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PiXeL01
been skimming through BBB to find that answer, but cant recall where it's located. Help would be appreciated smile.gif

Somewhere it states that a MegaPulse, is equal to a certain amount of minutes of Video or pictures ...
Aku
i dont think it ever gave a current gen number, as compared to a GB for example,it "just is" a megalpulse.
Grimtooth
I thought that would be gear section depending on the type of computer purchased.
Grimtooth
yeah in the old street samurai guide i think it said 1 minute of video was equal to 1mp
PiXeL01
Thanks a bundle smile.gif
Calvin Hobbes
Now that's ultra high definition SUPER video.
Jrayjoker
If you begin to think about googleflops you may be close. wink.gif
BishopMcQ
Pixel--Look under the descriptions for Cyberears and eyes. SR3 p. 299-300

Kagetenshi
One minute of audio is one MP. One minute of video is one MP. One minute of both is 2MP (shock). Baseline simsense is 1MP/second, full-X is 3/second. If I remember correctly, 60 pictures is one MP.

Note that it is indeed super-high-definition—it can be blown up to about 20*Sensor Rating (which goes as high as 10, mind you) size without degredation.

(Simsense values come from page 301, SR3, other stuff from page 135, same book. Still looking for the pictures reference, I may have imagined that.).

~J
hobgoblin
the silly bit is the audio size i think...

now if one makes 2-3 min of audio take the same space as one min of video it starts to make sense. but that makes a mess of calculating the size a video with sound will take, or maybe not?
Kagetenshi
Not this discussion again.

Audio can easily take the same amount of space as video. I'll agree that it may be a bit odd that drones are equipped with super-sensitive listening devices, but there's a host of interesting things that can be done with that.

~J
Aku
actually, 1 mp/minute of AV isn't really that out of touch. Currently, 1 minute of uncompressed AV takes ~10MB, and that is not HD grade video.
Backgammon
Attempt at rationalization
The Stainless Steel Rat
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Audio can easily take the same amount of space as video.

Not to mention the simplicity factor. I already have enough reasons to bring a calculator to the game...
hobgoblin
ok ok, ignore that post of mine. im just being a bit bored nyahnyah.gif
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Aku @ Nov 29 2005, 03:46 PM)
actually, 1 mp/minute of AV isn't really that out of touch. Currently, 1 minute of uncompressed AV takes ~10MB, and that is not HD grade video.

*Double-take*

Ten megs? Try closer to 200 megs/minute for compressed DV footage.

~J
Kyoto Kid
I for one am glad they didn't try to quantify an Mp in todays's terms. With how ballistic today's technology curve is it would have become old hat.

Back in mid 80s, FGU attempted to quantify their basic data processing unit for Space Opera starship computers in the terms of the (sic.) present day. The sad thing was, about a year later, the Commodore 64 with a tape drive was powerful enough to run a capital class battlecruiser.

Mind you. this was the day when a Macintosh 1 MB Winchester hard disk was as big as a VHS VCR and mainframe rooms contained rows of Digital "Maytags" - 10 MB hard drive units that used a 10 disk magazine - so named because each was as big as a washing machine.

...ahhhh. nothing like the blood curdling scream of a programmer who had just dropped his his 1000 line programme all over the floor. I sometimes miss those days.
Aku
actually, i did mean to say compressed, but if you're getting 200 MB compressed, well, you're not doing much compressing. but my rule of thumb should've been about 100 megs uncompressed
Kagetenshi
Entirely accurate that it isn't much compressing—that format's primarily meant to maximize ease of editing, not space saving—but the fact remains that there's still compression going on there.

~J
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
If you begin to think about googleflops you may be close. wink.gif

What do floating point opperations have to do with storage space?

Anyway, it seems quite obvious that a megapulse is somewhere around oen million pulses. It would 1,048,576 pulses, assuming that they still use an 8-bit octet system. However, that is unlikely. It is unlikely that SR computers are even digital. Since light is available in a wide spectrum of frequences it wouldn't be a stretch to create an optical processor that resognizes multiple frequencies of light rather than just the on/off states.
The extra states would allow one to compress information more easily and make the processors that much faster. It is similar in principal to theoretical quantum conputers which utilize the quantum state of the electron rather than just the on/off state.
Aku
well, technically, as soon as you plug something in through firewire, you're giving it a 5:1 compression, which is the way "normal" people would be doing it most of the time.

i'm generally talking post edit though, for compression.
Kagetenshi
Which is not the right thing to talk about when you're considering a source that can be blown up to between 20x and 200x its original size with no fidelity loss.

~J
SpasticTeapot
How would plugging something in through FireWire give it a 5:1 compression ratio? My IEEE-1394 external hard drive has a copy of SR3 (I bought a paperback, thank you very much) which is about 68 megs. It does'nt suddenly turn into fourteen megs when I copy it to a CD.

I would rate a "pulse" to be a term equal to a packet of data. Considering that the packetized data being sent to your computer over your internet connection is a shade over 2 KB, a packet is not a bad size to choose. 1 million packets (pulses) would equal a bit under two gigabytes.
ShadowDragon8685
Which means that the 20 nuyen.gif per MP price is simply fucking outrageous, since we can get a 1:1 ratio on gigabytes and dollars nowadays?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Which means that the 20 nuyen.gif per MP price is simply fucking outrageous, since we can get a 1:1 ratio on gigabytes and dollars nowadays?

We can?

Remember to specify your parameters.

~J
hyzmarca
A packet is an arbitrary unit that is comprised primarilary of routing information. A TCP/IP packet is much different from a Token Ring packet. A packet is just a packaging unit for transmission over a network, nothing more and nothing less.

The pulse = packet theory doesn't work simply because a pulse would have to be encapsulated within a packet to be transmited over the matrix. Therefore, a pulse is much smaller than a Matrix packet. It also doesn't work because offline storage is measured in pulses. Encapsulating data offline is simply a waste of space.

Comparing pulses to bits and bytes doesn't work well for two reasons. First, there are many arbitrary becisions that go into such designations. Second, there is a basic fundamental differance between SR computers and real world computers. Real world computers are electronic machines based around complex transistors. SR computers use optical processors rather than transistors.

On the arbitrary side, one can start with the byte. A bit is the smallest possible unit of data; it is a single electron in one of two possible states - off or on. A Byte, on the other hand, is 8 bits representating a total of 256 possible combonations. The choice of 8 was arbitrary. It would have just as easily been 4 or 10 or 12 or 17 or 52. However, 8 became standard.

Since we know of no unit smaller than the pulse we can safely assume that it is the base unit and that SR computing has forgone the concept of grouping units into sets of specific length altogether and simply uses the smallest possible unit within their system as a standalone unit. Since the smallest possible unit of light is a photon one can assume that a pules is equivilant to a single photon.

The first thing to notice when examining SR computing units is that SR computers are probably not digital. While electrons only have two basic states photons act as waves. They have countless possible frequencies; modern computer moniters can display millions of colors.

Depending on how sensitive the equipment was when everything was standardized, a pulse could be equivilant to a bit - representing on or off; a pulse could have tens of millions of states making them equivilant to half as many millions of bits; or anything in between.
hobgoblin
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Nov 29 2005, 11:51 PM)
Back in mid 80s, FGU attempted to quantify their basic data processing unit for Space Opera starship computers in the terms of the (sic.) present day.  The sad thing was, about a year later, the Commodore 64 with a tape drive was powerful enough to run a capital class battlecruiser.

hmm, i recall hearing some early star trek: TNG episodes talking about terabytes of storage space in the ships computer nyahnyah.gif
SpasticTeapot
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Nov 29 2005, 11:51 PM)
Back in mid 80s, FGU attempted to quantify their basic data processing unit for Space Opera starship computers in the terms of the (sic.) present day.  The sad thing was, about a year later, the Commodore 64 with a tape drive was powerful enough to run a capital class battlecruiser.

hmm, i recall hearing some early star trek: TNG episodes talking about terabytes of storage space in the ships computer nyahnyah.gif

Eh. I know a guy who has 1.2 TB in his Shuttle SFF PC. (It's about the size of a toaster.)
Vaevictis
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
A Byte, on the other hand, is 8 bits representating a total of 256 possible combonations. The choice of 8 was arbitrary. It would have just as easily been 4 or 10 or 12 or 17 or 52. However, 8 became standard.

It wasn't arbitrary. You'll notice that (basically) all of the standard units of measure are powers of two. Bit = 2^0, Byte = 2^3, 2 Byte (16 bits) = 2^4, 4 bytes (32 bits) = 2^5, 1 megabyte = 2^10, etc, etc.

It's not a coincidence. Design-wise, once you design a 1-bit version of something, it's trivial to design a 2^n bit version. Assume you've got a 1-bit memory. Want a 2 bit? Chain two together. Want 4 bit? Chain two 2 bits. Want 8? Chain two 4 bits.

People have in the past advanced other bit-lengths as units of measure, but the industry settled on the powers of two standard (probably) because it's easier to implement and scale this way.

It also just happens that 8 bits is just enough bits to connect a serial terminal (7 bits for characters + 1 parity) to a mainframe. It also happens that prior to the introduction of the S/360 (the first mainframe), byte meant any number of bits between 1-6 bits. EBCDIC, the mainframe's character set, used 8 bits. ASCII, the character set the mainframe was originally to support, requires 7 bits (allowing the 8th to be used as parity).

It just happens that 8 bits is enough to do everything that the first mainframe needed to do, and do it in one instruction. Still think it's arbitrary? smile.gif

As for the original topic, the question cannot be answered. The thing you must know to answer this question is: How is the data encoded? We don't know the answer to that question, so we can't answer the the first.

To give you an example, how much is one minute of video?
1. 1 megapulse.
2. ~18mb on a DVD at standard encoding length. As little as 1/6 of that at lower bit rates.
3. Several feet of VHS tape (maybe? I don't know really, but it is some arbitrary number).
4. Several hundred thousands of neurons (maybe? Again, I don't know, but it is some number).
5. 17,987,547,480 meters (if you are talking about a television broadcast)

See what I mean? Without understanding how a Shadowrun computer encodes data, you can't know how much a Mp is.
hyzmarca
Arbitrary in the sense that the use of an 8-bit byte isn't physicaly necessary, It just hapens to be the standard that was chosen. The use of binary is physicaly necessary.
Vaevictis
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Arbitrary  in the sense that the use of an 8-bit byte isn't physicaly necessary, It just hapens to be the standard that was chosen. The use of binary is physicaly necessary.

Well, strictly speaking, the use of binary isn't physically necessary either. The binary model just happens to be a versatile and easy way to represent data. The dominance of digital computing wasn't assured at all until the transistor came along and made it cheap and easy to implement computers digitally. (Also, the math on binary computers is easier for human beings to grok than many-valued systems)

Don't get me wrong, there are *very* good reasons to use digital computers (like I said, we can build them fast and cheap with the available technology). It didn't have to be that way, but the decision was hardly arbitrary; it's the same thing with 8 bits to a byte. Yeah, it *could* have been different, but there are plenty of good reasons for doing things that way. smile.gif

Toptomcat
I can't believe no one picked up on the obvious.
A megapulse is- of course- a million pulses.
...
*ducks* grinbig.gif
Taran
More likely, 1024 * 1024 pulses, but yeah.

::joins Toptomcat::
hobgoblin
QUOTE (SpasticTeapot)
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Nov 30 2005, 01:49 AM)
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Nov 29 2005, 11:51 PM)
Back in mid 80s, FGU attempted to quantify their basic data processing unit for Space Opera starship computers in the terms of the (sic.) present day.  The sad thing was, about a year later, the Commodore 64 with a tape drive was powerful enough to run a capital class battlecruiser.

hmm, i recall hearing some early star trek: TNG episodes talking about terabytes of storage space in the ships computer nyahnyah.gif

Eh. I know a guy who has 1.2 TB in his Shuttle SFF PC. (It's about the size of a toaster.)

my point, and the point of the original quote, exactly...

still, 1.5TB in a shuttle? im guessing he have no optical drive in it then as those things have a very limited physical space. mostly we are talking 1x5,25" bay and 1-2x3,5" bay(s)...

only other option is external dives over usb or firewire, and im not sure i would call that "in his shuttle"...
Eddie Furious
Where did I read it in the SR4 book that they basically said that "modern data storage systems and the easy access to the matrix have made memory limitations on even commlinks a thing of the past", or something to that effect.
tisoz
Right. SR$. I think this is a SR3 question. Please return to the SR4 forum, with SR$ advice.
Eddie Furious
QUOTE (tisoz @ Dec 3 2005, 06:24 PM)
Right.  SR$.  I think this is a SR3 question.  Please return to the SR4 forum, with SR$ advice.

Right, thanks for the polite redirection.

By the way, where did it say it was an SR3 question? I sorta missed that part...
tisoz
QUOTE (Eddie Furious @ Dec 3 2005, 06:09 PM)
QUOTE (tisoz @ Dec 3 2005, 06:24 PM)
Right.  SR$.  I think this is a SR3 question.  Please return to the SR4 forum, with SR$ advice.

Right, thanks for the polite redirection.

By the way, where did it say it was an SR3 question? I sorta missed that part...

The very first post where he says he is looking through the BBB, aka SR3 or the core rule book for Shadowrun third edition.

And as you correctly point out, Mp is obsolete and size of Mp is moot in SR$ so why would he need to know?
hobgoblin
SR$?

not a big fan of SR4 i take it?
ShadowDragon8685
Or not a big fan of taking their fingers off the Shift key.
hobgoblin
well the funny thing is that "SR4 forum" is correctly typed but both times there is a refrence to SR4 alone its typed as SR$...
Dog
<<Enable: Smartass>>

A thousand kilopulses.
Ten thousand hectopulses.
A hundred thousand decapulses.
Ten million decipulses.
A hundred million centipulses.
Or a billion millipulses.

Yay metric! Shall I go on?

<<Close: Smartass>
Kagetenshi
If this weren't computer terminology, you'd be right, too.

Powers-of-2.

~J
Dog
Yeah, well... I haven't looked at a computer program since '93. I've never used an MP3 player, and I don't trust the power windows in my wife's car, either. I forfeit. dead.gif
hobgoblin
they introduced some new words some years ago to avoid the confusion between metric and binary sizes.

kibi
mebi
gibi

and so on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
Kagetenshi
Yes, they did. Those new prefixes are an abomination, and we shall never speak of them again.

~J
hobgoblin
abomonations? because of the names? the reason for them being is a very sensible one...
tisoz
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
SR$?

not a big fan of SR4 i take it?

Not really. I am waiting for SR5.
hobgoblin
have fun, say hello to the spiders for me...
Vaevictis
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
abomonations? because of the names? the reason for them being is a very sensible one...

The problem is that the industry has used 2^n as the standard for a very long time, and some people may change, but many aren't going to start saying mebibyte now. Also, the way hardware works, it just makes *sense* to base it around 2^n, which is why it was done in the first place.

It makes sense to base most scientific units around base 10, because the people who work with them (human scientists) work in base 10. It also makes sense to base computer units around base 2, because the computers AND the people that work with them are working in base 2.

You will NEVER get a megabyte of memory as defined in the megabyte/mebibyte standard. Nor a gigabyte of hard disk space. Files will almost never take up 1 kilobyte of space on disk -- it's almost always 1024, if it's around 1000 -- and a 4k page space will ALWAYS be 4096 bytes, and NEVER 4000 bytes.

The fact is, basing binary computer units around powers of ten is worthless because they are units that will never be used.
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