I acquired an eyeTV to record broadcasts of local HDTV channels–this was before streaming really took off-- and planned on using it with my AppleTV 3 and iPad 3. Because of Apple’s limitations, I had to transcode MPEG2 to mpeg4.before using the recordings with the latter two devices.
This was technically possible with an iMac Core2Duo, but it meant that I was effectively using 1 core for myself, and 1 core for video-- and each core wanted 4 GB to play around with. Until I upgraded to 8GB (from 4GB), swapping was major problem-- either I could transcode, which took several hours on a core 2 duo, or I could use my machine.
Now I don’t transcode-- streaming is far easier than trying to get a stable atsc signal, and Quicksync could transcode in minutes what used to take hours, but I still like to have lots and lots of RAM i24GB) n my machine…I think I used it all exactly once-- when Microsoft Edge decided to leak memory…
Anyway, video production can use a lot of RAM, though it won’t go as far as a more modern CPU. It’s not as if you can get a more modern 17 inch MacBook pro though.
Well, they finally make desktop keyboards as good as they used to again - laptops keep finding new ways to suck, though. (Half-height up/down arrows directly under a shift key with an up-arrow on it? Go away, HP.)
I’d be shocked if this weren’t a huge factor. At some point a few years ago, real PC horsepower became relatively cheap, and software demands simply didn’t keep up. The most demanding productivity application I use is Photoshop, and my 4 year-old homebrew Win 7 machine happily munches it up and spits it out. I’ve done incremental upgrades (SSD instead of spinner, beefier GPU, more RAM); but the bones of the machine remain solid, even offering a solid gaming experience.
Want to ship more PCs? Maybe push the development of more demanding (and more useful, not just inefficient) software.
This is where the Oculus Rift comes in. While you’ll see a bunch of cheaper virtual reality competitors, with the Rift they’re pushing for a frame rate of 120fps to avoid nausea. Plus external headset and hand controller tracking. Lower-end PCs need not apply.
I suspect that privacy concerns will also have an effect. The more that Cortana / Siri / Etc. personal assistants become popular, the more concerns there will be about everything heard in the room being sent off to cloud servers for voice recognition analysis, along with all your personal data. Someone will eventually use privacy as a selling feature, with an assistant that resides entirely on your local PC with no processing in the cloud.
I have a gaming and music production machine that is 5 years old – but I’ve replaced everything except the case, PSU, mobo and CPU, and I expect it to still be going strong for another few years with few to no additional upgrades.
Likewise, our computers at work are about that old or older, but have been upgraded more recently.
My dad’s computer is a discount eMachines POS that is well over 10 years old now. He uses it for web browsing and making interminable slide shows from his travel photography. If he’d put his stuff up on Instagram or Facebook instead, he wouldn’t need a PC. But he hates the idea of smartphones, so there’s that. Whenever I have to do anything on it I want to accidentally set it on fire and drop it off a cliff, because it takes approximately three weeks to boot and 7 hours to launch a web browser, but he’s probably going to hang onto it until it simply won’t boot anymore.
Completely agree. Anecdotal: I flog consumer electronics for a living. I cannot count the number of times I’ve asked people about their computing needs and they go, “Office, Facebook, Netflix.” (Actually, Facebook is usually first.) 4Gb RAM (I recommend at least 6, but 4 will do you just fine) and an i3 processor is all you really need.
People who are into gaming and graphics (design or consumption) are pretty much the only people keeping high end consumer PCs alive.
I do wonder if Windows 10 is partly responsible for the supply shortage of CD-Rs. Anyone know what’s up with that?
CD-R is obsolete as a music storage format. It’s certainly obsolete as a data storage format - DVD-R holds much more, and these days pretty much all the hardware supports it. So why produce or buy CD-R when you can produce or buy DVD-R?
Here in Canada and a few other countries, CD-R has a tax going to musicians, in exchange for folks being allowed to privately copy music. MOST of the cost of a CD-R goes to the music industry. But that tax isn’t on DVD-R, so DVD-R doesn’t cost more.
Industry doesn’t care about obsolescence though. People still use them and buy them. Whether there are better alternatives doesn’t really explain the shortage, since the supply dried up overnight (past couple months or so) while demand was holding at least steady.
A similar one lies on my desk. Everyone struggling with a weird and unclear soft- or hardware glitch is invited to borrow it: After carefully using this precision tool the problem is explainable.
