Adventures in broadband
Philip Chee
Whee. My ADSL connection was turned on on Saturday, more than three
months after I signed up. Telekom Malaysia may have been privatised
ages ago but it still behaves pretty much like the government run
monopoly it used to be.
I signed up for the slowest and cheapest package - 384k. This
should be adequate for my rather modest requirements, although this
may change if Parkinson's Law is to be believed.
I also bought a wireless router so I can watch TechTV while browsing
the web from the living room sofa via my centrino notebook. Draping
my self over the sofa while languidly scrolling around the web is so
much more fun that sitting at the table scowling at a stuttering
dial-up connection and worring about my phone bill.
The only problem so far is that I've been chomping through the
<http://www.megatokyo.com> site at such a rate that I eventually got
a "connection refused" message from their server. I do hope that
it's not permanent!
So what tech toy should I get next? Perhaps a SliMP3 player or
similar so that I can stream my MP3s and internet radio through my
stereo system? Of course first I need to get a stereo system.
What do those of you with broadband connections do with your
bandwidth? Internet phone? It would be nice if I could call my
relatives in the UK without running up horrendous phone bills.
How about Ragnarok? That seems to be the rage in all the internet
cafes around here.
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
... USENET is a Right! It's a Left! He Connects! You have new mail.
--
* 20619.09 *
Robert Sneddon
<phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
>Dear rasff,
>
>Whee. My ADSL connection was turned on on Saturday, more than three
>months after I signed up.
Conga Rats. Got a firewall set up? Really truly recommended.
>The only problem so far is that I've been chomping through the
><http://www.megatokyo.com> site at such a rate that I eventually got
>a "connection refused" message from their server. I do hope that
>it's not permanent!
Heh. Some websites have been wiped off the face of the 'Net due to
popularity -- they have to pay for the connection bandwidth. You can
stream BBC Radio 4 now.
>
>So what tech toy should I get next? Perhaps a SliMP3 player or
>similar so that I can stream my MP3s and internet radio through my
>stereo system? Of course first I need to get a stereo system.
A bigger hard disk (see below).
>
>What do those of you with broadband connections do with your
>bandwidth?
Download anime. Lots of anime. Lots and lots of anime. Lots and lots
and... well, you get the idea. Anime.
My downloading client of choice is BitTorrent, a swarming peer-to-peer
client that is popular with fansubbers. If you want some hints let me
know.
--
Email me via nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
This address no longer accepts HTML posts.
Robert Sneddon
Philip Chee
>In article <107262411...@aleytys.pc.my>, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
>>Whee. My ADSL connection was turned on on Saturday, more than three
>>months after I signed up.
> Conga Rats. Got a firewall set up? Really truly recommended.
Yeah everything is firewalled and locked down tight. Actually too
tight. I seem to have turned off too many things and now can't
connect to any shared printer anywhere.
>>The only problem so far is that I've been chomping through the
>><http://www.megatokyo.com> site at such a rate that I eventually got
>>a "connection refused" message from their server.
Newsflash: It's not the megatokyo site but the rather flakey DHCP
client in windows XP which ever so often goes bonkers and invents a
totally ficticious IP number like <10.0.0.1> causing all traffic to
get blackholed. Perhaps I should increase the lease time?
> Heh. Some websites have been wiped off the face of the 'Net due to
>popularity -- they have to pay for the connection bandwidth. You can
>stream BBC Radio 4 now.
Every so often while watching TechTV, they would recommend some
website or other then in a couple of seconds watch that website go
off the map as a gazillion http requests flood the server.
>>What do those of you with broadband connections do with your
>>bandwidth?
> Download anime. Lots of anime. Lots and lots of anime. Lots and lots
>and... well, you get the idea. Anime.
Well Animax, a 24x7 anime channel has announced that it will start
broadcasting to Asia in January so it might actually be time to get
a PVR/DVDR. So far I've looked at the Panasonic 100E, googled at
the Poineer 810H and talked to a salesdroid about upcoming Toshiba
PVR/DVDR models which will handle all of DVD-RAM, DVD+R/+RW and
DVD-R/-RW.
On the minus side I may not be getting Animax at all as it seems
that my satellite subscription service is the only provider in Asia
that still hasn't signed up for the Animax channel. Given that
earlier in year the Anime Expo held in Kuala Lumpur attracted an
estimated 70k+ people you would think <http://www.astro.com.my>
wouldn't hold their noses up at such a large pool of potential
subscribers.
> My downloading client of choice is BitTorrent, a swarming peer-to-peer
>client that is popular with fansubbers. If you want some hints let me
>know.
I think I would have to upgrade my plan to at least 1Mbit/s. At the
moment I'm busy downloading all the freeware recommendations on the
TechTV website that I've always wanted but couldn't because of
bandwidth restrictions. By the way, a "swarming peer to peer
client" sounds rather alarming, what?
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
--
ž 20648.53 ž You are in a maze of UUCP connections, all alike.
Philip Chee
> Download anime. Lots of anime. Lots and lots of anime. Lots and lots
> and... well, you get the idea. Anime.
Talking about anime, I noticed, watching the extras in FLCL, that
the bullet time sequence in the first episode was done with 3D CGI
although shaded to appear to be traditional 2D animation.
Ever since _The Matrix_, I've noticed the tendency in recent anime
to throw in the occasional gratuitous bullet time sequence for no
other apparent reason except perhaps "because we can, NyahNyahNyah".
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
--
ž 20586.03 ž I'm a 2D cardboard character in a 3D world!
Philip Chee
>The voice of "Philip Chee" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
>from the sea of virtual chaos...
>> What do those of you with broadband connections do with your
>> bandwidth?
>Internet radio... Nothing special, just with Winamp.
I installed _Internet Boombox Radio_ which is basically a front end
internet radio tuner for Shoutcast enabled audio players like
Winamp. Very nice. Winamp 5.01 does have it's own media library of
internet radio stations but IBR seems to have the edge in the number
and variety available.
Talking about Winamp. I found that it won't play certain .WMA files
ripped off a CD by Windows Media Player. Eventually I discovered
that there was nothing actually wrong with the files and if I
renamed them, Winamp would play them. What happened was WMP would
access it's internet music database and rename files with the song
title, and of course if the songs are in Chinese or Japanese the
file name would contain non ASCII characters (in the UniHan part of
the Unicode codespace). Winamp just stares blankly at me and
refuses to play these until I rename them. Now Winamp has a "get
additional language packs" option but their webpage doesn't seem to
have any (except English).
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
... I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
--
* 20665.19 *
David G. Bell
<Xns945FA1B01...@news.fu-berlin.de>
spamn...@dragonfur.ca "Maxx Pollare" wrote:
> The voice of "Philip Chee" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
> from the sea of virtual chaos...
>
> > Whee. My ADSL connection was turned on Saturday, more than three
> > months after I signed up. Telekom Malaysia may have been privatised
> > ages ago but it still behaves pretty much like the government run
> > monopoly it used to be.
> <snip>
> > So what tech toy should I get next? Perhaps a SliMP3 player or
> > similar so that I can stream my MP3s and internet radio through my
> > stereo system? Of course first I need to get a stereo system.
>
> I'm with Bob on this one... More HD space is essential.
CD-burner, at least.
> I bought a new 80GB drive in March to go with my current 40GB & 20GB
> drives, and by November it was already full. An this isn't with fancy
> P2P software or Bit-Torrent, just Usenet binary downloads.
>
> I was getting almost the full speed of my ADSL 1.5, so the alternatives
> seamed downright slow by comparison. And now that I'm on Cable the old
> news server is humming along nicely at 250MB/s for a single stream or
> 170MB/s each for two... And yes, that is Megabytes per Second.
>
> Mine you, now that I have an enforced 5GB cap with a $10 per GB
> overflow charge, my downloading has slowed somewhat.
>
> > What do those of you with broadband connections do with your
> > bandwidth?
>
> Internet radio... Nothing special, just with Winamp.
Broadband provision, by what I hear, is currently undersubscribed in
most places. Pretty well all the systems have less total bandwidth than
the combined peak download speed of all the customers. Live video is
going to struggle. Lower bit-rate always-on services, such as internet
radio, should keep going.
What would tempt me would be the ability to start getting a huge
download without having to worry about the phone bill, or whether anyone
might want to call me. Since MS, here in the UK, have stopped allowing
the distribution of service packs on magazine cover-CDs, downloading
huge files may become a necessity.
I think the high-volume users are taking advantage of a temporary excess
capacity. It's the always-on aspect, at lower speeds, that is
significant.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
"History shows that the Singularity started when Tim Berners-Lee
was bitten by a radioactive spider."
David G. Bell
phi...@aleytys.pc.my "Philip Chee" wrote:
> In article <JnfGjQARjw7$Ew$Q...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk> no...@nospam.demon.co.uk writes:
>
> > Download anime. Lots of anime. Lots and lots of anime. Lots and lots
> > and... well, you get the idea. Anime.
>
> Talking about anime, I noticed, watching the extras in FLCL, that
> the bullet time sequence in the first episode was done with 3D CGI
> although shaded to appear to be traditional 2D animation.
>
> Ever since _The Matrix_, I've noticed the tendency in recent anime
> to throw in the occasional gratuitous bullet time sequence for no
> other apparent reason except perhaps "because we can, NyahNyahNyah".
Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
about by users of Poser.
In _The Matrix_, bullet time was almost a necessary plot device. You
can almost imagine a bunch of geeks saying, "We can do this neat trick,
but why would the world look like that?" Whether or not that sort of
question sparked the whole idea of the film, who knows, but it works
because that sort of stuff does fit in with the plot.
Philip Chee
>On Monday, in article <107268865...@aleytys.pc.my> phi...@aleytys.pc.my "Philip Chee" wrote:
>> Ever since _The Matrix_, I've noticed the tendency in recent anime
>> to throw in the occasional gratuitous bullet time sequence for no
>> other apparent reason except perhaps "because we can, NyahNyahNyah".
>Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
>about by users of Poser.
[*] Wossa Poser then, David?
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
--
ž 20700.19 ž When an Agnostic dies, does he go to the Great Perhaps?
Robert Sneddon
<phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
>>about by users of Poser.
>
>[*] Wossa Poser then, David?
Poser is a 3-D modelling program that builds human and animal figures
and allows the operator to "pose" them. There are distorting, skinning
and clothing options etc. and the figures can then be imported into
other 3-D modelling programs or 2-D packages. Baen Books has been known
to use Poser for some of its book covers -- Poser people are kinda
obvious being similar-looking. It's from the same people who produce
Bryce.
It's a great program for producing static 3-D figures for anime where
there are gross 3-D camera movements. The animators can then redraw each
frame like rotoscoping but inserting the anime character in the place of
the Poser figure. Another example, if you're interested (and have seen
the series) is Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu which recently aired on
Japanese TV. There's a scene in the opening titles with Sagara and
Chidori sitting on a riverbank while the camera spirals around them.
This would be very difficult to draw conventionally using flat 2-D
animation techniques.
David G. Bell
phi...@aleytys.pc.my "Philip Chee" wrote:
> In article <20031229.10...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> db...@zhochaka.org.uk
> writes:
> >On Monday, in article <107268865...@aleytys.pc.my> phi...@aleytys.pc.my
> "Philip Chee" wrote:
>
> >> Ever since _The Matrix_, I've noticed the tendency in recent anime
> >> to throw in the occasional gratuitous bullet time sequence for no
> >> other apparent reason except perhaps "because we can, NyahNyahNyah".
>
> >Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
> >about by users of Poser.
>
> [*] Wossa Poser then, David?
It's a program which is very good at 3D CGI of people. One of the
current bits of promotional material on the site is about how an artist
has being using Poser to produce graphics for a newspaper, showing what
US Army troops look like -- the sort of thing that has lots of little
arrows with labels that inform you that something is a gun.
Poser 3 has been given away with some british computer magazines. Poser
5 is the current version, with some fairly CPU intensive options for
dealing with hair and clothes in animation. Poser 4 is being re-
launched under another name for "budget" users.
For some strange reason, probably totally unconnected with the
reputation for geekiness attached to computer users, most of the third-
party models sold for the program are female. And slim.
David G. Bell
no...@nospam.demon.co.uk "Robert Sneddon" wrote:
> In article <107270990...@aleytys.pc.my>, Philip Chee
> <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
> >In article <20031229.10...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> db...@zhochaka.org.uk
> >writes:
> >
> >>Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
> >>about by users of Poser.
> >
> >[*] Wossa Poser then, David?
>
> Poser is a 3-D modelling program that builds human and animal figures
> and allows the operator to "pose" them. There are distorting, skinning
> and clothing options etc. and the figures can then be imported into
> other 3-D modelling programs or 2-D packages. Baen Books has been known
> to use Poser for some of its book covers -- Poser people are kinda
> obvious being similar-looking. It's from the same people who produce
> Bryce.
Could you point at any examples, Nojay?
One problem with Poser is that there are a lot of face morphs (a morph
is a set of differences for the vertices in a 3D mesh) but artists don't
seem to do much to change the proportions of the body. It takes a bit
more fiddling.
> It's a great program for producing static 3-D figures for anime where
> there are gross 3-D camera movements. The animators can then redraw each
> frame like rotoscoping but inserting the anime character in the place of
> the Poser figure. Another example, if you're interested (and have seen
> the series) is Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu which recently aired on
> Japanese TV. There's a scene in the opening titles with Sagara and
> Chidori sitting on a riverbank while the camera spirals around them.
> This would be very difficult to draw conventionally using flat 2-D
> animation techniques.
Curious Labs have apparently done a deal with a Japanese company. I
can't recall the name, but see www.curiouslabs.com
There's also some ability to animate within Poser. And it might not be
too difficult to set up a pretty close simalcrum of the anime character.
It might be that some anime designs will start with sketches, go to a
Poser model, and that will be used as the reference base.
Robert Sneddon
<db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> writes
>On Monday, in article <FDVFKWAkuE8$Ew...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk>
> no...@nospam.demon.co.uk "Robert Sneddon" wrote:
>
> Baen Books has been known
>> to use Poser for some of its book covers -- Poser people are kinda
>> obvious being similar-looking. It's from the same people who produce
>> Bryce.
>
>Could you point at any examples, Nojay?
The cover for "A Civil Campaign" had two rows of uniformed retainers
standing behind the foreground characters -- the retainers are all Poser
people.
>There's also some ability to animate within Poser. And it might not be
>too difficult to set up a pretty close simalcrum of the anime character.
>It might be that some anime designs will start with sketches, go to a
>Poser model, and that will be used as the reference base.
Mostly anime studios work with the older technologies of character
sketches and key drawings, including a series of pencils of facial
expressions etc. all in 2-D. The FLCL bullet-time sequence gross camera
moves require either superb spatially-aware artists or some computer
jiggery-pokery. Other examples where 3-D has obviously been used is in
"spirited Away" in Yubaba's apartment, with lots and lots of opulent
detail in the corridors -- the tiles and vases are noticeably more 3-D
than the characters. There is also the sequence where Sen is being
dragged through the flowering bushes by Haku -- the bushes are modelled
in 3-D. The rest of the movie is pretty much traditionally flat-
animated.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <107270990...@aleytys.pc.my>, Philip Chee
><phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
>>In article <20031229.10...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> db...@zhochaka.org.uk
>>writes:
>>
>>>Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
>>>about by users of Poser.
>>
>>[*] Wossa Poser then, David?
>
> Poser is a 3-D modelling program that builds human and animal figures
>and allows the operator to "pose" them. There are distorting, skinning
>and clothing options etc. and the figures can then be imported into
>other 3-D modelling programs or 2-D packages. Baen Books has been known
Correction:
Poser is not a *modelling* program. You cannot model things in it,
except in a broad sense, because it uses pre-modelled figures which
can be distorted by morphing them. Its primary use is to pose the
existing models, as well as clothe them. Its backgrounds can be good,
but ... you're better off with another renderer.
>to use Poser for some of its book covers -- Poser people are kinda
>obvious being similar-looking.
They are not anymore except if people just drop in the default figure
and don't change anything.
>It's from the same people who produce Bryce.
Originally, yes, but Metacreations died a number of years ago. Poser
people went to establish Curious Labs, which was taken under the wing
of Egisys, which in turn apparently folded down. Now both Curious Labs
and Poser were bought by e-frontier, a Japanese company that produces
a program called Shade and apparently sells pre-modelled figures in
the Asian market.
<http://www.curiouslabs.com> for some great examples of Poser figures,
rendered both in Poser and in other programs, like the above mentioned
Bryce.
At <http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Erlik>
you can see where I used Poser figures. The first three pics all have
Poser figures rendered in Bryce, although you might not see the first
because it's a nude.
> It's a great program for producing static 3-D figures for anime where
>there are gross 3-D camera movements.
Incidentally, they use it for storyboarding, too. _The One_ people
used Poser to explore the possibilities of various kicks and stuff.
BTW, the Xmas card on the index of my site uses Poser figures, too.
See sig.
vlatko
--
http://www.niribanimeso.org/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>And now that I'm on Cable the old
>news server is humming along nicely at 250MB/s for a single stream or
>170MB/s each for two... And yes, that is Megabytes per Second.
Huh.
We've got 100 Mbit Ethernet network at work and the best I can get
downloading from our server to my computer is 100-150 MB *per minute*.
What kind of cable do you have?
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
("David G. Bell") wrote:
>Poser 3 has been given away with some british computer magazines.
Computer Arts, as well as with 3D World. And I think somewhere else.
>Poser 4 is being re-
>launched under another name for "budget" users.
Hah! Interesting. They added a bit or two, it seems.
>For some strange reason, probably totally unconnected with the
>reputation for geekiness attached to computer users, most of the third-
>party models sold for the program are female. And slim.
And hugely popular with women. (Quite a lot of Poser users are women.)
BTW, the default newbie picture created in Poser is called Naked Vicky
in a Temple with a Sword. Vicky is Victoria, currently in version 3, a
female model sold by daz3d.com.
David G. Bell
<ejo1vv06hl6q835dq...@news.individual.net>
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr "Vlatko Juric-Kokic" wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 16:31:21 +0000 (GMT), db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk
> ("David G. Bell") wrote:
>
> >Poser 3 has been given away with some british computer magazines.
>
> Computer Arts, as well as with 3D World. And I think somewhere else.
PC-something. More likely to be PC-Pro than PC-Plus, but I'd have to
dig it out to be sure.
> >Poser 4 is being re-
> >launched under another name for "budget" users.
>
> Hah! Interesting. They added a bit or two, it seems.
>
> >For some strange reason, probably totally unconnected with the
> >reputation for geekiness attached to computer users, most of the third-
> >party models sold for the program are female. And slim.
>
> And hugely popular with women. (Quite a lot of Poser users are women.)
I've noticed. It's over-simplistic to say it's playing with dolls, but
it's not hard to see an element of that lurking in what the program
does. There are a lot of elements that can be related to traditional
female interests, related to fashion and clothes, but there's a lot of
geekery involved too.
>
> BTW, the default newbie picture created in Poser is called Naked Vicky
> in a Temple with a Sword. Vicky is Victoria, currently in version 3, a
> female model sold by daz3d.com.
I ought to send you my first P5 pic...
Philip Chee
>In article <107270990...@aleytys.pc.my>, Philip Chee
><phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes
>>In article <20031229.10...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> db...@zhochaka.org.uk>
>>writes:
>>>Getting the illusion of 2D out of 3D CGI is something that gets talked
>>>about by users of Poser.
>>[*] Wossa Poser then, David?
> Poser is a 3-D modelling program that builds human and animal figures
>and allows the operator to "pose" them.
Something like Maya then?
Phil
---===============================================================---
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
--
ş 20607.13 ş Handle with care - Elderly tagline operator!
David G. Bell
no...@nospam.demon.co.uk "Robert Sneddon" wrote:
> In article <20031229.16...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk>, David G. Bell
> <db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> writes
> >On Monday, in article <FDVFKWAkuE8$Ew...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk>
> > no...@nospam.demon.co.uk "Robert Sneddon" wrote:
> >
> > Baen Books has been known
> >> to use Poser for some of its book covers -- Poser people are kinda
> >> obvious being similar-looking. It's from the same people who produce
> >> Bryce.
> >
> >Could you point at any examples, Nojay?
>
> The cover for "A Civil Campaign" had two rows of uniformed retainers
> standing behind the foreground characters -- the retainers are all Poser
> people.
Can't find my copy of that now, but that sort of use is unsurprising.
It's also the sort of situation where the sameness of Poser people can
show up. They can be given different faces fairly easily, using Poser's
morphing tech, and there are a lot of free facial morphs available, as
well as the adjustments provided with the figure. But bodies tend not
to be as variable.
[3D use in animated movies]
There's bits of stuff in "The Road to Eldorado" too. The heaps of gold
on the ship, for instance. (Nice movie -- could easily have been a
Crosby/Hope Road movie, and there's a touch of Kipling in there too.)
And a bit more info on Poser versions:
Poser 1: limited to essentially digital versions of those articulated
wood figures that artists use.
Poser 2: introduced human-like models.
Poser 3: has stuff like textures and bump-maps, and can do animation.
More detail in the figure meshes, especially heads.
Poser 4: Conforming-clothing, which uses the same model articulation
methods as the figures so that something like a coat can move with the
figure wearing it. Now the clothes don't have to be worked into the
figure-surface. The default female nude, known as Posette, uses the
same head-mesh as the P3 female nude, so morphs for one will work with
the other.
Poser 5: A new (optional-use) rendering engine which allows cloth and
hair to be simulated, so that they hang at least plausibly without
artist intervention. A much more complicated system of managing surface
materials, which lets some fancy stuff be done with P4-style conforming
clothing.
I don't recall if transparency maps were introduced with P4 or P5. This
has all sorts of applications, such as making P4-style hair more real.
One of the notable uses is with clothes. Change pants to shorts with a
transparency-map, and maybe a bump-map to make the new hem. The default
clothes include some stuff which works very well with this, so there's
less need to make up new models as such.
The data files for a model are pretty standard, so it's not too hard to
put a Poser-generated figure into another rendering program. Or the
other way around. Poser used to have problems with scale. 1 poser-unit
was a very different quantity to that assumed by some other programs,
but there are tools to re-scale models.
Wilson Heydt
Maxx Pollare <spamn...@dragonfur.ca> wrote:
>
>I was getting almost the full speed of my ADSL 1.5, so the alternatives
>170MB/s each for two... And yes, that is Megabytes per Second.
As one can imagine, since the speed you cite would download 5GB in
20 seconds, and the extra GB fo $10 in 2 secs....
Can you tell that, unless you've got a direct optical feed, I'm a
trifle dubious?
--
Hal Heydt
Albany, CA
My dime, my opinions.
Wilson Heydt
Maxx Pollare <spamn...@dragonfur.ca> wrote:
>The voice of "Nate Edel" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
>
>>> the old news server is humming along nicely at 250MB/s for a
>>> single stream or 170MB/s each for two...
>>
>> bandwidth of a gigabit Ethernet wire, and takes a fairly large
>> array to make that kind of bandwidth to and from disk, I think
>> you're misreading something.
>
>More then likely...
>
>Xnews displays average in "MB", which I've always presumed to be PER
>second, but I'm not complaining. Actual download times work out to
>less-then 15 minutes to download a little more then 420MB worth of
>files (estimates only). I'll do another speed after the first.
420MB in 900 secs is a bit better than 500KB/s, or about5 Mb/s.
>> Even 250 mega_bits_ per second requires gigabit ethernet, for
>> obvious reasons, and is getting close to the maximum continuous
>> read and write speed for a regular IDE disk drive.
>
>Nothing is ever directly written to the HD, it has to go though memory
>first, which has more then fast enough for the task...
>
> 1.5 Mbs = 198MB/s
TRy more like 1.5Mb/s ~= 150KB/s
> 2.5 Mbs = 320MB/s
And 2.5Mb/s ~= 250KB/s
>Dam close to what's being listed by Xnews & Kerio during my
>downloads... Still, there has to be some reason for the "close math".
As for the disk drive issue...memory speeds are irrelevant for
sustained transfers. Even if you could take it in signifcantly
faster than your drives (current IDE drives peak at around 60MB/s,
though burst rates to cache are higher), the data has to come off
the drives at the other end.