How Monitor & HDTV Companies Cook Their Specs

[snkcube]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/featur ... page=0%2C0

This is a pretty good article that goes over many marketing BS for monitors and HDTVs.

[Gil_Hamilton]

To make a long story short: Every spec on the box other than native resolution is pulled out of the ass of someone in marketing.

[Clements]

Yep. I would definitely pay more attention to real tests such as on sites such xbitlabs do, and subjective tests, than the marketing spiel you get from the manufacturers.

[Deathlike2]

When you leave it to marketing, you'll be getting something you probably won't care for or want.

Ultimately, you got to see it for yourself before making decisions.

[I.S.T.]

Yep. I would definitely pay more attention to real tests such as on sites such xbitlabs do, and subjective tests, than the marketing spiel you get from the manufacturers.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk is a good site too.

[magitek369]

Would I be accused of communism if I stated that a free market unhindered by government oversight tends to lead itself to these sort of shysters?

[I.S.T.]

No, but technically, there is no such thing as a 100% free market. Even the US recognizes the danger of that.

[grinvader]

Would I be accused of communism

of course you will
just because you brought the topic


burn the witch

[paulguy]

I think the guy's idea of a kinda standard body that does calibration for monitors and releases the real specs. Would also be nice if stores displayed it. The ones that test well would still sell well, they just would have more reasonable numbers like 1500:1 rather than 1500000:1, but they'd all be correct and have the same "scale".

[Gil_Hamilton]

Would I be accused of communism if I stated that a free market unhindered by government oversight tends to lead itself to these sort of shysters?

Government regulation of every aspect of the market doesn't really make things better, though.
It just makes for a slower, less responsive, more expensive market of liars and cheats.

[magitek369]

Government regulation of every aspect of the market doesn't really make things better, though.
It just makes for a slower, less responsive, more expensive market of liars and cheats.

Well we certainly can't trust the market to regulate itself. We'd quickly end up in some sort of dystopian future where megacorporations rule our lives.

Of course, government isn't necessarily much better. They've got their own agenda, and it seems that more often than not they're in bed with the very industries that they're supposed to be regulating.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Government regulation of every aspect of the market doesn't really make things better, though.
It just makes for a slower, less responsive, more expensive market of liars and cheats.

Well we certainly can't trust the market to regulate itself. We'd quickly end up in some sort of dystopian future where megacorporations rule our lives.

Spoilers: You're a little behind the times.



Besides, no one here is arguing for free-market. The fact that corporations will take short-term profits over long-term not-poisoning-customers-to-death is sadly well-documented at multiple times through history in multiple places around the world.

[lordmissus]

Capitalism:
- Supposedly the best, it gives large corporations freedom, but not ordinary folk. There is a pillar: the peasants are at the bottom, supporting the weight so that the lrage corps can continue scraping off the back of the common man. It is like anarchy; there are no regulations, so apparently it means freedom, but it only means freedom for those with power, or those with a means to gain power. Vice. Might makes right.

Large corporations make it next to impossible for small guys to start up their own business with success. Freedom to crush, ftw.

Communism:
- Everything is owned by the state. It is the same as capitalism, except that there is only one entity. It is more expensive to maintain, but regulation is good, overall distribution of wealth is better, and less people (in theory) are left to starve. Living costs tend to be far less in such countries. In many ways the people in such nations are often wealthier. Perhaps they don't drive nice cars, own a mansion, and other meaningless commodities, but they are happy. They are also normally safer places to live (for example in China there are virtually no drugs, and gun control is readily apparent; there is far less crime in China than in, say, the US, where schools are wrought with corruption and violence, and the streets are not safe to walk at night because of drugs (and other corruptions of such a society)).

Democracy:
- Assumes a well-informed public. Having voting rights does not equal democracy, it just means you have the power to vote; if a government can censor information, and make it extremely difficult for other parties to gain power, it is not democracy. If the majority of people are ignorant, uneducated morons, the ones that aren't have no say. Party manifesto's are sold to these idiots like candy, and they vote for that party; the one with a leader most skilled in oratory and rhetoric. It also means less stability, especially in most democratic nations that have PR where coalition governments are the norm.

Democracy and capitalism are incompatible, but they've strangely been associated with each other throughout history.

Really, all systems suck. It's just that some don't suck as much as others.
All of this is off-topic, but meh.

Also, that article in the OP is good. Thanks for the link.

[snkcube]

You forgot about socialism.

[lordmissus]

Ah, yes. The excellent middle ground.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Democracy and capitalism are incompatible, but they've strangely been associated with each other throughout history.

Technically, they're unrelated, not incompatible.
Capitalism is a purely economic system, democracy is a purely political one.
You can have a communist democracy(theoretically), or a capitalist dictatorship.

[DataPath]

Karl Marx's ideal of communism was "a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism).

[lordmissus]

Yes, and that is the problem; true communism is a great idea, both in theory and in practise. Yet, when mentioning it, people always think about the former USSR, and particularly Stalin, even though Stalin was a fascist dictator, not a communist. Soviet-style commumism was not commumism.

On the other hand, generations of progressive policies under the ruling within the People's Republic of China, is an example of the system done right.

See: Technocracy.

PS: I advise against relying on wikipedia, for reasons you should already know.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Karl Marx's ideal of communism was "a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism).

Yeah, communism is a very multipronged ideal... but only some parts ever get implemented.

[Johan_H]

On the other hand, generations of progressive policies under the ruling within the People's Republic of China, is an example of the system done right.

Speaking of which, can't China be seen as an example of something close to "capitalist dictatorship", which was mentioned earlier?

[magitek369]

[quote="lordmister"]
On the other hand, generations of progressive policies under the ruling within the People's Republic of China, is an example of the system done right.
/quote]
I wouldn't be so quick to praise a country that so harshly censors its own people.

[Gil_Hamilton]

On the other hand, generations of progressive policies under the ruling within the People's Republic of China, is an example of the system done right.

Speaking of which, can't China be seen as an example of something close to "capitalist dictatorship", which was mentioned earlier?

Last I heard, weren't they transitional? Which I guess would make them a socialist dictatorship...

Capitalist dictatorships are a dime a dozen, so that'd make China lame... except that they're only the third country in the world with a manned space program, and one of two with an ACTIVE manned space program(possibly soon to be one)

[Rashidi]

anyway thanks to china, we got plenty of cheap stuff.
i believe they purposedly removes the Q.C steps in making things.

[franpa]

Nah they just keep inventing more painful whips every few years to ensure there workers don't get lazy.

[DataPath]

Yes, and that is the problem; true communism is a great idea, both in theory and in practise. Yet, when mentioning it, people always think about the former USSR, and particularly Stalin, even though Stalin was a fascist dictator, not a communist. Soviet-style commumism was not commumism.

On the other hand, generations of progressive policies under the ruling within the People's Republic of China, is an example of the system done right.

See: Technocracy.

PS: I advise against relying on wikipedia, for reasons you should already know.

Human nature will sabotage any large-scale communism. Every time.

Communism can work if and only if each individual feels that their efforts contribute directly to the success of the whole, and if the majority of the members of the commune share a reasonably common ideal of success.

PS: You're a pompous idiot.