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It seems really weirdly written. It's written with a lot of authority, like saying "Don't use VLC" and "Don't use Y" yet provides no reasoning for those things.
by embedding-shape 10mo ago
It seems really weirdly written. It's written with a lot of authority, like saying "Don't use VLC" and "Don't use Y" yet provides no reasoning for those things. Just putting "Trust me, just don't" doesn't suddenly mean I trust the author more, it probably has the opposite effect. Some sections seem to differ based on if the reader knows/doesn't know something, but I thought the article was supposed to be for the latter.
Would have been nice if these "MUST KNOW BEFORE" advises were structured in a way so one could easily come back and use it as a reference, like just a list, but instead it's like a over-dinner conversation with your "expert and correct but socially-annoying" work colleague, who refuses to elaborate on the how's and why's, but still have very strong opinions.
- ramesh31 10mo agotechnically correct is the best kind. who cares if it's obnoxious? take the opinions and agree or disagree with them.
- snakeboy 10mo agoIt works if you know the person and have a baseline for how much confidence you give their opinions. If it's just a random person on the internet, they need to support their argument.
- alwa 10mo agoI mean—they can. They don’t need to give more than they’re already giving we anonymous strangers for free. For all we know, this person wrote this for people they encounter personally or professionally, and we’re just incidentally benefitting. We as readers should gauge their credibility for ourselves, whether by reputation or by checking the claims. I don’t know who wrote it but it seems basically correct, consistent, and concisely argued to me.
- dylan604 10mo agoHow do you know it is technically correct without explanation. It's not much different from someone getting blown off for being annoying because they constantly question simple answers when seeking better understanding. I was fortunate to work with a group of engineers when I was very young that accepted my constant use of "why?" not as disrespectful questioning but realized I was actually learning so they naturally just provided more details leading to less "why?" being asked. This eventually got to the point where I would ask a question, and the answer would be to read a specific book on the shelf. This was way before the internet. I received a better education on the job than I ever was going to get in school. So no, I'm not just going to take an opinion without more information. I don't change my mind just on say so.
- pomian 10mo agoWhy? Is the most simple test of a valid explanation. If you don't need to ask why any more, you've answered the question. Sometimes it takes 3 or 5 white in a row!
- yaur 10mo agoWhen we switched from x264 to hardware based encoders it saved something like 90% on our customers' power and cooling bills. So while this essay might be "technically correct" in some very narrow sense the author is speaking with far more authority than they have the experience to justify, which is what makes it obnoxious in the first place.
- knowitnone3 10mo agothe author never talked about power savings or cooling bills, they talked about quality so they are still correct.
- encom 10mo agoThis is already mentioned in the article. Software vs. hardware is a tradeoff. x264 produces higher quality (perceptual or compression efficiency) video, at the expense of latency.
- mrguyorama 10mo agoThe author is directing this at complete noobs who are subbing their first anime and you are complaining that it is not applicable to running a datacenter?
- jaapz 10mo agoHow can I disagree when they don't provide a reasoning behind why something is the better option?
- Etheryte 10mo agoExactly, very hard to take the rest of it seriously after the VLC bit. VLC has literally never left me hanging, across I don't know how many decades. It's gonna take more than a trust me bro to challenge that.
- MallocVoidstar 10mo agoIIRC VLC used the wrong primaries for converting to RGB for a long time (years) even after it being reported to them as wrong
- gruez 10mo ago>even after it being reported to them as wrong Source?
- linolevan 10mo agoI'm not the OP of the claim (and I love VLC) but maybe they're referring to this early 2018 issue: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/19723 https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/19723 which seems to be being actively worked on. There's also https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/25651 https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/25651 but that's an off by one error so likely not really relevant to video playback for the average user.
- ErroneousBosh 10mo agoVLC is great for playing stuff back, but can produce some horribly incorrect video files especially if you're dealing with stuff for editing. There's a reason why VLC isn't used in broadcast stuff and ffmpeg is.
- ffsm8 10mo agoYou're talking about VLC for video playback, TFA is taking about video editing. VLC ignores a lot for it's outstanding video playback support, which is great if you want the playback too just work... But that's the player perspective, not the editing/encoding
- eduction 10mo agoAnd? It’s a GitHub gist not an oreilly book. Context.
- embedding-shape 10mo agoSo? This was just a HN comment, not a review of a paper.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- joe_the_user 10mo agoYeah, as far as I know, to understand video formats, you need to understand encode-decode process, how film/video editor operate normally (keeping in mind film/video editing has levels from $100s to way beyond me), history, how optics and cameras work, etc. Then particular choices and confusions can be understood. This indeed just seems to jump-in in the middle and give a bunch very specific recommendation. I have no idea if they're good or bad recommendations but this doesn't seem like the way to teach good procedures.
- astrange 10mo agoThere are not very many recommendations in this article, but they're good.
- embedding-shape 10mo agoWish I knew which ones were applicable to me, but without any reasoning, these "recommendations" are as good as random tweets with factoids.
- astrange 10mo agoWell, I just told you they're good, so now you know.
- embedding-shape 10mo agoYeah, based on your comment I learnt as much as the original article, which is basically nothing. So thank you :)