PDAs uses the super
8. Palm viewer is basic direction information can be confusing Fact file System requirements OS Windows 98 or higher CPU Pentium processor Memory 64MB Disk space 2GB Price 29 37 inc VAT Contact Media Gold 020 7221 4600 www dabs com www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 10 FIRST LOOKS PERIPHERALS Just what the photographer ordered DIGITAL SLR CAMERA The Canon EOS 300D is what the world s amateur photographers have been waiting for a digital SLR that provides all the bene fits and functions of a film SLR at an affordable price The 300D is an economy version of Canon s EOS 10D Digital SLR but if you ve been hankering after a 10D the 300D s specification will come as no disappointment because the economies have been made with few compromises on fea tures and performance Most importantly the 300D uses the same six megapixel CMOS sensor as the 10D Canon has modified the sensor production process and switched manufacturing of the cam era to Taiwan enabling it to be produced more cheaply but the images it produces are every bit as good as those from the 10D The major differences between the two models could be described as largely cosmetic The substi tution of plastic for the 10D s magnesium alloy body means the 300D will take more looking after but it s less weight to carry around The other differences are as minor and likely to be inconsequential for those trad
9. Technology trends Loyd Case visits this year s consumer electronics extravaganza in Las Vegas and peers into the entertainment realms of the future his year s CES is now but a memory Some 4 000 members of the media tramped around the show writing up products listening to PR spiels guzzling bottled water to stay hydrated and sit ting down for a while to relieve sore feet Like an iceberg however the products on dis play are really just the visible tip of what looks to be a serious sea change taking place in the con sumer electronics business The issue of convergence that melding of the consumer electronics and PC businesses is moving rapidly although no clear standards have yet emerged on how it will all fit together The mass of the iceberg that lies under the surface however reveals some fascinating STORAGE Little was written about developments in storage other than product announcements and what was reported perhaps failed to convey just how pervasive the role of storage has become The accelerating pace of digital media means that you need a place to put all that digital stuff whether it s movies music games or video insights about what will be important over the coming year and even further down the line The key trends include e storage e high definition multimedia interface HDMI e the hidden PC e the bleak future for the CRT In this special feature we examine the devel
10. The bit rate of a digital file is defined as how many bits it uses up in a given interval of time An audio file is almost always measured in Kbit s Typically the higher the bit rate at which music is encoded the better the sound A rate of 128Kbit s is extremely popular in online music downloading legal or otherwise because it offers a good compromise between sound quality and download time Table 1 gives you an idea of how different bit rates compare to regular CD audio Bit rates lower than 128Kbit s are generally not suitable for CD or hard drive based devices but rates between 64Kbit s and 128Kbit s are great for devices with only 64MB or 128MB where you want to pack on more songs or even for streaming Internet radio if the listeners have broadband Very low bit rates below 64Kbit s are unsuitable for music but compress voice fairly well and can be used for online voice chat or streaming talk news radio Of course there s always the option of using a variable bit rate e VBR and CBR These common acronyms stand for variable bit rate and constant bit rate Constant bit rate audio files are the most common they use up the exact same amount of data from one moment to the next If you have a 128Kbit s CBR music file it will use 128Kbit to describe the audio in each sec ond of the song regardless of what sounds are playing that second or the complexity of the audio stream at the time A variable bit rate
11. consumer levels and a new breed of video hardware is emerging designed specifically for the video jockey VJ hardware Purpose built venues such as clubs art gal leries museums and exhibition centres often have the video hardware plumbed in To per form in these spaces all the video artist needs to do is supply the program material and the artistic input A number of companies offer a video server solution suitable for these environ ments A PC with large hard disk capacity is used to store video clips Clips are selected and played through a touch screen interface that displays thumbnails of the available clips Video servers usually have an automated mode so a pre selected sequence or arandom selection of clips can be shown when a live VJ performance isn t required An example of a video server is the Hippo tizer described as a digital media server which is available from Green Hippo www green hippo com in four versions Lite 6 000 Pro 7 500 DMX Club 8 500 and DMX Stage 9 500 This product is a rack mount PC in differ ent configurations loaded with custom soft Dual head Dual TV Price ex VAT No No 97 87 n a Yes 131 91 n a Yes 21702 Yes Yes PONS Yes Yes Se Yes Yes 31489 Yes Yes 112 33 Yes Yes 140 00 ware and a large selection of still images and video clips which are available through www scene change com Running a VJ set up on a PC Building a complete VJ system with a vid
12. File Unine Extras Help ae Roue gt Hotel Q Addresses EA soach DER d Bak e Pont Routing Results Route Information amp Colour Route Duration km GDP CUR L L10 Km GDP CUR fuel O52 4055 0259 1191 044 important points on route m left on A111219 tr 16 34 331 9 at merging point Antwerpen Noord continue straight on A119 1049 950 7 continue straight on A119 border D NL 73 Q Break 20 min I 17 13 388 0 at border B NL continue straighton merging point Galder 42 A16 19 B 17 16 370 1 ot merging point Colder fork right on Broda Oost Utrocht 74 ASOCH2 377 2 al interchange SAnnabusch keep 17 54 4341 continue straight on A225 les 1817 476 1 _ at interchange Amstel keep rig Bak Pr the Amsterdam suburbs too But an address in Antwerp couldn t be found since there was not enough detail for that city And in Dublin although the street we wanted was shown on the map it couldn t be en tered as a destination Curious It suggests that if you require routes that take you off the beaten track in smaller cities you may not get door to door with this product And in common with many other packages including Autoroute 2002 it suggested a road on our test route that has been closed for 20 years Once the information is found creating routes is swift and the map details include house num bers at junctions A few clicks on the icons at the right of the
13. a dial up Internet connection or cell phone or that you would use for real time online voice chat Just because a portable music device or piece of software can play back Windows Media www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 34 ATRAC3 compression 0 1378Hz 44100Hz T 1378 2766Hz 2756 41 34Hz 19294 20672Hz 16 band sub band filter bank ooo o 4096 samples 92ms 20672 22050Hz Audio that does not mean it can play the Professional Lossless or Voice formats Those require their own decompressors The WMA format has robust DRM and coupled with Microsoft s influence and a rea sonable royalty rate has become popular among online music services Napster Music Match and BuyMusic com all use WMA e RealAudio The RealAudio format from Real Networks started many years ago as a delivery mecha nism for streaming audio over the net prima rily using dial up Internet connections Times have changed of course and the latest tech nology is much more robust At bit rates of less than 128Kbit s RealAu dio 10 uses its proprietary compression tech nology At higher bit rates it uses MPEG 4 AAC It s also backwards compatible with RealAudio 8 players The new Real 10 platform incorporates RealAudio Lossless for true lossless compres sion and RealAudio Multichannel for up to 5 1 audio although these formats require RealPlayer 10 or better for playback Other audio formats e Ogg Vorbis
14. are offering you a free fully working copy of FormArtist Presto FormArtist is an innovative software package that lets you rapidly create and publish Web and email based forms surveys e brochures and opinion polls without any technical knowledge or programming abilities FormArtist Presto s great features include the following SOFTWARE WORTH 29 If you d prefer the additional advanced features available in the Standard or Professional versions of FormArtist you can benefit from special discounts for PC Magazine readers FormArtist Versions All prices include VAT Presto 29 Special offer FREE Standard 129 Special offer 89 Professional 549 Special offer 299 HURRY This offer is only valid until 20 March 2004 For further enquiries visit http www quask com or phone 020 7738 9777 www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 8 Not just a SOHO router TT TT7T T7a Network appliances for the small office home office SOHO sector should offer low cost and easy administration Netgear s FWG114P multi function appliance meets both these criteria and offers extra features that cover many of the requirements for home or small office use Designed for broadband it s a lot more than a basic router with an integrated firewall 802 11g access point and a print server Like other Netgear products it is easy to install using helpful wizards and has a clear Web based inter
15. can begin 3D models must be produced for each CG element of the scene These could be primary elements such as a main character or something with which the character interacts Many scenes filmed with real elements say cars passing on a road will have additional CG versions of those elements added This allows the addition of elements that would have been too expensive dan gerous or impractical to film and also helps to blur the distinction between the CG and filmed elements Environmental effects such as smoke and water are generated directly by FX animators Every other type of computer graphic begins with a model which is painted by the paint department Although the later steps of the pipeline are all completed on the computer modellers often build real models of a character using traditional meth ods These are digitised using a laser scanner and cleaned up and tweaked on the computer Simpler elements are modelled directly on the computer Puppet Between modelling and animation comes the pup pet department which rigs the basic models with controls used by the animators to manipulate the model Muscle and skeletal systems are added to make the model behave realistically Although a considerable amount of work goes into creating shapes that deform realistically those same systems will be removed again before final rendering once they have done their job in deform ing the surfaces of a character Paint Each model
16. continues to drop in price and the elec tronics necessary to make a portable digital music player are increasingly commoditised The result is a flood of affordable digital music devices from brands both large and small This year will see the release of a slew of digital media adapters devices that pull audio video and pictures off a PC and display them on a TV Some will be built into DVD players or TiVo like video recorders With all these new devices it looks like the days of the compact disc are numbered Even if we don t throw out our CDs it s more likely than ever that we won t actually listen to them Instead we ll pull the songs off storing them on a PC or portable music player as compressed digital audio files As the years roll on more and more music will be pur chased online in digital form Most of us already have a lot of digital audio in our lives beyond simple CDs but the amount of it is set to explode Most of us know a bit about the different formats and terms but the world of digital audio is enormous and ever evolving A detailed explanation of all the technology would fill volumes Instead we present this brief primer a list of common and useful terms their definitions and a description of some of the more popular and interesting dig ital audio formats Terms to know When you come across two geeks talking about digital music it can sound an awful lot like they re speaking in another
17. disk space can be freed Rendering A lot of computer graphics work is computationally expensive and can t be done or can t be done eco nomically in real time so scenes are rendered in batch Most 3D work is produced in Maya and out put is rendered using Pixar s Photorealistic Render man Prman The one big surprise of the rendering process is that it does not use raytracing to model light paths In fact Renderman didn t even support raytracing until recently To raytrace takes a lot of time and again shortcuts are used that give a good enough approximation Rarely do you really need raytraced reflections says Doug Epps a CG programming lead You can get away with rendering a picture from one point of view and texture mapping it on somewhere else For some effects full raytracing might be needed but not often Epps points out that neither of Pixar s acclaimed Toy Story movies used any raytracing at all There are alternative renderers that do raytrace and recent versions of Maya ship bundled with the MentalRay raytracing renderer The IT requirements Visual effects work has a prodigious appetite for both processing power and storage For one shot developed by Tippett for Matrix Revolutions each candidate for a final version was well over 1TB yes that s terabyte in size and took over a week to ren der Multiple versions of that shot had to be kept online simultaneously for the creative team to make
18. final images Some incremental images can be rendered almost instantly while final versions of large shots make take several days even with 50 or 100 machines reserved solely for that task Each day the entire effects crew comes together for dailies where the previous day s work is 2003 Blockbuster Entertainment Tippett Studio A Much of Tippett s work is in character animation including a recent series of adverts for Blockbuster video shops CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY INTRO THE PROCESS BASIC STEPS IT DEMANDS reviewed and critiqued Everyone joins in and any one can comment on any aspect of what s on screen Good ideas are pushed forward and bad results dis carded This is a fast tight process that aims to ensure time is well spent but leaves little room for sensitive egos Basic steps This section summarises the basic steps that com prise the visual effects pipeline Different studios can blur the distinctions between roles and adjacent roles naturally overlap The purely linear pipeline is somewhat idealised in fact each step is iterative and pragmatic Things won t come out right first time so knowing how and when to cheat to improve the final result is an important part of the creative process At any stage before a shot is finalised by the direc tor and sometimes afterwards any one of the cre ative components may change creating a ripple effect of adjustments throughout th
19. handhelds A viewer application is in cluded but in the Palm version we tested it s not that exciting the map isn t scaleable the direc tions are just a text list and the buttons in the ap plication are in German Still it s a nice thought There s a good range of options for printing out routes The standard printout includes a clear overview and a large map of the destination along with step by step maps for each turn and there are options for more detailed lists or a simple overview There is one irritation though in that the di rection information both on screen and in the printout often seems to relate to the next major town not to what the road signs say For in stance when driving through Hackney towards the Channel Tunnel you re unlikely to see any signs for Sidcup Ultimately it s the accumulation of some slop py points that count against Route Planner 2004 individually none is a show stopper but they combine to mar what would otherwise be a really useful piece of software NIGEL WHITFIELD lt Route Planner is easy to use but is let down by a number of small drawbacks PLANNER 2004 Verdict An easy to use route planning package with useful extra tools let down by missing details for certain cities and confusing presentation of routes Easy to use searchable hotel database can plan refuelling and rest stops Not all cities have full details
20. is a bit smarter A VBR music file will use a lower bit rate in areas of the song that are simpler to compress accu rately and then higher bit rates in parts that require more bits VBR audio files are often made with a cer tain quality in mind rather than a certain bit rate but it s almost always true that all things being equal a VBR sound file will sound bet ter than a CBR file of the same size The problem with VBR is that it s hard to stream over the Internet because the amount of data that needs to come over the net con nection is constantly changing from one moment to the next e Sample rate bit depth These are the most basic specifications of all digital audio files compressed or not Sample rate refers to how many times per second the original waveform is translated into digital form CD audio for instance is sampled at 44 1KHz That means that the left and right channels are each sampled 44 100 times per second Sampled into what That s where bit depth comes in This is how many bits are used to describe each of those samples The more bits used to encode the file the more accurate the sample TUTOR EXTRA CD audio is sampled at 16 bits so a 16 bit number describes the amplitude of the sound wave for each of the 44 100 samples every sec ond No wonder CD audio files are so big How much sample rate and bit depth is enough According to the Nyquist Theorem you need twice as many samples per seco
21. rela tively simple whereas a close up of cigarette smoke is much trickier A For shots involving large numbers of elements at different distances some will be hand animated and other procedurally animated as in this shot of flying Sentinels from Matrix Revolutions CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY BASIC STEPS To get a final effect the simulated particles are overlaid with cards which are images of the real phenomenon so several different cards of real smoke might be used to fill out the effect of the sim ulated version Technical directing Animators work with models that are accurate in shape but not in colour FX animators define the look and behaviour of elements and hero effects but not the colours and lighting although in many stu dios they do both The output of character and FX animation is handed to the technical director for the shot who applies the surface colours and textures to each model and also sets up the lights so that CG objects in the scene appear appropriately lit against objects in the original image For rendering characteristics of an object are defined by its shape the colours on the surface and the properties of the surface Those surface proper ties are defined by a shader which is a routine used by the render to evaluate what happens to light at a given point Typically a studio uses a single monolithic sur face shader with many different controls to define the basic pro
22. s FX leads and refers to a shot on Matrix Revolutions as an example We had thousands of Tow bombs exploding in a scene Normally yowd just do one explosion but with a thousand we have to make it procedural Whether an effect is made procedural depends on how often it s likely to be used An effect used once but requiring specific behaviour is essentially a one off tweaked as necessary and perhaps an out right hack Something used repeatedly is more akin to a small piece of software polished enough to allow it to be easily used and maintained by other anima www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 23 2003 Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures tors with more generic rather than specialised parameters Maya s MEL scripting language for example would look familiar to a coder who was versed in C Balancing the demands of completing individual shots using an effect and polishing the procedures that create it can be tricky with the competing pres sures to produce a useful tool for the long haul and getting results quickly As with character animation FX animators have more freedom in some areas than others On the hero effects you have a lot more creative input says Leal noting that such effects are largely contrived whereas environmental effects are typically simulat ing real world phenomena But even in simulations Leal reveals that prag matism is paramount in finding the look
23. systems don t work as they should and we can spot them and deal with them accordingly It is possible to make an unacceptably slow PC but thankfully it doesn t happen very often My main PC is a Pentium III system OK it s got dual CPUs but in benchmark terms it ll offer no challenge to anything we ve tested in the lab over the last cou ple of years at least I don t play games on it and for me it s easily fast enough Its level of performance goes up and down depending on how recently I defragged the hard drive which pointless utilities or desktop enhancements I m running and the sheer unpredictability of Windows But you know what I don t really care I have a faster PC next to me just sitting there but I don t use it What s important to me about my PC is what makes it different from other PCs and probably utterly unusable to anyone else I of course have the manda tory four monitors eye popping optical illusion wallpaper and blue sound sensi tive case illumination to help me fish out any bits of lunch that fall into the open case The fact that I haven t moved that lot to the faster PC suggests that raw per formance isn t really that crucial anyway It s usually the parts that don t get tested that matter to me the monitor s of course a keyboard that s coffee resistant and as loud and annoying as possible a reset switch that can t be knee activated a case that can be opened without risk of pe
24. the British Phono graphic Industry BPI The organisation said that more than 150 000 downloads were sold in January 2004 Some 50 000 of these sales came in just one week after the launch of legal site MyCokeMusic Digital music services with out doubt represent an exciting future for the music industry said BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson The BPI said that download Statistics would be listed in its Official Download Chart which began its test phase in October ROBERT JAQUES www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 6 ANALYSIS Microsoft fixes eight month old flaw Software giant gives warning that hackers could gain complete control over computers icrosoft has given a warning of yet anoth er critical flaw that could give hackers complete control over computers running one of several versions of its operating system The software giant confirmed that the flaw affects Microsoft Windows NT 4 0 NT Server 4 0 Terminal Server Edition Windows 2000 XP and Server 2003 Systems administrators should apply the update immediately Microsoft said The security vulnerability exists in the Microsoft Abstract Syntax Notation 1 ASN 1 Library deep within the system code Microsoft said an attacker using a buffer over flow to exploit the vulnerability could execute code with system privileges on an affected system The attacker could then take any action on the system including installing
25. this syntax parser gt get_tag img as being a roundabout way of saying call the get_tag function that lives in the module that parser is associated with which is HTML TokeParser What get_tag does is return information about the next tag that matches the argument it was given The information get_tag returns is in a somewhat complicated format that relies on Perl references We can see a little bit about how that data is structured by looking at this expression img info gt 1 gt src This says in effect Start with img_info fol low it to an array denoted by the square brackets and grab the first element which is a list of attributes on the HTML tag follow that element to a hash denoted by the curly braces and grab the src element If you ve worked with pointers the basic idea is proba bly familiar Were almost there Lets flesh this code out into a fully functional program which we ll call fullpage pl see Listing 1 If you run this command fullpage pl gt a http www pcmag co uk my copy html youll get the home page of PC Magazine plus the images on that page copied to the current directory on your hard disk If you don t have the HTML TokeParser and URI modules you may have to install them first as described on the previous page Let s look at how it works The first few lines the shebang and use statements and the assignment of command line argumen
26. 6 333 or 400MHz DDR_SDRAM depending on the processor Despite its compact size the memory locking latches don t A This no frills compact mother board is ideal for those on a lim ited budget obscure the AGP slot which is quite an achievement consider ing there are five PCI slots and a CNR slot Although the board s not loaded down with features it does have integrated LAN con trolled by a Realtek 10 100 Base T RTL8201BL NIC plus 5 1 audio support Gigabyte GA 8TRS300M MOTHERBOARD Support for ATI s new 91001 GP desktop chipset continues to grow one of the latest manufac turers to use it is Gigabyte in its GA 8TRS300M motherboard Built on a microATX format PCB the GA 8TRS300M is a feature rich motherboard that could form the basis of a PVR personal video recorder or similar applications that favour the compact microATX format ATi s RS300 9100 IGP Northbridge provides support for all variants of Intel s Celeron and Pentium 4 processors run ning at speeds of 400 533 and 800MHz FSB Because of the small size of the board there s the usual problem of the memory slots obstructing the AGP slot There are only three PCI slots or two if you fit a bulky A The board has integrated sound networking and graphics graphics card in the AGP slot But this may not present any problem as the board comes with integrated sound network ing and graphics Realtek chips control the LAN
27. Publications 32 34 Broadwick Street London W1A 2HG or email hr vnu co uk e VNU Worldwide is one of the world s leading media and information companies with recognised brands in marketing information media measurement and information business information and directories VNU is active in more than 100 countries employs about 37 000 people and has annual revenues of over 4 3 billion e VNU Business Publications is the biggest IT publisher in the UK and Europe employing more than 350 staff producing market leading cross media solutions e We offer a competitive salary and benefits package along with excellent training and development including opportunities to work on a range of magazines and projects at our Soho offices Y vnu labs WYvnu business publications e Easy form design with user friendly WYSIWYG form editor e Supports all standard and more advanced form objects e Creates forms with validations page skipping and scripting intelligence e Easy form deployment by email link to a pop up window or embedding e Runs on most web servers PHP or ASP no server side database required e No plug ins required to display the form which runs on all version 4 browsers e Form filling is quick and user friendly and forms can also be printed e Filled in forms are automatically sent back by email e Automatically creates opinion meters and web polls PC Magazine EXCLUSIVE READER OFFER PC Magazine and Quask
28. RTL8100C and 5 1 sound ALC655 and the graph ics are provided by the RS300 9100 IGP Northbridge The integrated graphics are more than adequate for normal office Biostar has bundled some useful utilities with the board StudioFun is a media player that supports DVD VCD MP3 and audio CD playback Win Flasher is a Windows based BIOS upgrade utility Watch Dog reboots your system should you be too zealous in overclock ing the board 9th Touch offers a keyboard based utility that lets you choose which device to boot from and CPUSavior monitors the temperature of the CPU and shuts it down if it be gins to overheat for example in case of fan failure Biostar s M7NCD A02 board is ideal for those on a limited budget who want a no frills board that s easy to set up Verdict A fairly basic board but with enough integrated features to make it useful to compact PC builders Compact size dual channel memory support Lacks RAID Fact file Form factor microATX CPU socket Socket 478 Chipset ATI RS300 9100 IGP Memory supported Maximum 4GB PC2100 2700 3200 PCI slots 3 I O ports 2 x PS 2 2 x USB 2 0 1 x serial 1 x Parallel 1 x VGA 3 x audio LAN Price 62 inc VAT Contact Dabs co www dabs com applications but struggle to play the current crop of top games Overall this is a neat tidy and sensibly featured mother board for that microATX case you ve had your eye on BIOSTAR M7NCD A02
29. S ONE OF THE leading manufacturers of graphics chips said it had signed an agreement with design firm Intrinsity that could allow future ATI graphics chips to run at four times their current speeds Intrinsity is a fabless semicon ductor company whose Fast 14 technology enables semiconduc tor logic to run at very high clock rates using standard design tools According to Intrinsity circuit designers using Fast14 can be more productive designing processors that can run at high clock rates without the tedious hand tuning used by larger com panies such as Intel and AMD Current high end GPUs clock in the 400 600MHz range so a chip using Fast14 technology could deliver GPUs that run in the 1 6 2 4 GHz range Fast14 doesn t help with memory clocks so only the logic portion of the chip would run at the high clock rates We re combining ATI s pio neering leadership in consumer technologies with Intrinsity s proven chip design technology to create innovative products with stunning levels of visualisation and integration said Bob Feld stein vice president of engineer ing at ATI Thornhill Ontario ATI could also use the Fast14 technology to cut back on manu facturing costs LOYD CASE EXTREMETECH www pemag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 5 Lotus seeks common ground Roadmap for Workplace Notes and Domino focuses on increasing interoperability BM s Lotus software group has announced the latest
30. aining name of all image files Look for img tags Get img filename from src param Determine the full URL for this image Save it For each image URL that we saved Look for material after the final slash my local_image_name 1 local_image_name tr A Za z0 9 _ c E He Ht print Retrieving this_image and saving as local_image_ name n my image data get this_ image Save copy of image locally open OUTPUT_FILE gt local_image_name binmode OUTPUT FILE print OUTPUT_FILE image data close OUTPUT FILE exit 0 of the regular expression match is slightly dif ferent than we ve seen previously url m http Although previous examples of the m pat tern match operator have used slashes as delimiters around the regular expression this snippet of code illustrates how you can also use various types of parenthesis like delim iters to improve readability In this case we re specifying that we want to match against the beginning of the string the caret followed by the characters http a colon and two forward slashes Then my html get url does all the hard work and requests a Web server to give it the document at url and it puts the results or an empty string if nothing was found if you specified an invalid address in html Astute readers may wonder about this par ticular use of Perl s or operator In Perl returns
31. an find pretty much anything there from custom cars to network attached storage This in itself is a sign of the stealth convergence that s taking place Wi Fi enabled MP3 players for the car HD video recorders that are effectively PCs in a pretty box miniature hard drives for a mobile phone the list is enormous In the light of this we re taking a broader look at this topic this month ExtremeTech s Loyd Case produced a report for us on the technology trends he spotted at the show It s a fascinating insight into the world of consumer electronics and we believe of great relevance to PC Magazine readers To find out more about his discoveries turn to page 15 Another industry where PCs have caused a quiet revolution over the years is the movie industry Ever since ground breaking movies such as Disney s Tron appeared in the 1980s improvements in computer generated CG effects have closely followed the technological advances Tron didn t use a lot of CG effects but it sparked great deal of interest in their potential But what s needed to create state of the art effects such as those seen in Matrix Revolutions One of our regular contributors Craig Paterson works at the award winning Tippett Studio in California and fortunately for us he s also an inveterate geek He s taken a look at the technology behind Hollywood and describes the whole CG production flow It s certainly an eye opener and the makers of Tr
32. ayers and plasma displays are available Next month we ll take an in depth look at HDMI and HDTV technologies DVD movies Vv Figure 9 Onkyo s slot based architectures allows for upgrading the HDMI module a panies now see the PC as the repository for media data others still view PC technology as a threat and maintain their classic walled off approach Yamaha for example is taking this line with MusicCAST its wireless music distribution system Does this mean that the PC industry has some how won It depends on how you measure victory and defeat It s more as if the two industries are melding and integrating to a great extent How this will shape up for end users remains to be seen As Carly Fiorina s keynote speech at CES indi cated tech companies seem to be falling in line with TF wah si www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 17 gt Figure 10 Yamaha s high end DLP home theatre projector offers an HDMI input the positions of content providers in rigorously pro tecting content While most companies seem to be working to enable consumers to use content they buy anywhere they want digital content providers are reserving the right to prevent that if they so desire Where it will all go no one really knows THE BLEAK FUTURE FOR THE CRT The CRT is not dead In fact CRT based TVs and monitors will be around for a long time For smaller televisions such as the classic 19 27in sizes LCD TV
33. buy ing flat TVs and TVs using digital projection tech nology in droves The real issue is cost As a result of capacity con straints and manufacturing costs prices of plasma and LCD TVs are still pretty high particularly for the highly desirable 30in and above segment Philips Samsung and Sharp are among the com panies striving to bring more capacity on line Customers really like the flat TVs and have also taken to the shallower lighter cabinets inherent in DLP and LCD rear projectors such RCA Thom sons ultra sleek DLP rear projector Other compa nies will no doubt develop similar products making digital rear projectors nearly as attractive to buyers as flat LCD and plasma monitors Once the industry capacity problems come under control we should start to see large HDTVs with more attractive prices When the digital rear projectors drop below 1 000 CRT based TVs will A Figure 11 An entry level receiver and DVD player with HDMI support from Panasonic A Figure 12 HDMI is supported by Pioneer s DVD players set top boxes and plasma TVs but not its receivers Vv Figure 13 Dish Network s HD DVR is based on the Via C3 processor and older Pro133A 686B core logic CHOOSING PRODUCTS CES 2004 STORAGE HDMI HIDDEN PC MONITORS al mal start to fade out of the market High end units that appeal to hardcore videophiles and cheap TVs at the low end will still exist but most of the middle ra
34. ch the same way as 24 bit colour on a monitor prevents the banding artifacts prevalent with 16 bit e Dynamic range In layman s terms this is the range from the softest to the loudest sound a system can reproduce Humans especially children can hear nearly 0 decibels and our pain threshold is around 120 decibels so humans have a dynamic range of around 120dB When talking about digital audio you gen erally have to subtract the noise floor or amount of noise during silence from the maximum sound output the system is capable of producing In the digital realm it s generally accepted that you get about 6dB of dynamic range for each bit of sample depth An audio CD which is 16 bit audio at 44 1KHz would therefore have a dynamic range of around 96dB This is one reason why professional audio www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 33 2 Common decibel levels Jumbo jet taking off 100 feet away Jackhammer Pain threshold Nearby car horn Noisy Traffic Private office Quiet living room Quiet recording studio Lowest perceptible to humans is usually 24 bit the dynamic range of 144dB is beyond the human limit and suitable for almost anything see Table 2 e DCT iDCT Short for discrete cosine transform DCT is a technique for representing waveform data such as audio waves as a weighted sum of cosines iDCT is inverse discrete cosine trans form which is a means of taking the weighted
35. ckup Set Password Diagnostirs Router Upgrade Over c ec WAN Setup Dymamic DNS or Windows printing but this aa was fiddly to set up It s also Sialic Routes g Wireless Setting worth checking which printers ove are supported as it s not com Logout prehensive although most W Enable VPN Passthrough IPSec PPTP L2TP Drop fragmented IP packets Biock TCP food I Block VOP nood Block non standard packets The Netgear FWG114P offers lots of functionality ata reasonable price ete SR xvns a as yo as msosi x ND gt AT Dm NETGEAR sw ProSafe 802 act PWR TEST ALERT ALERT OoIM ACT 100 LNK ACT PRINTER INTERNET popular Canon HP Epson and Lexmark models are on the list The four port switch offers scope for connect ing additional PCs Redundancy isn t usually found in this price range but the FWG114P has a failover DB9 serial port for an ISDN or analogue modem with extensive hardware support The serial port also supports a single RAS Remote Access Server client Management information is gathered via logs that can be emailed to administrators and remote management is possible over an SSL connection This tiny box certainly pulls its weight and is suitable for a wide range of uses in even quite large SOHO environments Although it s targeting a highly competitive market its ease of use and extensive features are compelling ALEX ARIAS T METGEAR Router Mecrosolt Internet Bevtor
36. comparisons Multiply those requirements by the number of movies a studio will be working on at once and things get large quickly Tippett uses an SGI storage area network for its main storage with other systems in less demanding roles Items on the central file systems are accessed 2003 Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures A Swarms of objects are animated by procedurally by FX animators This example is from the final sequence of Matrix Revolutions CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY BASIC STEPS IT DEMANDS manipulated and updated by people working at dif ferent stages of the pipeline or by the render farm accessing component parts and writing out com pleted images At any given time the storage systems are deliv ering 100 250MB of traffic and during heavy ren dering loads the figure may be higher and sustained for days Since so much depends on the central stor age everything is redundant and high availability If one NFS server fails its workload is automatically transferred to one of the other servers in the cluster The evolution of desktop and render farm hard ware contrasts to that of enterprise class storage Processing power is relatively cheap and individual systems on a desktop or in the render farm aren t crucial to the overall smooth running of the shop The render farm draws most of its performance from dual CPU servers based on Athlon CPUs with 2GB or more of RAM each runn
37. d The first is a camera or view point layer the next two layers are for lighting ambient directional or point and the fourth is a text layer Chroma keying is supported so areas of animations can be made transparent for overlay on other video At first sight Bluff Titler looks decep tively simple but on closer examination it turns out to be a surprisingly power ful and complex tool that s capable of some really stunning text animation Price A single user version costs 30 20 Contact www blufftitler us variable and some programs are limited to one operating system often an old version of Microsoft Windows or even DOS Visit the Tool Shack at www audiovisualizers com to get an idea of the software available Conclusion This article has only scratched the surface of the video jockey world If nothing else trying out some VJ tricks is fun and a great intro duction to the arts of computer video graph ics and animation J www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 31 Subscribe now And save over 40 off the cover price TUTOR EXTRA JASON CROSS EXTREME TECH Digital audio primer Digital music is all around and the technology is constantly evolving so here s a review all those terms and technologies showing you how to unscramble your VBRs MP3s and WAVs t seems as though there are more digital music players on the market now than grains of sand on the beach Flash mem ory
38. d at CES someone was announcing a DVR More to the point quite a number of companies announced DVRs capable of recording HDTV con tent including satellite HDTV provider Voom Motorola Digeo s Moxi and Scientific Atlanta Fig ures 3 and 4 Dish Network is starting to ship its 921 HD DVR announced at last year s CES and TiVo is readying a unit as well Figure 5 Let s consider the idea of an HD DVR for a moment using Dish Network s 921 as an example The 921 ships with a 250GB Maxtor QuickView drive This 250GB drive can record up to 25 hours of HDTV content That s right a 250GB drive almost as big as you can get only handles 25 hours of A Figure 5 The HD DirecTiVo may ship soon D Wae A Figure 6 Daewoo will be imple menting ViXS technology for net work delivery of video around the home HDTV content When you realise that Dish Net work s HDTV streams are compressed a bit more than standard terrestrial HDTV broadcasts you understand the hunger for storage that HD DVRs will demand Note that these are not typical PC hard drives They re optimised to stream media off the drive which requires somewhat different firmware than the typical PC drive which reads and writes much smaller blocks of data Thermal and acoustic issues also come into play which is why the hard drives in DVRs are usually 5 400 RPM drives The chassis surrounding the drive mechanism are designed both to bleed heat and t
39. d by many applica tions to allow the understanding of data across various platforms Although Microsoft has known about the flaw since last July it claims that the breadth of systems affected has caused the long delay before a one patch fixes all release could be issued Microsoft has come under fire for weaknesses in its software Only last week it issued an emer gency fix for an Internet Explorer flaw exploited by hackers to imitate web sites in so called phish ing attacks that sought to obtain users personal details STEVE RANGER MyDoom delivers second payload Doomjuice launches DDoS attack ystems infected with MyDoom lt A are being hit by new malware via the backdoor as the worm delivers its second payload The new code named Doomjuice instructs infected machines to launch a distributed denial of service DDoS attack against Microsoft This attempt to harness infected systems with compatible code suggests that it comes from the same authors This proves to us that this and MyDoom A are written by the same people said Mikko Hyppo nen director of anti virus research at F Secure MyDoom A began scanning random IP addresses looking for infected machines on 9 Feb ruary Once the worm finds one it accesses via port 3127 and writes itself onto the Windows Sys tem Directory as INTRENAT EXE Anti virus firms are reminding customers to update virus signatures IAIN THOMSON as om virus alert w My
40. e particular challenges for the FX crew CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY BASIC STEPS DE D 2001 Sony Pictures Tippett Studio image storage The closest format to a standard is Cineon although Industrial Light and Magic has released its OpenEXR for free in the hopes of spurring studios to consolidate around a robust standard File sizes vary according to the file format but the volumes are huge For example the data volume required for a 4K image 4 096 by 3 112 resolution in Cineon format using 10 bits for each colour channel will be around 50MB For a standard movie there are 24 frames per second so a minute of footage demands around 70GB of storage Unsurprisingly the capital cost of film scanners is considerable a typical model costs around 500m 273m its setup and associated storage several times that Once they have been scanned individual plates need to be colour corrected The director of pho tography and director of the film will approve indi vidual colour corrections which are then applied to all the other frames Only the match move process see below can begin on frames before colour cor rection is finalised since the rendering and output stages all depend on correct colour information There are two types of film printers CRT print ers and laser printers The CRT printer uses a fixed film camera point ing at a CRT screen not the sort of screen you d buy at your local compute
41. e others Film input output At both ends of the process is the film input output I O department which scans the original film and prints the final images It s mouth and bowels says Vicki Wong man ager of Tippett s Film I O department Dust is the enemy of film so scanners and recorders live in a www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 20 2001 Sony Pictures Tippett Studio 2001 Sony Pictures Tippett Studio Missed an issue Get back issues from www pcmag com positive pressure atmosphere maintained by a spe cialised air conditioning and cleaning unit Exactly what is scanned and printed differs according to the film Most movies are shot on 35mm film where most of the space on the negative is taken up by the photographic image but some is reserved for the soundtrack Aspect ratios and types of soundtrack vary within the 35mm format Less commonly directors use 70mm or IMAX film For digital work which includes high definition footage there is no film scanning step because the camera itself stores the images digitally and the frames are simply downloaded to disk Off the shelf image file formats don t meet the requirements for high precision colour handling so many studios have developed in house formats for A Hollow Man depended heavily on FX animation for scenes involving Kevin Bacon s now invisible character Simulating the actor moving through smoke and swimming underwater wer
42. entioned above incur additional charges Please see www fasthosts co uk for full price tariff e Multiple Internet Connections Xtreme Support 24 x 7 365 phone and email e Online FAQs Knowledge Base and White Papers State of the Art UK based Data Centre UK s best value domain names at www ukreg com To speak to our Sales team call O87O SSS 3360 For more details and to launch your service within minutes visit www fasthosts co uk www efasthosts co uk Starter packages from 1 99 Business packages from 14 99 e Developer packages from 19 99 e Dedicated server solutions from 89 30 Day Money Back Guarantee PCMEB222
43. eo mixer video effects unit and a projector is still an expensive proposition Fortunately you can get started with just a PC and some additional software A worthwhile upgrade from this starting point is to fit a dual header graphics card with two VGA outputs or possibly DVI and VGA and even a composite video output This lets you run the control interface of the VJ soft www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 30 arKaos VJ 3 0 robably the most well known com mercial VJ software arKaos VJ runs on Windows 98 SE ME 2000 and XP or on Mac OS 9 and upwards arKaos is easy to use Clips and ef fects are dragged and dropped on to the keys of a screen representation of a key board and then appear as thumbnails on each virtual key Pressing the keys ei ther on screen with the mouse or on the computer or a MIDI keyboard plays the clip with the selected effect A preview window shows the clips as they are played and can be expanded to full screen With a dual header video card the performance video can be pro jected or shown on a larger display There are five floating windows within the arKaos parent window a control bar to select the other windows switch to full screen and access the au tomation settings an effects window with four tabs to select the 63 effects a visuals window with four tabs to select stills video clips camera input or text a patch window displaying the keyboard mapping and the video p
44. er www ebuyer com Antec Overture case CASE If you are in the market for a well constructed well finished full size desktop case Antec s stylish Overture is well worth putting on your shortlist Built out of steel the Overture is no lightweight weighing 11kg including the power supply an Antec TruePower 380watt unit using Antec Quiet PC technology Two thumbscrews at the rear of the case hold the top panel in place and once this is removed getting to everything is easy and straightforward The Overture is large enough to take full size ATX motherboards and full height length expansion cards The 3 5in hard drive bay sits near the rear held in place by two screws and with rubber drive mounts The power sup ply is positioned in the front left hand side of the case on top of which are two more 3 5in drive bays both with external excess The 5 25in drive bay is tool free held in place by a large clip The front bezel holds the power and reset buttons a FireWire port two USB 2 0 and two audio ports Finished in the familiar gloss Piano Black of the Lifestyle se ries of Antec cases the chassis sides and top are set off by the silver finished front bezel Price 90 90 inc VAT Contact Perfex 0870 141 7161 www overclock co uk www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 13 Kingston Elite Pro SD Card Lf gt oF Px t 2I Sere wee S amp S While Western Digital s Raptor may be the
45. er Ta 2 Ble Ede yew Favorites pols Help 5 PRTA ile re N A TE A OAA AN N NT TE OS T T ee iad EA TA cae i ET OCEN O AT a y a ai R RU Ariy ALLOW always Any SR es ed cb me hd Tn FO ee FI a ee eS Pca Te AERA ON AMET C ETS CU UM be Toe Te OT ae Add Edit Move Delete SHITDOUIE SHEMALE Any BLOCK siways Ada Ed Mov Dato Bie Cee ODOT ea a A ee Wedel BAUM et Cet eral eH AT a P KAUT SE thet sl Cetera aire a Res atte ew ARE PEA iia itt A EEN E UDO be AA A PAUC ETECO TR HE TEA T A we Co Nth ROPOT y E A A hae eet OAN AA E TENTE Ppa E nAi NE A U EAN ad E T AE PTT Glad E S A a a A A Sierra Vo A AEN IAA Apply Cancel dy here TiO a a i eee py te PVE WAT e E O e RN ee ed ML is ibe oT Lite bes MANLIG Pd oat a Aa a AL esa Era eb ee Pattie MAE DONT A A ulls internet 11g Wireless Firewall Print Server 100 Verdict Covers most broadband and networking needs for a variety of users in an uncomplicated fashion Analogue modem support easy installation good documentation No WDS support limited printer support Dimensions DxWxH 32 x 188 x 124mm Firewall type Stateful packet inspection Protocols supported NAT DHCP PPoE TCP IP VPN pass through Printing protocols TCP IP Windows LPD Ports 4 x 10 100Mbit s Auto Uplink LAN 1 x 10 100Mbit s Auto Uplink WAN USB interface USB 2 0 Wireless standard 802 11G 2 4GHz Physical security Kensington lock s
46. ere are advanced editing options for more knowledgeable users and as a reseller you can custom brand the web builder with your own identity and logos With Matrix Stats you can monitor and analyse your websites traffic Matrix Stats runs in real time and can be installed on any of your domain names All your domains have unlimited POP3 accounts and forwarders We also offer web mail which you can brand for your customers virus scanning spam filtering and SMS email alerts You can setup MYSQL and MSSQL databases instantly and use them with any of your websites You can install Microsoft FrontPage Extensions 2002 on any of your domains Our award winning online control panel is the industry leading tool for managing and provisioning your services You can control everything from the web from setting up domains email databases installing FrontPage Extensions and more All of the features of the reseller package are managed via your control panel You can setup control panels for your customers to use to manage their individual domain names and services You can completely customize the look and feel of your client control panels e Your own custom name servers e Create unlimited FTP accounts SSL Support e Media Streaming Password Protected Folders on your sites e Create dialup accounts for your customers become a virtual ISP FREE INSTANT SET UP PER MONTH OR 500 00 PA Some of the features m
47. face To make the upgrade process easier if you have an existing broadband modem or router it sup ports MAC address cloning so you don t have to re register with your ISP The product is based on a stateful packet inspection firewall and provides intrusion detec tion a safer approach than just NAT that offers advanced content filtering capabilities It also allows you to establish access policies for instance based on the time of day Port for warding DMZ and Dynamic DNS support more advanced uses such as running a web server Wireless connectivity uses the 2 4GHz 54Mbit s 802 11g standard and provides back ward compatibility and a degree of longevity As with all wireless environments security is an issue and Wi Fi Protected Access is available as a firm ware upgrade As standard it of fers 128 bit WEP encryption or MAC address access lists Up to 64 wireless clients can connect to the AP although the Setup Wiad limited bandwidth of 802 11g ror makes that impractical Up to rae 253 LAN clients are supported It lacks WDS Wireless Distribution System support although this isn t really an issue for the target market Software is provided for the print server with a USB 2 0 connection on the unit for the printer It supports peer to peer NETGEAR ProSafe 802 1 1g Wireless Firewall Print Server ree LR Logs fhock Sites ARIES SD AING amp Router Slatus Options Attached Devices Settings Ba
48. from the Web page with just a couple of lines of code my parser HTML Toke gt Parser gt new html1 while my img info gt a parser gt get_tag img my image name img info gt 1 gt sre now we know the name of the image and can retrieve it or save it for later use Short as they are these few lines of code con tain substantially more complexity than any thing I ve introduced so far In part that s because HTML TokeParser is a class that uses Perl s object oriented capabilities to expose methods rather than plain old functions for us to use Fortunately Perl isn t a strict object ori ented language and you needn t be an OO guru to use object oriented Perl modules What s going on here is not as complicated as it might seem at first The first line defines a variable called parser a variable that just happens to be an object The business to the right of the equals sign tells Perl to take a reference to the con tents of html the Web page we retrieved and give it to the HTML TokeParser module which will construct a new TokeParser object This syntax is probably more or less familiar if you ve done object oriented programming in another language Then we dive into a loop to extract the information we need The while loop assigns a new value to our variable img_info for each img tag that the parser finds on the page If youre new to OO concepts you can think of
49. hecking configurations is excruciatingly unbearable Then there s the seemingly endless repetition PC after PC group test after group test But this isn t why I hate benchmarking in fact we have a semi automated system to be obsessive and compulsive for us That part I really don t like is the output of all this testing the results Why Because more often than not they tell us just one thing The PCs all perform pretty much as they should and there s no humanly detectable difference between them at least not in terms of raw speed Print the results properly that is with all the bars starting at zero and you end up with a chart the shape of a house brick The temptation is to use this brick to build a story A PC at the top of the chart is not necessarily faster in any useful or even noticeable way than the one at the bottom What we want to know is what makes each PC special or different All the graph provides is a stark representation of everything that s identical wow Let s face it if youre buying a replacement computer even the slowest PC in the test is likely to whip the ass of your current heap of junk You may be inter ested to know by how much but how accurately do you really need to know this All other things being equal price features styling you may plump for the faster of two machines but it s unlikely to be your primary purchasing criterion Of course benchmarks have their uses Sometimes
50. hich is going to be huge HIGH DEFINITION MULTIMEDIA HDMI moment Surprise surprise the 921 is a VIA Cen taur based PC with some extra circuit boards for handling the HDTV and satellite tuning chores It also runs a version of embedded Linux PC technology is showing up in more and more consumer electronics devices Some companies sim ply use PC technology for one feature For example Sharp has built PC Card technology into televisions Other companies use the PC as inspiration as Onkyo did when adopting a slot based architecture to allow for hardware upgrades such as in its flag ship TX NR1000 receiver And as weve seen with the Dish 921 DVR Figure 13 some companies adopt the PC architecture wholesale From the other direction PC technology is mov ing into the home directly as has been seen with some of the better Media Center PCs While some A Figure 7 Kaleidescape s DVD server uses enterprise class storage arrays to serve up 440 INTERFACE companies including consumer electronics com The high definition multimedia interface was every where at CES HDMI seems to have had one of the fastest rollouts of any display and audio interface over the past few years Silicon Image and Toshiba are building HDMI receiver and transmitter chips while other consumer electronics companies are rushing to include HDMI ports in their products HDMI is a high speed serial interface capable of transmitting HDTV signals a
51. ic Store but AAC does not have any real DRM of its own so Apple uses its own DRM wrapper called FairPlay on iTunes songs e WMA Microsoft s Windows Media Audio format has undergone many major changes in the past few years with drastic improvements in qual ity efficiency and features Today s WMA9 technology includes four separate codecs Windows Media Audio 9 Microsoft claims a 20 per cent improvement in quality bit rate over WMA8 but the key addition is support for VBR encoding Fortunately WMA9 files can be decoded with devices made to decode previous generations of WMA Windows Media Audio 9 Professional The Pro edition is similar to WMA9 but supports up to 24 bit 96KHz audio and multi channel sound formats up to 5 1 and even 7 1 One of its cool features is that the decoder will auto matically adapt the audio material to the hardware e Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless This is a VBR only codec that produces absolutely per fect mathematically lossless copies of an orig inal audio file including 24 bit 96KHz and 5 1 audio The compression ratio isn t nearly as high as with lossy compression averaging between 2 1 to 4 1 depending on the com plexity of the source material This codec is designed for professionals and audiophiles who want to archive perfect copies of music e Windows Media Audio 9 Voice This codec is optimised for extremely low bit rate files like those that you would stream over
52. inal artist and an URL Although ID3 refers to MP3 files there are lt This table gives an example of common Sound level in dB decibel levels 140 120 100 80 40 20 10 0 similar tags embedded in most other digital media formats many of which are more fea ture rich some include room for lyrics rat ings etc It s not uncommon to hear people refer to them all as simply ID3 tags Major audio formats e MP3 Contrary to what many people believe this is not MPEG3 audio but MPEG Layer 3 Many people think MP3 is free but a license is required to sell products that encode or decode MP3 as well as to broadcast com mercial MP3 content The standard was devel oped before content protection and online distribution of pirated music became an issue and thus contains no DRM at all This along with the relative high speed of encoding and decoding has made the format popular with end users but not with record labels None of the major for pay online serv ices use MP3 as their file format You can read a lot more about MP3 at the Fraunhofer IIS page www iis fraunhofer de index html e MP3 Pro Thompson acquired this format in 2001 from its Swedish partner company Coding Tech nologies which developed it when research ing a hearing device for the deaf It claims to offer equal sound quality at half the bit rate of regular MP3 While this is certainly subjective it does sound a lot better at very lo
53. ing the unit on and then again after running PCMark 2004 s CPU test The cooler made a small but significant difference see graph And in the real world away from benchmarks we know of one notebook that frequently EXTREME PERIPHERALS VNU Lab tests vnu labs Antec notebook cooler PC Mark 02 crunch test run five times degrees centigrade Crunch test without cooler ee gt Crunch test with cooler Rs 67 At rest SS Using the cooler gave us a useful drop in temperature of around 6 degrees centigrade crashed due to problems with heat It has run without crash ing since being used in conjunc tion with the Antec cooler Price 29 29 inc VAT Contact Special Tech www specialtech co uk New PC Magazine benchmarks arrive As you will have seen from the performance graphs this month we introduce the latest versions of the PC Magazine benchmarks from Ziff Davis Media Business Winstone 2004 The latest version of Winstone features the current versions of the applications found in Microsoft Office XP Access Excel FrontPage Outlook PowerPoint Project and Word together with WinZip 8 1 and Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003 This version of Winstone also features a brand new test for multi tasking Using the same applications as Winstone this test runs some of these such as virus checking in the background while doing work in the foreground Multimedia Content Creation Winst
54. ing Red Hat Linux Where possible desktops have a similar configura tion and also run Linux However as some software will only run only on Mac Windows or SGI IRIX Tippett maintains all these environments Ten years ago when Tippett was working on Jurassic Park it had to equip each desktop with an 80 000 43 600 SGI workstation Now the cost of each desktop is only a few thousand dollars The PC based hardware is trickier to maintain and fails more often than high end workstations but the trade off is worth it Spare workstations sit ready to replace failed systems so the minimum of creative time is lost when a workstation or render server develops a fault And it s cheaper for the stu dio to take advantage of more powerful hardware as it becomes available Bang for the buck Beyond the technology visual effects work is also incredibly labour intensive Tippett s staff work a standard 45 hour week Matrix Revolutions required a creative team of around 80 people working for well over a year All of that work was for shots that added up to just a few minutes of a movie lasting over two hours and Tippett was just one of several studios con tracted to provide CG effects But as audiences and directors demand ever more convincing and elabo rate effects the investment pays off Hl www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 25 Free software Don t miss our special offer Page 8 TUTOR JOHN CLYMAN Perl fo
55. ing technology It s more than just a straight die shrink but not a big enough deal to justify a change in the branding said Intel spokesman Nick Knupffer Among the features introduced with Prescott is version 3 of Intel s streaming SIMD extensions SSE3 These comprise 13 new instructions mainly focused on boosting audio and video encoding and streaming The first Prescott chips will be compatible with existing Pentium 4 infrastructure such as mother boards and heatsinks but Intel is expected to move Prescott to a new chip socket architecture later this year Firms may prefer to delay any desk top refreshment plans until after this transition lsn oo Se to i 7 iaa EF paian Bi mi bar Find A Intel s Prescott chip offers improved Hyper Threading The improved Hyper Threading in Prescott provides better support for background tasks according to Intel enabling features such as secu rity tools to run without affecting the user s work Office 2003 was written to be multi threaded so business users running it will see a benefit from Hyper Threading on Prescott said Knupffer Prescott will ship under the same Pentium 4 brand name as current chips which may confuse some buyers DANIEL ROBINSON IT WEEK Music industry and P2P firms head back to court RIAA asks court to overturn ruling that file sharing networks can have legitimate uses he ongoing feud between the music industry and develope
56. ing up from a prosumer fixed lens digital camera The 300D takes Canon s EF mount lenses significant for anyone currently using a Canon film SLR The 300D comes in two forms a body only or for an extra 90 the kit version which includes the Canon EF S 18 55mm zoom lens This lens has been designed for the 300D it won t fit any other Canon film or digital SLR It projects fur ther back into the camera body than conventional 35mm SLR lenses and uses more compact lighter lens elements to produce a smaller field of view for sensors which are smaller than a 35mm film frame This lens produces great results and is such good value there seems little point in passing it up The 300D is comfortable responsive and easy to manage whether using one of the point and shoot basic zone exposure modes or the ad vanced creative zone exposure modes Exposure modes are selected using the dial on the top right of the camera body There are seven basic modes including full auto portrait land scape macro sport and night flash The autofocus system uses seven AF points rectangles with an LED at their centre arranged in a cross pattern covering the field of view When one or more of the AF points gets a lock the LED flashes and an indicator LED turns on in the viewfinder The AF system is accurate and fast working well in low light though the built in flash can be raised for AF assist firing a rapid burst t
57. inks Windows is strange have relationships with Linux developers and find Microsoft licensing confusing Fortunately Microsoft s own executives don t seem to be suffering from the same myopia as some of its consultants Senior executives at Redmond see the so lution to be exactly the one we recently pointed out in this column the develop ment of a mini footprint version of Windows based on Windows Mobile Such a platform could fulfil the functions of Windows 3 1 and Windows 9x that second generation owners of hand me down PCs use them for today but would be inherently more stable Disadvantages Well the margin for Microsoft on a PC is already smaller than you might think A small footprint ARM based PC clocked at 200 400MHz can t be sold for much less than a full spec Pentium 4 But there are savings and the more savings there are the more Microsoft s share has to be cut But I think the developing world PC is a potential money maker and that Microsoft will start promoting it shortly And once that bandwagon starts rolling the kiss of death for Windows 98 will be final and swift E www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 4 TR Prescott adds punch to P4 processor First Intel chip to use 90nm process ntel has introduced its Prescott processor a new version of its Pentium 4 desktop chip and the first chip built with Intel s 90nm process It will be branded as the Intel Pentium 4 with Hyper Thread
58. instream graphics cards get more and more powerful they need ever more cooling This in turn leads to larger faster fans and yet more noise from inside the PC espe cially when the fans get dusty or the bear ings begin to wear out An ideal way to combat this problem is to get rid of the fan completely which is what Sapphire has done with its latest card based on ATT s Radeon 9600XT the Radeon 9600XT Ultimate Edition Working with Zalman the masters of quiet cooling Sapphire has produced a card that relies on Zalman s heatpipe h AOpen Aeolus FX5700 Ultra DV128 w ie g z eececeseee r i al GRAPHICS CARD At the heart of the Aeolus FX5700 Ultra is nVidia s 0 13 micron NV36 core which is an update of the NV35 core of the FX5600 Improvements include faster memory and core clock speeds updated shaders and 128MB of DDR II memory Clock speed is now 475MHz while the memory speed is 900MHz 450MHz DDR II With a 128 bit memory bus this gives the FX5700 Ultra a band width of 14 4GB s AOpen s Aeolus uses a refer ence nVidia cooling solution for both the GPU and the memory chips The GPU cooler is fitted with a low noise fan and cools both the GPU and the top lt The FX5700 Ultra offers great perfor mance for its price level memory chips while the bottom chips are cooled by a ribbed plate Although this gives a sin gle slot width solution the DDR II me
59. ior and incompatible ATRAC3 format The latest format ATRAC3plus promises twice the efficiency of ATRAC3 but is only just now seeing wide spread support with the release of the Hi MD MiniDisc players ATRAC works by splitting the sound signal into separate frequency bands and compress ing them separately see Figure 2 Sony explains and hypes ATRAC3 at www sony net Products ATRAC3 index html e FLAC Short for free lossless audio codec FLAC is like Vorbis in that it is free unpatented and open source As with other lossless compres sion formats it produces large files and is not as efficient as some other lossless formats For some users being free and open source outweigh whatever shortcomings the FLAC format may have http flac sourceforge net e Speex Another open source patent free audio com pression format Speex is targeted at com pressing speech to very low bit rates in the 2 44Kbit s range It includes lots of good fea tures such as packet loss concealment and voice activity detection and offers a VBR mode as well as the ability to change bit rate on the fly Www speex org e Shorten Owned by Cambridge based SoftSound Shorten is a proprietary waveform coder that TUTOR EXTRA offers both lossless and lossy compression modes The lossy compression only offers compression ratios of 3 1 to 5 1 and is not as popular as more robust lossy compression schemes such as MP3 AAC or WMA The los
60. kages such as Adobe Pho toshop Adobe Premiere CorelDRAW and even Microsoft Paint Conventional video mixers and effects www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 29 Korg KAOSS Pad Entrancer ollowing its success with the KAOSS Pad audio effects unit Korg intro duced the KAOSS Pad Entrancer audio video effects processor The KP Entrancer provides 100 real time audio and video effects that can be controlled through a rectangular touch pad Just for fun the control pad is back lit and changes colour in response to fin ger movement Audio and video effects can be con Uk INPUT VOLUME Jag Enn comer 4 ALDO e voro CONTROL SELECT PWOSRAM MEMORY A Korg s KAOSS Pad Entrancer gives instant interactive control over audio and video effects through a touch pad FECH IAM TH trolled separately or together and may be BPM locked to synchronise with the input audio There are two audio line inputs and two audio line outs two composite video inputs composite or S Video out and stereo headphone out MIDI input and output allows the En trancer to control external MIDI audio synthesisers or a MIDI sequencer to record and playback signals from the touchpad Eight program buttons provide direct access to eight of the audio video or combined effects An infinite rotation knob is used to access the other effects Price 723 40 street price ex VAT Contact www korg co uk Edirol V 4 Vide
61. l a good space savings A clip that is not quite so musically complex would compress further The 128Kbit MP3 cut the file down to 983 kilobytes an 11 1 compression ratio Then we took a look at a spectrum analysis of the resulting files Note how lossless com pression produces the exact same graph while the MP3 file loses signal dramatically as fre quency increases and drops off entirely just over 16KHz Increasing the bit rate can improve this but the only way to get a totally exact copy of the music is to use a lossless compres sion scheme it often takes longer to compress a digital music file than to decompress it for playback Decompression is less CPU intensive which is why tiny players with low power processors are fine for playing back compressed music e Compression ratio Simply put this is the ratio between the size of the original uncompressed audio clip and its compressed version If an audio clip is 20MB in its native uncompressed form and 1 8MB as a 128Kbit s MP3 file then that file has a compression ratio of 11 1 typical of 128Kbit s MP3 files e Lossy lossless Digital sound formats are divided into two types Lossy compression removes some information in order to make the file easier to www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 32 1 Comparison of bit rates Bit rate Kbit s Seen in Compression ratio Three minute songs per compared to CD audio 650MB CD 1 411 CD audio 01 01 20 192 High quali
62. language There s a sea of terminology to wade through but much of it is purely academic and not really useful to typical consumers Original sound WMLA lossless MP3 128Kbit s Here are a few of the more common terms you should understand to get the most out of your digital audio experience e Codec Any time digital audio is mentioned this word gets thrown around It s an abbreviation of compressor decompressor an algorithm used to compress data and then decompress it again Some codecs are implemented in soft ware some in hardware and some are limited in their functionality A portable music player may have a codec that only decompresses data for example However it s common in the digital media world to use the term codec for any algorithm that deals with the compression and decom pression of audio data The process isn t necessarily symmetrical TUTOR EXTRA KEYPOINTS e Terms explained e Major formats described e Less common audio formats Lossless compression lt Figure 1 this spectrum analysis illustrates the difference between lossless and lossy audio compression We took a clip from the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack and encoded it in two for mats Windows Media 9 Lossless and MP3 at 128Kbit s The original clip was 10 3MB which was cut down to 6MB with the lossless codec not even a 2 1 reduction but stil
63. led element must also be coloured and textured by the paint department While animators x gt t www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 22 2003 Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures Become a video jockey Our expert guide Page 29 are working on physically correct but plain coloured models painters are working on painting and tex turing those same models A variety of 2D and 3D paint software is used depending on the specific requirements of the model and what is convenient for the painter in a given situation The specifications for what and how to apply the painted characteristics to a model are supplied to the technical director to combine with the work of the character and sometimes FX animators Character animation The process of character animation begins in pre production with the creation of animatics Simple block models and sets are used to mock up shots with different lenses These pre visualisation sequences are used by the director to test out his or her ideas of how and what to shoot For the animators this is where the characters first come to life Although the models used are crude they feature the essential characteristics of the CG characters That s actually the most fun part says Todd Labonte a Tippett animation supervisor Working without the constraints that naturally restrict creativity later in the process gives the ani mator more freedom You
64. lot OS support Windows 95 or above Netware Linux Unix Mac Price 157 ex VAT Warranty 3 years RTB Contact Netgear 01344 39702 www netgear co uk Clearly laid out web browser interface with in depth explana tions on hand should make both configuring and administering the Netgear ProSafe FWG114P rela tively straightforward www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 9 PC Magazine s price comparison service FIRST LOOKS NETWORKING PERIPHERALS SOFTWARE How to zoom from A to Z ROUTE PLANNING Route Planner 2004 Great Britain and Europe is one of an increasing number of packages designed to help you find your way around It includes detailed maps of European cities giving the loca tions of sights arts venues hotels petrol stations and so forth along with the usual route planning Installation is straightforward but it needs 2GB of disk space and the last stage of the setup took so long we thought it had died That minor glitch aside it s simple to use The main screen shows a map of Europe and there s a pane on the left where you can type in a postcode or town name Place and street names can be se lected from a pop up box For the UK this works fine it worked well with addresses in Fie Onne Emas Help in Great Britain and Europe gt Route Planee Great Britain Emope 7004 SB noue 7 Hotei Q Acdessos f Seach FJ Route Planner Great Britain Curope 2004
65. lso live in spec ified locations Second we need to parse the HTML we retrieve and figure out what images it refers to and then get those images from the server One simplifying assumption I have made is that we can create our local copies of all the images in the same local directory as the HTML for the Web page itself with filenames of our choosing and not have to touch the HTML to reflect these changed path and file names It s not hugely difficult to modify the HTML but doing so here would add com plexity to the code that would be more likely to obscure than to illuminate Retrieving data from the web A Perl module called LWP Simple makes the first part of our task retrieving data across the Web quite easy To see it in action save the following code as grab page pl usr bin perl w use strict use LWP Simple die Usage grab page pl gt a url n unless ARGV 1 my url ARGV O url http url unless gt a url m http my html get url print html exit 0 Now execute this command line grab page pl gt a http www pcmag co uk After a moment s delay you should see the HTML code for the PC Magazine home page Or maybe not It s possible that your Perl installation doesn t have the LWP Simple module that s needed for the program to work And even if it does you might want to read on to learn how to install a module that doesn t c
66. ly light shows where any apparent synergy between the music and the images was either down to serendipity or required crude physical intervention today s video can be just as much a live performance as live music or a DJ mix While it has its roots in dance culture you can do more with VJ techniques than just amuse clubbers Live performance is only one possibility since it s possible to pre record parts of a performance as backing tracks record control sequences or even output a performed edit as a finished video With a VJ set up it s extremely easy to cre ate video with the sort of complex edits and special effects seen in television advertising educational films or any video sequence that requires an abstract approach It is possible for example to create exciting title sequences for a film using VJ techniques and tools VJ work is still an experimental art and professional VJs use a range of video hardware and software However just as a DJ needs to be able to cue up and then cross fade between one record and the next a video artist must be able to view and control his or her source material while presenting a seamless flow of MASTERCLASS KEYPOINTS e The rise in video effects has spawned a new cult figure the video jockey or VJ e Software packages allow video artists to create stunning effects e You can get started with an ordinary PC and some additional software
67. m any angle As CG has become the dominant form of effects compositing has become more creative and is also the stage where many final decisions are made A compositor s work overlaps with that of an FX www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 24 Canon EOS 300D First sub 1 000 digital SLR Page 11 animator in a couple of areas First an extensive library of filmed phenomena is mined for elements that match a given effect The compositor combines images of real filmed smoke with those generated by FX animation to give a more natural overall look And some interactions of CG elements with the scene will be enhanced entirely using these filmed elements without any rendered CG effects An added difficulty for compositors is allowing for the characteristics of different displays The white of a computer monitor is different than the white from a fluorescent light which in turn is dif ferent from the white of a movie projector in a cin ema The compositor must make sure that the image appears correctly regardless of the output type Compositing is the final creative step in the effects pipeline Once a shot is a candidate for final status it is handed to the film I O department for printing There are generally fewer iterations of film printing than of the other steps because the process is slow and expensive Once the director finals the shot it is closed to further work and prepared for archiving so that
68. mation keys marking points at which the animation changes can be set as along this timeline At each key point the animation state is defined using the lt arKaos offers the creative video artists enormous freedom and movies are available on commercial CD it s a good idea to experiment with creating your own images to stamp your personality on your VJ performances Scanners digital stills cameras web cams and video cameras are all useful tools that you can use to compile your own image libraries VJ software There s a lot more VJ software available than custom hardware and a fair proportion is free or shareware The downside is that quality is MASTERCLASS A Bluff Titler can be used to create stunning text animations menu selections and controls When the animation is played it morphs between the defined key states Animation length referred to as show length is set by entering a time in seconds 300 seconds seems to be the maximum from the File Set Show Length menu choice from the bar at the top of the display window Once creat ed shows can be exported as AVI files The Titler supports seven types of video layers light text picture video audio plasma and particle These layers may be added to an animation through the Layer menu in the display window and more than one layer of the same type can be added By default four layers appear in the control window when a new show is starte
69. mes players who bought as many Raptors as their budgets allowed reflecting its outstanding performance About the only complaint with the original Raptor was its capacity a rather miserly 36GB so with the WD740GD this has been rectified with an expansion to a capacity of 74GB Using two 37GB platters to achieve its 74GB capacity the WD740GD has a 10 000rpm spindle speed and an 8MB buffer With a claimed seek time of 4 5ms it s reckoned to be the fastest 10 000rpm drive avail able and should even give 15 000rpm SCSI drives some thing to think about A New Raptor larger capacity The drive is a little noisy when under load similar to the level of a SCSI drive so it may not be suitable if you are build ing a silent machine but people seeking performance above everything else won t be both ered about it However it does need some thought as to location in the case as it gets rather warm Again though this drive is aimed at server applications and enthusiasts who shouldn t have a problem keeping it cool Price 198 12 inc VAT Contact Perfex 0870 141 7161 www overclock co uk gt ose ose ese ose fe ose ese ese ese ese ese ese ese sse ose ete ote oso ese ete of A Antec s fan helps to reduce heat build up in notebooks stacked USB ports below the one it is using We tested the cooler by mea suring the CPU and hard disk temperatures before switch
70. might come up with an idea for a shot during animatics and a year later see it in the movie Final animations are much slower to produce than animatics Levels of detail fitting to the actual scenery that was filmed changes of shot and changes in subsequent steps in the process all slow things down And of course the director may just dislike the way a given character moves Once real film arrives the animators review the sequence to see what s already happening in each plate Some items may already be moving say a flowerpot falling over in anticipation of a CG character being added later which seems to trigger the action Motion of the character must fit these points The early blocking versions of each animation will be basic showing a character moving through a scene but not fully animated These are to work out with the director the basic flow and motion of each shot before putting too much time into animating precise details A This scene from Matrix Revolutions shows a real set CG city sky and lightning composited together Y Sometimes a shot is entirely computer generated such as this scene of the fields from Matrix Revolutions 2003 Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOG E PROCESS BASIC STEPS IT DEMANDS The next step is to produce temp animations That s where the basic stuff is all worked out major physics proble
71. mory chips get hot and therefore still need some circulation of air around them The software package is basic just a driver CD and a copy of WinDVD This isn t a bad thing as it allows AOpen to sell the card at a competitive price The FX5700Ultra offers great performance for its price seg ment But like all FX5700 Ultra cards AOpen s Aeolus day in the sun has been short over shadowed by the recent release of the faster FX5900XT for al most the same price Price 136 inc VAT Contact Dabs com www dabs com technology In place of the fan there is a large heatsink on the front of the card and another on the rear with a single heatpipe connecting the two This neat solution keeps the card as a sin gle slot card Along with all the standard hardware cables adapters and EXTREME PERIPHERALS CASES lt The card relies on heatpipe technology for cooling instead of a noisy fan user manual there is a software bundle com prising Redline Sapphire s own over clocking utility Power DVD XP4 0 Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness a Direct X9 game and the standard issue for a XT card the Half Life 2 voucher redeemable should the game ever appear The Radeon 9600XT Ultimate Edition offers main stream performance and silence It s just a shame that with this cooling solution Sapphire didn t try and push up the core and clock memory speeds Price 136 27 inc VAT Contact Ebuy
72. ms are solved continues Labonte Temp animation tends to look like a pretty good video game At the end of the process comes final animation when every detail is animated down to hair blowing in the breeze lips twitching and pupils dilating Once the animation reaches this point develop ment continues in tandem with the technical direc tor since the lighting and painting of models may call for changes in details of animation Depending on where the model is in the scene animators may work with a different model or ani mate only certain features Each character has cer tain common movements such as walking These are built as animation cycles a little like a macro so the animator can watch basic walking motion when say animating the character scrambling over a pile of rubble You don t actually use the cycles in the anima tion says Labonte But cycles are easy to see and edit so you very quickly get things figured out FX animation Where characters interact with an environment other phenomena may occur If a computer gener ated character runs through steam the steam must eddy and flow convincingly FX animators also handle the animation of large groups of objects that would be impractical to ani mate individually and are animated procedurally a program describes the behaviour Respectively these are known as supporting element and hero effects Demetrius Leal is one of Tippett
73. n computer graphics CG Here we look at how modern visual effects are created taking our exam ples from Tippett Studio in California This award winning medium sized company s body of work stretches back to Star Wars and includes the bugs in Starship Troopers and most recently more than 150 shots for Matrix Revolutions The process Different shots have varying degrees of CG and this affects the steps in the pipeline used to produce the final film Pixar s Toy Story and Finding Nemo for example are completely computer generated which simplifies some parts of the process and vastly complicates others For most shots there will be existing footage into which the effects once created must be placed For those shots the visual effects pipeline begins during principal photography when the film is being shot on loca tion or in the studio Any location or set must be surveyed and the infor mation recorded so that the effects can be properly scaled and placed www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 19 2003 Blockbuster Entertainment Tippett Studio Once principal photography is complete post production post gets under way Post includes all the work required to take the basic film to a final cut ready for showing Along with sound and video editing colour correction and other tasks this includes creating any required CG effects However by the time post production begins visual effects c
74. nate duplicates Finally the program loops through each hash key that is image URL retrieves it and saves a copy locally Most of the code inside the loop builds on previous examples but there are a few items worth noting The first three lines are devoted to turning the URL into a filename that can safely be used locally In the first and second lines the program extracts the portion of the filename following the final slash in essence discard ing any path information The third line uses Perl s tr function to translate undesirable characters into something reasonably safe namely an underscore local_image_name tr A Za z0 9 _ Cc The c suffix means complement so any char acters in local_image_name that do not match the characters A Z a z 0 9 or period get replaced with an underscore This step helps to prevent us creating any filenames with funny characters that might make the operating system choke As with the main HTML page we can now call get to retrieve the image data But since image data is in binary format rather than ASCII text theres an additional step that s necessary at least on operating systems like Windows that differentiate between text and binary files That s where the binmode OUT PUT_FILE statement comes in this ensures that the binary data gets processed properly And there you have it a rudimentary Web crawler We hope you found our first series of Perl instruc
75. nd as the highest frequency youre trying to digitise in order to avoid problems of aliasing aliasing is where a high frequency signal that s sampled at too low a sample rate aliases into a signal that s half its actual frequency Human hearing peaks out at around 20 24KHZz so it would stand to reason that we need a sample rate of 40 48KHz to reproduce the entire range of human hearing But that s only half the story It may only take two samples per sound wave to repro duce it digitally but the quality of taking this minimum approach is less than desirable Bumping it up to four samples or more per wave however creates truly compelling audio A sampling rate of 96KHz is used in the DVD Audio standard and by most professional dig ital recording equipment This allows four samples for each wave in the upper limit of human hearing and six to twelve samples for waves in the 8 6KHz fre quency range which includes most of the music we hear Bit depth is pretty good at 16 bits per sam ple which is the most common level but most professional audio equipment and the DVD A standard use 24 bits per sample More bits are good in audio for the same reason they re good in graphics Sixteen bit audio allows for 65 536 different levels per audio sample while 24 bit boosts that fidelity to 16 7 million This huge increase helps preserve nuances and overtones and prevents quantisation errors when mixing tracks in mu
76. ng magnetic storage CHOOSING PRODUCTS CES 2004 STORAGE HDMI HIDDEN PC MONITORS lt Figure 3 Voom s DVR offers 160GB of storage for HD broadcasts Y Figure 4 Cable hardware sup plier Scientific Atlanta also offers an HD DVR appear around mid 2004 The media cost will be under 10 5 45 for a 1 5GB disk Figure 1 Iomega s prospects for DCT aren t entirely rosy For one thing Sony also announced a new small format removable storage device The Sony Hi MD minidisk is somewhat larger than DCT media since it s identical in form factor to the original minidisc Sony is also focusing on using it just for music play ers although the Hi MD music players that were announced at the show can be used as small PC drives via USB connections Chinese company Magicstor announced a 4 8GB one inch hard drive However Hitachi is already shipping its 4GB Microdrive Figure 2 to OEM customers including Apple for the new smaller iPod Mini and Creative Labs for the 4GB MuVo2 Hitachi anticipates shipping a compact flash version within a matter of months Even smaller rotating media made the scene with Toshiba s announcement of its 0 85in drive This drive isn t yet shipping but should have an impact on combination devices such as mobile phone cameras The hidden 3 5in drive The digital video recorder DVR formerly known as the personal video recorder PVR was every where Everywhere you turne
77. nge market will be purely digital within five years INTERACTIVITY AND THE FUTURE Not long ago a Nielsen survey showed a dramatic drop in TV viewing at least network TV viewing among the 18 34 age group But while some viewers migrated to watching DVD movies many were likely to have switched to other media including the Internet console and PC gaming or some other form of interactive play Traditional media companies are still getting used to this While sales of console and PC games boom last year saw the first slip in cinema revenue in nearly a decade The media companies need to come to grips with interactive entertainment and that doesn t mean an on screen guide Meanwhile 2004 is shaping up to be a rich and exciting year on the technology front Stay tuned as we watch the lumbering giants of consumer elec tronics and the PC industry learn to dance together Will they be nimble enough to not step on toes or crush consumer s rights We ll soon find out I www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 18 Confused about digital audio Read our primer on page 32 CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY INTRO THE PROCESS Computer graphics at the movies Craig Paterson looks at how modern visual effects are created and used by filmmakers isual effects are a central part of mod ern filmmaking For decades directors have depended on specialist artists to Differen
78. not just a true or false value but the value of the first true operand So in this case if get url returns something that evaluates to true html actually gets that something and save it Remove any nasty characters cos Retrieve the page die Unable to open local_image_name One situation that would lead this line of code to behave unexpectedly is if the HTML for the page contained simply the value 0 which would evaluate to false However as an HTML page that contains nothing but a single zero is unlikely and uninteresting I ve chosen to ignore that case to streamline the code a bit That s it for the first step The reason the module is called LWP Simple is precisely because it s minimalist If you want something more sophisticated check out LWP WWW or LWP RobotUA And if you build a real bot remember to research appropriate behaviour and avoid indiscriminately banging on servers www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 27 Adding the HTML parser Now that we ve successfully retrieved a single Web page we want to find out what images it refers to and retrieve them One bit of essential background informa tion On Web pages images are indicated by an HTML tag called img and their location is specified by a parameter called src Thanks to the HTML TokeParser module that s about all we need to know about HTML With HTML TokeParser we can extract all the img src data
79. o reduce vibration Even head seek chatter is reduced through firmware tweaks Reliability is another issue Consumer electronics companies are highly cost sensitive so the drives that go into DVRs have to be sold at a very low cost On the other hand customers want 24 7 access to their PVR so a lot of research is focusing on how to keep drives healthy detect problems ahead of time and minimise failures thorough intelligent power management In a few years large numbers of standard and high definition DVRs will be shipped The often ignored hard drive will become a key component in consumers lives even if they ve never touched a PC Enterprise class storage Now let s turn to big iron enterprise class storage Perhaps the most unusual example of this is Kalei descape s DVD movie server It uses an enterprise www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 16 CHOOSING PRODUCTS CES 2004 HDMI HIDDEN PC lt Figure 8 Toshiba is one of several companies manufacturing transmitters and receivers for THE HIDDEN PC Let s revisit the Dish Network 921 HD DVR for a fs et be pe a 4 ba i p style storage array with up to a dozen 300GB hard drives Figure 7 The server even builds in some redundancy by using one drive for parity So as we can see the digital media revolution requires vast quantities of storage and the hard drive makers are stepping up to the plate to address the market demand w
80. o Mixer dirol another leading player in the project audio recording field developed the V 4 video mixer for the VJ market The V 4 features mixing or switching of four composite video input channels an independent two channel time base correction frame synchronizer inde pendent two channel digital effects a MASTERCLASS A The V 4 video mixer from Edirol is designed for the video jockey and has four composite video inputs professional quality T bar video fader great for Smashey and Nicey Bachman Turner overdrive impressions beat syn chronization between audio and video and over 200 transition effects Each of the four video inputs can routed to the A or B channels using the two groups of four input select buttons Transitional effects between the two channels such as wipes and fades are controlled through the T bar fader Price 799 99 Contact www edirol com 1 Graphics cards with multiple video outputs for VJ work Manufacturer Model Video memory size Composite TV output Triple head Matrox Millennium P650 64 Optional No Matrox Millennium P750 64 Yes Yes Matrox Parhelia 128 Yes Yes All Radeon 9800 Pro 256 Yes No All Radeon 9600 128 Optional No ASUS Radeon 9800 XT TVD 256 Yes No ASUS GeForce FX V9570 TD 256 or 128 Yes No ASUS GeForce 4 V9280 Video Suite 128 Yes No A These graphics cards have dual or composite outputs and are suitable for VJ work units are available at both professional and
81. o illumi nate the subject and aid auto focus Manual focus is achieved by sliding a small switch on the lens barrel and rotating the front section of the lens While this isn t the same as fo cusing with a conventional lens there are no dis tance markings for one thing just looking through the lens makes all the difference and ac curate manual focusing can be achieved easily The 300D uses a pentamirror rather than the more usual pentaprism arrangement to divert light entering the lens from the film plane to the viewfinder Pentamirrors cost less to produce than pentaprisms and they also transmit less light but the 300D s viewfinder isn t noticeably dimmer than the 10D s In addition to the usual Canon exposure mode line up program AE shutter priority aperture priority and manual the D300 includes a fifth A DEP or automatic depth of field This cleverly uses the Autofocus system to identify the nearest and furthest objects from the camera and sets the aperture to provide sufficient depth of field to keep everything sharp Storage is on CF Compact Flash cards or a Microdrive There are three image size settings up to 3 072 by 2 048 each offering two levels of JPEG com pression and RAW which produces 7MB files Four post processing parameters control contrast saturation sharpening and colour balance The 300D is the digital SLR that signals the turning point for serious photography enthusiasts It
82. ome with your Perl distribution a situation you ll find yourself faced with sooner or later if you continue doing working in Perl If that s the case Perl will complain loudly emitting a message like this TUTOR KEYPOINTS e Downloadable modules e Grabbing Web pages e Parsing HTML Can t locate LWP Simple pm in gt A INC INC contains C Perl lib C Perl site lib There are two possibilities here you have the LWP Simple module on your system and Perl can t find it or you don t have the module installed at all Browse your hard disk and look for a directory called LWP that contains Simple pm If you find this you need to tell Perl to look for modules in that directory You can do that by adding this line use lib gt a c path leading to lwp before the use LWP Simple line If you can t find LWP Simple you need to install it If you re using ActivePerl you can let its Perl package manager do the work by typ ing this at a command prompt ppm install LWP Simple If all else fails you can go to the modules list on CPAN www cpan org modules 00mod list long html and download the module directly then use lib as described above to tell Perl where you put it Also check out www linpro no Iwp for more details on the LWP libwww perl module collection When you use LWP Simple the module is loaded and exposes new functions that you can use Among other thing
83. ompanies will probably have been at work for some time getting the tools of the trade polished and moving from conceptual artwork to CG objects for assembling the final shots Big films often involve several visual effects stu dios each working on different shots and sequences But the look must be consistent even though the studios employ varied techniques and models a fraught process of co ordination for the movie s visual effects supervisor Film is scanned at high resolution and stored and the effects are added later to these stored images Software is used to combine the original image and the effects and the final composition is printed back on to film Between these two steps there s the small matter of creating the visual effects Before the film arrives Preparatory work can make the difference between the smooth production of quality effects and a des perate fraught rush to meet deadlines Before a film is shot a lot of work will have gone into pre visual ising the look the director expects Contracted visual effects companies have access to this work so that they can make an early start on creating visuals During post production Much of the computer based work is a mixture of interactive and batch processing Different depart ments work only with the necessary data at each step it wouldn t be practical to use any more The data is sent to a farm of powerful computers that crunch the numbers and produce the
84. on should rightly be proud of what they started E PC Magazine forum If you have any comments regarding this e book why not visit the PC Magazine forum It can be found at www pcmag co uk All you need to do is click the reader forum link To add your comments you ll need to register MAGAZINE which is quick and free Enquiries PC Magazine VNU House 32 34 Broadwick Street London W1A 2HG Tel 020 7316 9000 Fax 020 7316 9089 Web address www pcmag co uk Editorial email feedback pcmag co uk Press release email pcmag_info vnu co uk Publishing Director Guy Phillips Editor Kelvyn Taylor Art Editor Hazel Bennington Production Editor Janet Heg VNU Labs Paul Monckton Simon Crisp Alex Arias Advertising enquiries Rebecca Barr 020 7316 9307 Reprints Pritie Patel 020 7316 9186 ww vnu business publications www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 2 A PC at the top of a chart is not necessarily faster in any useful or even noticeable way than the one at the bottom COLUMNS KELVYN TAYLOR GUY KEWNEY PAUL MONCKTON The emperor s benchmarks What useful purpose is actually served by benchmarking tests and why don t we test the bits that really matter paul_monckton vnu co uk s the manager of VNU Labs I frequently face a perplexing array of seemingly worthy but dull tasks not least of which is benchmarking I hate it especially benchmarking PCs Loading up benchmarking software is tedious Checking and double c
85. on the rival Motorola architecture So much for nostalgia but there s an important lesson for Microsoft here At the end of 2004 Windows NT4 dies and we ve just had Windows 98 taken off death row for a short time Microsoft is becoming quite nannyish about people working with out of date systems So why would Microsoft invest in supporting those people inquired a consultant when I raised this subject And he suggested Microsoft should regard these customers as natural customers for Linux This reaction was widespread When I queried the wisdom of this approach they seemed to think I was advocating that Microsoft provide service to old soft ware users as a form of charity Absolutely not But Microsoft does have a real problem here a huge installed base that it simply can t cast off Businesses that are refreshing their hardware this year will throw out Pentium III machines that smaller companies can use to run Windows 2000 But running Windows 2000 on inherited software is becoming difficult And when it comes to taking over machines with Windows XP Microsoft s hard line on registration and updating means that Van Damm Consulting really will have to use Linux More to the point when this small company stops working out of the garage and starts buying a dozen machines and a proper server it will be a Linux user And the next generation of super corporations will employ Linux trained Linux equipped executives who th
86. one 2004 The updated version of the multimedia benchmark uses updated versions of the most widely used multimedia creation applications Adobe s Photoshop 7 0 1 and Premiere 6 50 Macromedia Director MX 9 and Dreamweaver MX 6 1 Microsoft Media Encoder 9 NewTek s Lightwave 3D 7 5b and a new application Steinberg s WaveLab 4 0f When running a test the multimedia benchmark keeps multiple applications open as users do in real life and switches between these applications It runs through a series of scripted activities focusing on hot spots to produce a Score Because of the nature of these new tests and the updated applications any score the benchmarks produce cannot be compared to previous versions www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 14 Quask Reader Offer Get FormArtist for free See page 8 HIGHLIGHTS The explosion in digital media will lead to a burgeon ing demand for file storage HDMI has had one of the fastest rollouts of any display and audio interface PC technology is appearing in more and more consumer electronics devices The CRT monitor will fade out of the mid range market but entry level and high end units will still have their place Media companies need to focus more attention on interactive entertainment gt Figure 1 lomega s DCT media will cost less than 10 5 45 for 1 5GB of removable storage CHOOSING PRODUCTS CES 2004 STORAGE CES 2004
87. one of the fastest internal hard drives around Kingston is claiming the same performance label in the SD card market for its latest Elite Pro range The new range of cards which come in 128MB and 256MB versions supports four bit data transfers at up to 10Mbit s five times faster than the standard SD s one bit data rate Price 256MB 65 inc VAT 128MB 37 99 inc VAT Contact www dabs com Antec notebook cooler COOLER Are you using a notebook as a desktop Does it keep crashing due to heat related problems This can be a real problem if you have an older notebook powered by a desktop CPU but Antec can help Better known for its cases and power supplies Antec has developed a notebook cooler The one we looked at was a stylish black and silver design and there is also a pearl coloured version The cooler has two Antec double ball bearing fans with a quoted 25 9dB noise level and uses power from a spare USB port on the notebook The USB connector has a pass through so you don t lose the use of the port and is slightly angled so it doesn t get in the way of any Western Digital WD740GD Raptor HARD DRIVE When Western Digital WDC released the original Raptor SATA drive last year it saw it as an Enterprise drive competing against SCSI drives that are a well established part of that market However WDC was taken by surprise by the response of the owners of desktop PCs in particular ga
88. op ments in and potential impact of these technolo gies Some of them such as HDTV are US specific but it s worth our while to keep abreast of what our American friends are up to for example a European HDTV satellite channel Euro1080 has just been launched Flash memory Flash memory is continuing to make inroads Pana sonic stated that the SD card would hit 1GB this year and SanDisk announced a 1GB card in last quarter of 2003 Sony said that its Memory Stick Pro would have capacities of up to 2GB As the hunger for higher resolution cameras grows so does the need for higher capacity memory Rotating storage While flash memory is certainly useful rotating storage proved to be a more interesting story Rotat ing media both magnetic and optical are going to have a huge impact on how people use and store their media Flash memory capacities are too low and costs too high even for small devices if the need exists for large volume applications Iomega once again trotted out its DCT 1 5GB floppy like device Designed for AV applications Iomega is working with camera and camcorder manufacturers to garner support The company had discussed the technology a few months ago but CES was the big rollout The first products with DCT embedded are slated to www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 15 Hollywood s Technology Get the inside story See page 19 Y Figure 2 Hitachi s 1in Microdrive offers 4GB of rotati
89. perties of a surface Lights are placed in the CG scene using Maya and are usually spotlights irrespective of the lights used in the original filmed scene This is partly because of the rendering techniques used and partly just to maintain control Each light has an associated shader program of its own We re not doing simulations of what lighting should do It s what looks good to both the artist and the director explains Davy Wentworth taking a break from work on the upcoming Hellboy Compositing The output from the technical director comprises the finished CG elements But while the technical director and animators will have worked with the original film image for reference the real and CG components have not yet been combined This is the job of the compositing department Done correctly compositing should result in a product where the CG elements blend seamlessly with the background in each frame Like many other studios Tippett uses Shake from Apple as its primary compositing software The basic interface is a flowchart that the compositor all the elements being assembled and how those ele ments are connected Each element has associated behaviours An indi vidual element might act as a mask or be combined with another element to composite two things together The system is powerful and makes it easy to revise any component at any time As in other areas changes can be made right up to the last minute and come fro
90. product roadmap for its Workplace Notes and Domino applications Ambuj Goyal general manager of Lotus soft ware told delegates at the supplier s annual Lotu sphere user conference that there will be increas ing interoperability across its portfolio The company will introduce a common sched ule for product releases from this spring that will allow Notes Domino and Workplace messaging and collaboration tools to share standard plat forms languages and browser support Version 6 5 1 of Notes and Domino due by the end of March will provide integration with IBM s WebSphere portal software add Lotus Instant Messenger functionality and offer improved con nections to Microsoft Outlook Goyal also unveiled new client software for the J2EE based Workplace collaboration platform The technology uses open standards such as web services to provide better integration with other IBM and third party desktop applications Goyal says this common architecture will deliv er a consistent customisable interface for users and will be ready this spring We will build momentum in 2004 with our UK PC sales go through the roof Consumers spark massive growth in notebook demand K PC sales rocketed by 16 9 per cent in the final quarter of 2003 compared with the same quarter in 2002 as consumers and businesses went Christmas shopping for IT kit According to the latest market research from IDC sales of notebooks grew almost 30 per cen
91. programs viewing data changing data deleting data or creating new accounts with full privileges it warned IBM launches lifeboat for ThinkPad buyers Embedded OS provides Web access BM has just announced the ThinkPad X40 one of the smallest and lightest models ever featured in its range Weighing just 1 2kg the X40 offers a 12in screen and a claimed battery life of up to 7 5 hours with the optional eight cell hybrid battery Despite its size it uses the same full sized keyboard as its pre decessor the X31 Another innovation introduced with the X40 is Rescue and Recovery an embedded XP based operating system that allows users to access email Internet and LAN even if the Windows OS has failed If the hard disk fails as well the Rescue and Recovery environment can be launched by boot ing from a CD or DVD The X40 also features IBM s new APS active protection system for the hard drive this uses a miniature accelerometer to detect if the notebook is dropped and immediately parks the drive heads out of harm s way UK pricing for the X40 has not yet been announced KELVYN TAYLOR But Microsoft said that in the most likely exploitable sce nario an attacker would have to have direct access to the user s network Server systems are at greater risk than client computers because they are more likely to have a server process running that decodes ASN 1 data ASN 1 is a data standard use
92. r beginners Part 4 In this final instalment of our tutorial we tie together all that we ve learned build a rudimentary Web crawler and show how pre existing Perl modules can simplify coding tasks ne of the convenient things about CO is that freely downloadable modules make it possible to do things that might take extraordinary amounts of programming to do on your own So rather than re invent the wheel we ll rely heavily on some of these modules to build our Web crawler and parse the HTML it retrieves Since we don t want to be accused of orchestrating the deployment of a bunch of mindless bots that gobble up every page they see a link to the crawler we are going build has limited functionality It will grab a Web page you specify look for images that are included on the page and download each of those images But it won t attempt to follow hyperlinks on the page and delve deep into sites though it would be sim ple enough to add this capability As textbook authors are fond of saying this exercise is left to the interested reader But still you should read up on robot protocols so you don t go draining resources on servers youre not authorised to use So what will it take to build our mini crawler First we need to be able to download a Web page or for that matter an image Web pages are just text files containing HTML that live in specified locations on a server and Web graphics are binary files that a
93. r shop but the same basic idea Each frame is displayed on the screen in turn and the camera photographs it Laser recorders instead use three lasers one for each primary colour combined into a single beam and scanned across the film through a rotating prism The image is formed on the film stock in a www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 21 similar line by line fashion to the beam of a CRT forming an image on the phosphor of a screen Match move Character animation and effects are modelled in three dimensions to match the real world To ensure that everything is taking place in the correct envi ronment the sets are surveyed during production Locations are measured using a laser based sur veyor and co ordinates are downloaded to a laptop These are then translated into a scene file in the package used for subsequent 3D work like many other studios Tippett uses Maya from Alias as its backbone 3D package This virtual environment isn t as complex as the real set but it must include any object that might affect the later placement of CG characters and effects For any given shot the camera may be static or moving If the camera is static then matching the 3D scene file to the image recorded by the camera is relatively straightforward If the camera is panning and or tilting it s trickier It is even harder if the camera itself is in motion relative to the scene There are many methods of moving a camera thro
94. r website Internal Firewall Second protective shield Load Balancers Efficiently distributes traffic across server clusters Redundant Web Servers Ensures delivery of site contents if one server fails Network Storage Independent storage optimizing server performance Disk Backup Routine backup storage to prevent data loss ayy Windows Server 3 redhat I ve tried all the reseller offerings out there and it s no wonder that everyone follows Fasthosts GEOFF COLLINS MXT LOGISTICS Host Unlimited Domains with the UK s best Reseller solution The Reseller account is a great way to manage multiple websites Our unbeatable range of features such as brandable web mail website creator and spam filtering sets you apart from the competition and our award winning online control panel allows you to set up and manage services in real time K K You can easily add an unlimited number of domains to your account at no extra cost All your domains are load balanced across multiple servers using our unique envisage Hosting Technology Each c domain is a full Virtual Server hosted on your choice of Windows 2003 IIS6 or Linux Apache servers envisage supports ASP ASP NET Perl PHP ODBC and CGI You can also instantly enable the NET framework on any of your domains Our feature rich online website building tool enables your customers to create their site with an easy to use wizard K Th
95. review Camera input can be from a simple USB Web cam or from a higher quality ware on one display and the VJ performance output on the other Choosing a card with an S Video or com posite video output allows you to use a domestic television ideally a large wide screen model as the performance display A system like this is a good basis for building up your VJ skills and compiling material for later live performance Table 1 lists some graphics cards suitable for VJ work Although VJ software like arKaos comes with a clip library and royalty free images video camera connected via a video cap ture card Under Windows XP camera connection is transparent cameras ap pear in the visuals window and their input can be dragged and dropped on to a key in the patch window While its simplicity imposes some limiting structure on it arKaos is incredi bly easy to use and gives the creative video artist enormous freedom Price ArKaos VJ 3 0 can be downloaded with a software key for 299 204 Contact www arkaos net Bluff Titler DX9 1 41 ext is often used as an element in VJ performance Bluff Titler is a smart little application that can be used to create special effects text animation Bluff has two free floating windows a display window and a control win dow Text is viewed in the display win dow and manipulated from the control window in which a slider represent the animation state against time Ani
96. rowth also buoyed the commercial market with notebook shipments up by 17 5 per cent year on year and sales desktops increasing by 14 6 per cent The public sector also saw some important computing infrastructure activity in the fourth quarter of 2003 IDC noted ROBERT JAQUES TRENDS TECHNOLOGY DONATE YOUR OLD PCSTOA GOOD CAUSE COMPUTER AID INTERNATIONAL is organising a campaign to col lect 25 000 PCs to be recycled and donated to schools and com munity groups across the world The charity s move comes in response to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment WEEE directive which will make it ille gal for obsolete PCs to be dis posed of in landfill sites from August Computer Aid hopes the legislation will persuade PC users to give old machines to charity IT managers need a policy in place so they are seen to be con forming with the directives said Tony Roberts chief executive of Computer Aid International Industry experts have expressed concerns that the UK does not have an infrastructure to cope with the need to recycle mil lions of PCs Computer Aid can help by providing a viable alterna tive to costly decommissioning and recycling All PCs donated to Computer Aid will be wiped before they are distributed overseas EMMA NASH LEGAL DOWNLOADS OUTS UE Dis LEGAL MUSIC DOWNLOADS have outsold traditional physical formats such as DVDs and CDs for the first time according to research from
97. rried about benchmarks gives Microsoft some tips COLUMNS KELVYN TAYLOR GUY KEWNEY PAUL MONCKTON FROM THE FRONT PCs and consumer electronics are perceptibly starting to cross over in terms of function Phones cars and movies PCs technology is everywhere now from super featured mobile phones to MP3 players in cars and where would today s filmmakers be without computer graphics kelvyn_taylor vnu co uk igital convergence has been talked about endlessly for several years now Meet anyone from Microsoft Sony or any other large technology company and you get the same story 2004 s going to be the year that convergence really happens But in fact you could substitute almost any year from 2000 onwards Here at PC Magazine weve maintained a healthy scepticism realising that marketing often triumphs over reality But the reality today is that without any great fanfare PCs and consumer electronics are perceptibly starting to cross over in terms of function Take the average new mobile phone It probably has a powerful processor a custom embedded OS a digital camera Wi Fi or Bluetooth Internet browsing email games and contact management If that s not a miniature PC what is it One of the biggest technology shows these days is the Consumer Electronics Show CES in Las Vegas It s eclipsing Comdex as a platform for technology launches and it s an amazing show simply for its eclecticism You c
98. rs of peer to peer P2P soft ware has returned to court The Recording Industry Association of Ameri ca RIAA backed by the National Music Publish ers Association and more than 20 film studios wants a California appeals court to overturn a rul ing that P2P sites can have legitimate uses Lining up against the RIAA and its supporters are Grokster and StreamCast Networks developer of Morpheus supported by action group the Electronic Frontier Foundation The RIAA wants to overturn the April 2003 decision of judge Steven Wilson that file sharing networks have both legitimate and illegitimate uses The ruling meant that P2P operators could not be held liable for the actions of P2P users Judge Wilson in his ruling said that Grokster and StreamCast were not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights The RIAA claims that failure to reverse the original decision could gravely threaten any pos sibility for meaningful copyright protection in the digital era Meanwhile P2P operators say that if the rul ing is changed companies will no longer be able to develop new or innovative products without the permission of copyright owners DINAH GREEK lt RIAA April 2003 ruling should be reversed H ATI LICENSES INTRINSITY TECH FOR FASTER CHIPS FAST14 IMPROVES DESIGN PRODUCTIVITY ATI TECHNOLOGIE
99. rsonal injury the list goes on Any decent review will contain this information but this is what I want to see at a glance right up there with the photo This is why I feel uncomfortable with the current state of PC benchmarking Not because our figures are wrong but because it s what people do or don t do with them once they leave VNU Labs that worries me E www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 3 Microsoft is becoming quite nannyish about people working with out of date systems COLUMNS UY KEWNEY From little acorns Microsoft ignores the needs of small companies at its peril because one day some of them at least are going to grow up guy kewney com pple Computer is a big company and if you sold software on commission you would be in a very good mood the day you signed up the chief buyer of Apple as a customer But think about Estrella Van Damm a sole trader consultant in the tiny Spanish town of Orgiva whose business struggles to run on an outdated Pentium II with a dodgy keyboard You wouldn t waste the cost of a stamp to send this business a brochure Yet the two companies are potentially the same Look back a few years and you ll find that Apple started out using the Intel 8080 processor Or at least that was the plan But the founders of Apple had cash flow problems They couldn t afford the Intel chip and Intel wasn t prepared to do a deal So they used an alternative chip based
100. s it creates a get function that given a URL retrieves the Web page at that URL The following lines check to make sure the number of command line arguments were correct and save the first argument in a vari able called url If url doesn t start with the http string we add it Note that the format www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 26 Code listing for fullpage pl usr bin perl w use strict use LWP Simple use HTML TokeParser use URI Check command line parameters store page to retrieve in url die Usage fullpage pl url localfile html n unless ARGV 2 my page localfile ARGV page http page unless page m http my url URI gt new page Get requested page and save it locally print Retrieving page n my html get page TUTOR open OUTPUT_ FILE gt localfile die Unable to open localfile print OUTPUT_FILE html close OUTPUT FILE Parse the Web page to identify images my imagefiles my parser HTML TokeParser gt new htm1 while my img info parser gt get_tag img my image_name img_info gt 1 gt src my image_url URI gt new image_ name my image file image_url gt abs url imagefiles image file 1 Retrieve all the images and save them locally foreach my this_image keys imagefiles this_ image m Hash cont
101. s can t compete on price and won t for years to come But as TVs using purely digital engines drop below 2 000 1 090 this year the market for 32 40in CRTs is likely to be greatly diminished CRT based HDTVs offer darker blacks and greater shadow detail However manufacturers of digital light engines such as Texas Instruments and companies making LCD and plasma TVs are busily working to solve the contrast problem TT s Peter F van Kessel noted that the company s most recent DMD engines offer up to 16 bit gray scale Other technical factors need to be addressed but black levels and dark scene detail levels are rapidly improving We saw some DLP displays and projectors at CES with remarkable shadow detail In addition the cost will be driven down There were rumblings around the show of the possibility of 32in or 34in rear projection TVs that might ship at a sub 1 000 545 price point That s certainly Intel s intent with its LCoS imaging engine Pioneer will no longer develop CRT based rear projectors focusing on plasma displays instead Certainly the CRT isn t going away any time soon Many companies will still ship CRT based rear projection and direct view TVs Sony and Toshiba both showed units and Samsung one of the biggest proponents of DLP rear projection TVs was showing a new line of CRT rear projectors But the writing is clearly on the wall and it s being driven by the TV buyers Consumers are
102. screen add hotels hospitals zoos casi nos and other points of interest The Hotels tab produces information on places to stay within a selected distance of a location including the information from the Varta guide and online booking for some UK hotels There s another useful touch in the settings screen enter fuel consumption details and the route automatically includes a reminder to refuel you can also include rest periods For the UK there s live traffic information which can be updated over the Internet and taken into account when route planning Unfortunately the information doesn t extend to the rest of Europe which is arguably where you may find it more useful especially if you find it difficult to understand foreign radio bulletins The software integrates with GPS global posi tioning system for those who don t have this Routing Results Route Information oh 6000900009000 7 x 1822 6 1 tunright on Dean Lane 1624 69 turn iett on Goring Fiski x amp OI Rings Worthy tun right on 1614 23 inHamboune Wortny fork et on Weet House Lane 1017 4 0 fh inchester turn right on 03420 Rood 1817 40 iwniel on Harestock Roed S4 turnief on U304tockbnage Road GO SOZ 5 Winchester 1823 6S turnieft on Oii His ise Road 1824 68 luenief on Eradey Peak 6 9 GBSO22 5 Wechester Goring Field 42 56 Wenonester Kings Veetiw maps and directions can be exported to Palm or Pocket PC
103. sless mode is a bit more popular among audio professionals and sound enthu siasts with a typical compression ratio of about 2 1 for 16 bit audio To download the Windows client go to www softsound com shorten html e Monkey s audio One of the more popular lossless audio com pression formats is the Monkey s Audio Com pressor or MAC Were not making this up The FAQ makes mention of the name and file extension by saying In hindsight maybe it s a stupid name Then again maybe you just need to lighten up The compressor can trade off encoding speed for compression ratio though it s always in the neighbourhood of 1 5 1 to 3 1 depending on the source material The source code is available but there is a license agreement that states you can t make commercial products with MAC unless you discuss terms with the developer first www monkeysaudio com index html What to make of all this Believe it or not this only scratches the surface of digital audio terminology and formats There are dozens of other file formats and codecs out there and certainly the lexicon of digital audio terminology would fill a dic tionary So what should you make of it all Unfortunately digital audio is more com plicated than it has to be Both the computer and consumer electronics industries would gain from adopting more universal standards and working toward interoperability Unfortunately there are too many incom patible forma
104. sum of cosine data and turning it back into a waveform DCT and iDCT themselves does not lose any data in the process but they are an impor tant foundation of most lossy compression formats including most compressed audio video and the ubiquitous JPEG image format e DRM If you haven t heard of DRM by now you haven t been reading the technology news for the past year or two Short for digital rights management it s a blanket term for technolo gies designed to reduce or eliminate digital content piracy When it comes to audio files DRM involves the ability to for example disable playback on foreign or unlicensed machines limit the transfer of a file to some devices or prevent it from being burned to multiple CDs There are many DRM technologies with a wide variety of capabilities and they re not always such a bad thing It s possible for a for mat to have DRM capabilities that are not used or for the content owners to set the DRM so loose that it s just like having an unprotected file so long as you don t try to upload it to a thousand people on a file shar ing network The MP3 file format has no DRM capabil ities but almost all newer formats do e ID3 This is the tag embedded within an MP3 file that includes fields for artist album title track number year and a short comment A slightly improved v2 version of the ID3 tag allows for longer comments and adds fields for composer orig
105. t compared with the same quarter in 2002 desktops by 11 6 per cent and servers by a third Overall growth in UK PC sales between 2002 and 2003 was 13 7 per cent Due to the diversion of resources to the more lucrative LCD TV market shortages of flat panel monitors have been seen in the fourth quarter said Ian Gibbs research analyst at IDC s European Personal Computing Team However the majority of A brand PC vendors generally had the purchasing power to secure sup ply and in some cases reduced product specifica tions in order to maintain attractive price points IDC s EMEA Quarterly PC Tracker also found that notebook sales were strong enjoying boom ing year on year increases of 30 per cent Welcome Lotus Notes File Edt View Create Acbons Window Help oO 8 FJA ROB SFSeseyh treo BAQA Q Welcome Edith Morros X JKT oye Teamtoun X JK Toys s Dwectory X 4 Chek here for Welcome Page options w pad inbox Caenia thursday August 20 2007 New M mo Reply Rep toAll Forward Dei Schedule a Meeting New i Tools Who Date Su Subject amp Day amp Week Month Ai Torn McClung 04 31 2002 1 725 Forwante amp Accepted T j ied 13 t Gona Moor 0631 2002 s07 merepot f August August 2 S TE w Tie well 049 ratat l ert y PikkupOryClea Y PrintTom s Cale r we VY FditMarkelingR chockon expens 4 5 anand W Print Tom s Cale 2 amp Evends 5 Imox tl am wn Marketing Reses
106. t 2 2GB a second The standard supports resolutions up to 1 920 by 1 080 pixels at 30Hz All data is sent uncompressed to minimise additional artifacts from recompression Audio signals may also be included and up to eight channels of 192KHz audio are supported The con nector is compact resembling a USB connector Note that HDMI is a point to point interface designed to connect two devices directly such as an HDTV tuner and a display It s not designed to sup plant any form of A V networking over FireWire or any other method HDMI also has strong content protection based on the HDCP standard currently built into consumer DVI connections On the video side HDMI is compatible with DVI For example if you get a set top box with an HDMI output and your TV only supports DVI all youll need is an adapter cable As you can see from our pictures Figures 8 12 HDMI is appearing in a wide array of devices from displays to DVD players and set top boxes Home theatre receivers and preamp processors will also be able to act as HDMI switchers For end users this is a good thing fewer cables will be needed to connect sources to displays and HDMI as a standard will be around for awhile Some companies have been reluctant to adopt DVI but most are jumping on the HDMI bandwagon Although HDTV equipment isn t available in the UK a European HDTV satellite channel Euro1080 www eurol080 com has been launched and HDMI enabled DVD pl
107. t films have varying bring to life impossible landscapes degrees of CG effects and fantastic monsters and to simu late natural disasters in fact just about anything that doesn t happen to order cheaply enough or at all HIGHLIGHTS 3D models need to be produced for each CG element Each modelled element is coloured and textured by the Science fiction and fantasy films have always paint department been a driver of visual effects technology from Fritz Lang s Metropolis in 1927 through the Character and effects are golden age films of the 1950s such as Forbid den Planet and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad CG work has a prodigious and to later titles such as Star Wars and Clash aPpetite for processing power of the Titans Throughout that period effects and storage production was essentially a manual process from matte painting backgrounds to opti animated by separate teams cally compositing weapons fire painstakingly by hand on to each frame In the 1980s computers began to make inroads into effects Disney s Tron in 1982 made heavy use of computer graphics not least because much of the film took place inside a computer In 1984 The Last Starfighter used only computer generated visuals for spacecraft and battles But it was with the release of Jurassic Park in 1993 that computer generated visual effects really came of age That landmark film set the tone for all that came after and modern films depend heavily o
108. that it will support and develop two operating systems Its current operating system version 5 will be renamed Palm Garnet once devices running ver sion 6 begin to ship in the next two months Version 6 code named Cobalt has been designed for connectivity IAIN THOMSON www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 7 Project Manager VNU Labs WE HAVE A RARE OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE TO JOIN OUR experienced and enthusiastic team of testers in VNU Labs With a keen eye for detail and fully conversant with Microsoft Windows and current PC hardware you will be responsible for testing printers scanners and a wide variety of other peripherals Working to tight deadlines you should have a keen interest in technology and be dedicated to keeping abreast of the latest developments You will need to prioritise your workload and work closely with journalists on ComputerActive and Personal Computer World offering advice about technology and test results There will also be opportunities to write reviews for both online and print titles within our company This is an exciting and responsible position which gives you access to all the latest computer technology You will also be expected to represent our company to vendors both locally and overseas If you think you have the knowledge experience and passion to take our brands to the next level please send your CV and salary details to Sarah Richardson Human Resources VNU Business
109. tional tutorials tools and techniques useful and interesting E There is of course much more to Perl than we can cover in our series of tutorials Some book suggestions e Learning Perl Randal L Schwartz Tom Phoenix www amazon com exec obidos ASIN 0596001320 e Programming Perl Larry Wall Tom Christiansen Jon Orwant www amazon com exec obidos ASIN 0596000278 e Perl cookbook Tom Christiansen Nathan Torkington Larry Wall www amazon com exec obidos ASIN 1565922433 e Mastering regular expressions powerful techniques for Perl and other tools Jeffrey E Friedl Editor Andy Oram Editor www amazon com exec obidos ASIN 1565922573 Data Munging with Perl David Cross www amazon com exec obidos ASIN 19301 10006 www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 28 MASTERCLASS TERRY RELPH KNIGHT Tripping the light fantastic An introduction to video jockey techniques Ider readers may remember the light shows that were de rigeur at gigs during the psychedelic 1960s Well things have moved on a bit from the ether oil and vegetable dyes used in the olden days Now of course it s all done with PCs Dance music raves and club culture have even spawned a new cult figure the video jockey or VJ Video is the new audio and the ready availability of powerful processors coupled with fast high quality video hardware means that very complex moving images can be manipulated in real time Unlike the ear
110. ts too many exposed settings and important terms to learn and too many companies trying to lock you into using their own tools The only clear standard is the venerable MP3 file which provides inferior quality compared to newer formats and lacks the DRM capabilities to make it viable for e com merce We expect something of a shake out over the next few years Hopefully this primer has given you a leg up on what you need to know to make an informed buying decision if you re in the market for a digital audio player or to get the most out of the audio software you re using on your PC If youre wondering about formats like Dolby Digital or DTS stay tuned A home theatre primer is in the works E www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 35 3 eee Technical Sinees SUpport for your customers FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS Your own unique technical support phone hotline All calls answered in your name Expert support for email hosting domain registration and Internet access Script de bugging service for CGI PHP ASP and Perl Support areas specified by you and tailored to your customers needs Online trouble ticket reports World class support 9am to 9pm Monday to Friday Shared Hosting Architecture envisage isa unique technology developed in house in partnership with Microsoft It s available exclusively at Fasthosts no other hosting company can offer you this level of reliability and performance for you
111. ts to local variables should be familiar by now Then we put a prefix of http on page if it doesn t have one already to make clear that we intend to transfer the file via HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol used to com municate with Web servers Next we ll ask the URI module to do some dirty work for us URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier which we can consider a variation of the familiar URL Uniform Resource Locator The URI module can do all kinds of convenient URI URL manipula tion including conversion of partial or rela tive URLs to complete ones Just as in grab page pl the program then fetches the requested Web page and this time it writes it to the filename specified on the command line Next we have the loop that the program uses to scan the parsed Web page for img tags The name of the file in that tag may not be a complete URL though it may be relative to the location of the page in which the tag is embedded For example if you retrieved a Web page like http www my own site com personal contact html an image tag on that page might specify images my picture jpg The URI class does the work of converting this partial path into a full URL The program creates a new URI object for the name of the image file it then uses the abs TUTOR method in the expression image_url gt abs url to generate a full URL to that image file We save that name in a hash giving us an easy way to elimi
112. ty MP3 ed 154 WMA or AAC 128 Most downloaded music T01 231 legal or otherwise 64 High quality streaming 22 01 462 music small memory based portable devices 8 Streaming voice 176 01 00 3 097 Internet talk radio A The bit rate varies according to the quality of the reproduction and the format used compress Lossy compression is by far the most popular format because it allows for much smaller file sizes Virtually all lossy compression schemes whether for audio or video work by a princi ple called perceptual coding This is the process of removing parts of the original data that the user will probably not even perceive The trick is to remove as little information as possible from the original audio sample and to make sure that which is removed is hardest to hear frequencies above the range of human hearing for example Lossless compression is just what it sounds like a way of compressing music into a file that when played back is absolutely identical to the original not just sounds the same but statistically identical It was once only a viable option for profes sionals seeking to archive large volumes of audio but now large hard drives are cheap and drive based portable players with lots of storage are abundant so lossless codecs are increasingly relevant to end users who want the best possible audio fidelity Figure 1 shows the difference between lossy and lossless compression e Bit rate
113. ugh a scene from cranes to cars dollys running on temporary tracks A match mover must precisely align movements of the 3D virtual environment to every tiny move ment of the camera If match moving isn t precise CG elements will appear to move against the back ground ruining the coherency of the finished shot Rotoscoping Not everything on the original film should end up in the final shot Markers placed for the sake of match move will show up clearly and must be removed Also compositors will later need masks for charac ters and objects moving in the scene across subse quent frames Rotoscope artists use custom tools to trace out lines of objects setting key frames and motion paths through sequences of images essentially building up a semantic guide to how objects move during a shot Sometimes rotoscoping is the only CG effect 2003 Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures CHOOSING PRODUCTS MOVIE TECHNOLOGY INTRO THE PROCESS BASIC STEPS IT DEMANDS Y In Matrix Revolutions Neo sees the world as patterns of light which demanded an entirely new effect used Any movie that includes people flying through the air in fight sequences or swinging precariously from a cliff depends on rotoscoping to remove the wires from the final shot Cliffhanger would have looked much less dramatic if every shot showed a multitude of safety gear looking after the actors Modelling Before animation
114. w bit rates 64Kbit s and below The chief advantage of MP3 Pro is that it is backwards and forward compatible with MP3 a basic MP3 player will play a MP3 Pro file but without the improvements in sound qual ity However MP3 Pro has no DRM capabili ties either so it shares MP3 s inability to gain acceptance by music studios e WAV The WAV standard was developed by Microsoft and IBM nearly two decades ago and is the de facto standard for basic Windows sounds WAV files are usually uncompressed but a compressed standard achieves a 4 1 compression ration through the lossy TUTOR EXTRA ADPCM adaptive differential pulse code modulation scheme that drops each sample down from 16 bits to 4 bits There are several other compressed WAV formats including GSM ALAW and ULAW but these are even less popular than ADPCM e AAC Short for advanced audio coding AAC has been part of the MPEG 2 spec ever since the Motion Picture Experts Group declared its standard in April 1997 Technically the AAC format can support up to 48 full frequency sound channels so 5 1 or 7 1 sound is possible It also supports sam ple rates up to 96KHz twice that of MP3 Recently MPEG 4 AAC added a couple of technologies to the spec that improve quality at extremely low bit rates think mobile phones At higher bit rates though it s essen tially the same as MPEG 2 AAC This is the format used for songs down loaded in the popular iTunes Mus
115. will be interesting to see how manufacturers such as Nikon and Minolta respond to Canon s opening bid for dominance of this end of the market KEN MCMAHON lt Canon s EOS 300D offers all the benefits of a film SLR in a reasonably priced digital camera CANON EOS 300D Verdict A milestone in digital photography at the right price One of the very few affordable digital SLRs Plastic lacks EOS 10D s custom functions Fact file Dimensions DxWxH 72 4 x 142 x 99mm Weight 560g body only 750g with 18 55mm EF S lens Max resolution 3 072 x 2 048 pixels Optical zoom 18 55mm 3x Focal length 35mm equiv 18 55mm 29 88mm Flash modes E TTL Auto flash linked to AF points night flash no flash LCD screen size 1 8in Memory types supported CF Type Type Il Microdrive none supplied PC interface USB 1 1 Price Body only 739 99 inc VAT Kit 829 99 inc VAT Contact Canon 0800 616417 www canon co uk www pcmag co uk PC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2004 11 Biostar M7NCD A02 MOTHERBOARD Looking for a low cost no frills Socket A motherboard Biostar s M7NCD may be the answer Built on a compact red PCB measuring just 30 5 by 19 9cm the M7NCD will even fit in some of the larger microATX cases Based on nVidia s nForce 400 chipset the board supports Socket A processors with 266 333 and 400MHz FSB speeds up to the Athlon XP 3200 and has a maximum memory capacity of 2GB of 26

Special Report CES 2004

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents