[Preview + Feedback] Digit September 2006

[FatBeing]

@wiiwii

1. What's wrong with Indian distributors? Well, firstly, they have to deal with publishers who are still only waking up to India as a market, so they have to push publishers for new games, rather than publishers sending them to India. Still, the situation's getting better. The past few months of game reviews haven't been that disappointing - for example, we got the Call of Cthulhu review copy a couple of weeks before its international release, even.

2. SKOAR! is a magazine more for hardcore gamers. Digit, on the other hand, covers a wider audience, many of whom are casual gamers. You clearly haven't read the latest SKOAR!, or you haven't noticed the PSP game and accessory reviews. Finally, there's really no way we can upstage SKOAR! when it comes to gaming.

3. People who can get games from relatives in the US, or from the grey market, are welcome to do so. We cover legal markets as a matter of policy, period. Even if that means a few stale reports here and there. The legal channels aren't as fast as the illegal ones, as usual, and we aren't happy about it, but there you have it.

 

[led_shankar]

this is kinda weird....and I am hesitant to post this but....

Is it just me or is digit really sexist? I mean the dig you took at that singer..."needing the help of a woman"

and some previous issues/articles too (the one where you made a joke about sendin hate mail with the subject line "chauvinist pig" etc etc)

 

[k_blues24]

Digit September 2006..... Risk is there?

Hi,
When I'm trying to install Photoshop Plug-ins from Digit DVD (Sep) My anti virus gave me this error :

detected: riskware not-a-virus:Monitor.Win32.KGBSpy.34 File: G:\Digital_Tools\System\freekgbkeylogger-194.exe/ci-temp0.cab\winlogon.dll/ASPack/ASPack


wat is it? it is risky/dangerous to my system.

 

[FatBeing]

Re: Digit September 2006..... Risk is there?

Hi,
When I'm trying to install Photoshop Plug-ins from Digit DVD (Sep) My anti virus gave me this error :

detected: riskware not-a-virus:Monitor.Win32.KGBSpy.34 File: G:\Digital_Tools\System\freekgbkeylogger-194.exe/ci-temp0.cab\winlogon.dll/ASPack/ASPack


wat is it? it is risky/dangerous to my system.

No, it's not dangerous for your system. Antivirus programs will throw up that warning because keylogging software is tremendously misused.

 

[ratedrsuperstar]

Digit was **** this time.i am a proud digitian and i hope to see drastic improvements in the cd/dvd contents specially the lack of up to date products and hoping for nice mobo,processor,graphic cards shootout somewhere soon.i think u guys at digit should stop playing with that 360 and get some serious work going.sorry for being harsh.hoping for a good one this time.

 

[aditya.shevade]

Hi

I still have not received my Digit for this month. I am sorry to say this but as compared to other magazines, Digit has really let everyone down. This is a computer related magazine and you well know that the things related to PCs keep changing at a very fast speed.

What is the use of the security and other updates to me if it reaches me one month (or so) after the time it was ment to be installed? Please consider this a request and do send the magazines before the 1st of a month (29th or 30th) so that it will reach us atleast in the first week.

And if you have sent it by couriers (as I am aware, you do send it by courier) then it takes maximum two days for a courier to reach Sangli from Mumbai.

Please try to improve. I hope that I will see the magazine in my hands a little earlier from now on.

 

[SE><IE]

I'm Unable to find deep paint plugin
...ah yes, I installed all the plugins to a different location. can you please tell me the location of deep paint. oh yes, did I forgot to mention that I couldn't see it listed even in the autoplay *www.websmileys.com/sm/comp/comp26.gif

 

[FatBeing]

I'm Unable to find deep paint plugin
...ah yes, I installed all the plugins to a different location. can you please tell me the location of deep paint. oh yes, did I forgot to mention that I couldn't see it listed even in the autoplay *www.websmileys.com/sm/comp/comp26.gif

That's because Deep Paint isn't there. Notice the article says "nearly all" - we ran out of space.

 

[blackpearl]

The movie section this time was yucks!!! And that home made bullet time video was too-too amateurish. If I were you, I wouldn't have included it in the DVD.

The mag contents are good. You should try to maintain this standard.

 

[led_shankar]

^+1

What crappy movies to put! Bleh!

 

[blackpearl]

Here is a much better bullet time video using only 6 cameras.

*www.creativecow.net/articles/kumar_satish/bullet_time/index.htm

 

[deathvirus_me]

Hmm ... the issues are indeed better than the one's few months back .. though it still lacks some punch .. but none-the-less ... better than before .. so i'm not wasting the 125 bucks anymore ...

Though i'd like to mention that i'd really like to see some more hardware reviews , atleast a page on them , and not half a page ...

 

[samrulez]

First of all,DIGIT ROCKS!

Though i'd like to mention that i'd really like to see some more hardware reviews , atleast a page on them , and not half a page ...

Yeah!,hardware rewiews lack info,

And plz we don't wanna see...something like..

Performance-wise,this board is no slouch!3D Mark 2005 put up score in excess of 1100-an all time high among all the card we've tested.

plz mention what was the exact config. u used for testing.....also mention what was the exact score!

We started up with Doom 3 and we were greeted with 100+fps score

Same requests again,plz.

 

[led_shankar]

Absolutely!

Vague, beating-about-the-bush answers are best left to politicians

 

[FatBeing]

Here is a much better bullet time video using only 6 cameras.

*www.creativecow.net/articles/kumar_satish/bullet_time/index.htm

Yeah..seen this. But it seems that some actual studio work went into getting those six images - blue screen et al. And how did they get the guy suspended in the air so long?

Basically, we tried to simulate the conditions under which bored individuals might make this at home - one single day, disparate cameras, little or no equipment, and WMM. I admit, though, that the video could have been way better - serves me right for choosing something as unpredictable as a car falling off a table. But now you know you can do better, so let's see if we get some submissions in that department.

@deathvirus_me
Duly noted - we'll cough up as many details as we can within the space we have.

Finally, the Rise of The Mushroom Kingdom was an awesome set of movies, we thought. Ditto the rest of the Mario Movies. Nearly died laughing.

 

[blackpearl]

And how did they get the guy suspended in the air so long?

The guy wasn't suspended in the air for long, that was the effect created by bullet time. The guy was suspended only for a split second and they slowed down the panning of the camera to create the effect of suspension. They must have introduced a lot of intermediate frames in between to slow down the video. They used something called Winmorph to do it. Maybe its much better in creating transitions than Virtualdub.

Actually a car wasn't a bad choice but you could have taken a couple of retakes to get the perfect landing.

 

[FatBeing]

I meant, suspended long enough to take the six pictures - you give me no credit, do you ?

Taking six clear pictures of a guy in mid-air is either:

1. Extremely well-synchronised still photography, or
2. They hung the guy with ropes and then took the pictures

The resources in either case are usually beyond your average home user.

 

[blackpearl]

I give you credit, don't worry, very few people try these things at home. What I want to say is it could have been better.

Taking six clear pictures of a guy in mid-air is either:

1. Extremely well-synchronised still photography, or
2. They hung the guy with ropes and then took the pictures

I think you are not getting it. Its not possible take such a shot with still cameras. All the cameras they used were video cameras and were rolling at the same time. The guy jumps, remains in the air for a fraction of a second and then falls down. Lets say the guy is in the air at time=t1. Now take the feed from camera01 , let it contunue and stop it as soon as it reaches time t1. Now take just a single frame from each of the rest of the cameras at time=t1. Arrange them sequentially and continue the rest of the video from time t1 from the last camera used. This is how its usually done. Did you use still cameras to capture the falling shot?? If you did then its really commendable.

P.S: Just look at the following behind the scenes video from the movie Matrix. Look at the extreme number of cameras used (the black dots on the green wall)

*whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/cmp/sfx-bullet_videos2.html

 

[FatBeing]

Sigh...read the article again - I explained the same procedure right there.

You need a really fast camera to capture the detail that these guys have - a feature sorely missing in the regular old digital cameras we used (from the pool of cameras that came for testing).

 

[karmanya]

awesome issue guys the piece on linux was really cool now i can finally throw that pirated windows out the window (that is if my dad allows me to) just 1 complaint your magazines are two short!!!!!!!! i mean it takes me little over a couple pf hours to finish it so for the rest of the month i end up reading my old issues over and over again. Plus do you have any tips for convincing your parents to allow you to subscribe to skoar! and digit at the same time?
kudos for the magazine