Store it on offline media. If your computer breaks you can transfer it more easily and you can use cheaper memory. Computer memory is active memory you could be able to have inactive memory but I don’t know what it would cost in a computer (probably the same as in a deck or offline memory).

Also I would say the price of the library includes the media on witch it is stored. Or do you have to pay for the cubic meter of books per rating point.

As an aside why is the storage space/rating linier for books but exponential for computer. I can concave of the rating 500 library that is lager on chip than it is in books.

As to the cost of memory. There are 3 types in SR. active memory, storage memory and offline storage. (as taken from the decking rules). I don’t have matrix available at the moment to quote the prices.

The description of personal computers suggests that the only memory that come with is non volatile active memory they use for both functions. It should be trivial to install a dedicated module of offline storage to act as an additional bank of storage memory. Computer BR 3 and 50+5*MP nuyen.

Of cause it seems very strange that a data display unit and a computer (which I assumed could act as a data display unit as well as its other functions) have exactly the same price.

For the viewing system the min would be a 100MP computer. For having pertinent pages available while doing a ritual (say your formula for a familiar) you would want a couple of display screens or a printer. If you have a rating 6 library you probably have a lifestyle that comes with a cyber terminal that includes all this already.

Techno geek mages with high lifestyles could go as far as wall screens, voice recognition and computers hanging from the ceiling so as not to interfere with the ritual cercal.

If you put the photovoltaic paint on the floor (like sprawl survival guide has for picture windows) could you store your ritual circles on computer to be called on whenever you want them at a moments notice?

If you have a data jack and an image link you could even slot your howl library and access it as a data soft.

Edward

as you may notice in the post, i didnt have it fully tougth out before i started typeing so i think im contradicting the game cartridge image by the time i hit the end of the post. problem is that its how i write most my posts...

Well the implication in your statements that I got was that the arguments for some reason did not apply to shamans - that hermetics, and primarily hermetics, were all very concerned with every minute loss of power.

Remember, a huge proportion of hermetics - those who do not persue lifestyles in the shadows, the military, or corp security - probably wont have terribly many spells higher than force 2 (since they would require permits to learn) or, for that matter, *any* spells higher than force 4 or 5 - its just not necessary. Furthermore, these people also wont generally intelligence and willpower attributes of 6 each - theyre just otherwise normal people who can weild magic.

So, what loss of power does a single magic point actually constitute for such a person? Absolutely none whatsoever. For them, the difference in magical ability before and after datajack implanting is entirely theoretical.

You seem to see magic loss as something that would be felt at all levels of magic use - that is is actually harder for someone with magic 5 to cast a force 1 entertainment spell than someone with magic 6, just not sufficiently harder to be represented in mechanical terms. With that view I can see why you find the very idea of getting a datajack abhorrent to most mages... but it is not a view that I share, nor is it one I for which I see any support in the descriptive text concerning magic loss.

I sincerely doubt that focus addiction would be a major concern for a hermetic researcher or that the difference between a 20 meter radius detection spell and a 24 meter radius detection spell would be considered significant for most people. Anything beyond the most basic applications of masking are unlikely to matter to your average mage. The difference in warding ability betwen magic ratings 5 and 6 comes down to the magic 5 mage can ward a 5*5*10 meter room, while the magic 6 mage can ward a 5*6*10 meter room. Oh no! What a huge difference!

Additionally, I never said that the average mage wouldnt have any spells over force 2 - I said they wouldnt have terribly many. I agree that many job-related spells would be force 4 or 5 depending on what the job requires. However, non-combat applications of sorcery do not ever really demand a force higher than 5, except in the very specific case of medical facilities - where force 6, or even force 5, is far from weak (bringing someone from the brink of death to moderate injury in seconds without surgery isn't exactly trivial, and i doubt many trauma-room mages have a high enough sorcery to reliably generate more than 5 successes on the casting test anyway). But even assuming that no trauma-room mage would even consider getting a datajack, such people arent exactly a majority.

Yes, there are countless ways in which a drop from magic rating 6 to magic rating 5 has an effect on the things a mage can do, but only in specific and relatively rare cases would any of those differences in power actually be "important".

I will agree that, relatively speaking, fewer mages will take datajacks than will mundanes, but I wouldnt be surprised to see that, say 1/4-1/3 of all mages would possess one. This is attributable simply to the fact that there does exist an extra tradeoff, which would by itself convince some people to avoid getting one. All of you arguments about datajacks being insigificantly better than trode nets for most people should, however, apply to all of the mundies out there - and yet fully half of them possess one.

In the greater scheme of things, most people are willing to sacrifice quite a bit for convenience. You would think that most people would be pretty concerned with, oh I dont know, being healthy - but that doesnt stop them from choosing to eat fast food. Datajack-enabled devices are so ubiquitous in SR that its simply far more convenient to get one installed than to have to carry a trode-rig around with you and worry about aligning it properly every time you want to use such a device.

...But I'm done ranting now. I am sorry if I seemed overly antagonistic... such wasnt really my intent - I just like lengthy explanations. Anyway, by all means, proceed with the regularly scheduled topic.

Enough courtesy! I want some intestines on the floor this instant!

You… you net adanak!

~J

If I was a SR magical I would not consider a data jack worth the loss of magic, come however would. As a shadow runner I would however consider a smart gun to be worth the loss and then the image link, 30MP headwear and data jack are free.

Magical medics want all the magic rating they can get for the big healing spells. Although they wouldn’t be used often as in most cases a force 2 healing followed up by extended hospital care would suffice.

Edward

Can't you Geas the Magic point loss for cyberware? If so, then I'd imagine some mages would go that route for the extra benefit of Cyber/Bioware.

yes you can geas it but its like haveing a sprinter use a walking stick...

Right, but you have to really want a datajack and all that. Why? What's the point of a datajack that's worth having a restriction on your source of power?

I was reading two sourcebooks last night. Lone Star and Shadowbeat. Two things struck me, in Lone Star it states at the start that the data provided by the reporter/cop duo is "a few megabytes" and in Shadowbeat it also clearly states that simsense can be recorded on CD.

The bit about simsense on is not fluff, so...what would be the minimum effective length of a simsense recording at baseline standard?

look for info in SR3, under the simrig implant. the numbers are 1mp pr sec baseline and 3mp pr sec full-x recording. and i belive this is for one view only so if your going for a polyview recordeing, increase it by the number of recordings.

when the system becomes fully optical

but yes, the file sizes for recording of video, audio, simsense and whatsnot fluxuate wildly. i think most of the numbers are tuned for game balance over consistency...

So if you assume the shortest useful length of simsense would be a taster clip of baseline at 10 seconds, is the following true?

10 seconds of baseline = 1MP/sec = 10MP
Capacity of CD = 700MB

Therefore, 1MP = 70MB?

If that's true, then I think my deckers gonna find a DVD recorder.

sorry i lost the track when you made the jump from megapulse to megabyte...

Wile you did use the best numbers available it is still highly inaccurate.

1MP/sec is for a wet record before post production cleaning up and high grade compression

secondly I assumed that the capacity of CDs had increased greatly by 2050 and more so by 2060. The game designers simply failed to predict that we would change the name to DVD and probably go threw 5-10 other names between now and then. It wouldn’t surprise me to find terabyte storage in a package that looks like a CD.

Edward

Ok,

I looking through the Shadowbeat sourcebook when I came to the section on recording simsense. I am not at my flat and cannot give the actual page references. In the descriptions for recordable media that can be used to record baseline simsense it clearly states that simsense can be recorded onto CD.

A few points.

CDs have an industry standard contruction, they will not under any circumstances magically become bigger in 206x. A compact shiny diskette may exist, it just wouldn't be called a CD. A DVD is inherently a big CD, it isn't called CD2, CD4.7, or somesuch it is a DVD. FYI - Phillips have developed a new chemical optical disc that has a 4.7GB storage capacity and is the size of the end of a thumb, it isn't called CD2 or DVD2 either. As for as I am aware Shadowbeat contains the only references to CDs, in passing yes, but in the canon text, not fluff. As an historical note, commercial CDs have NEVER cost more to produce than a vinyl record.

Compression - no matter how good the compression system is, there is a physical limitation on how much data can be stored within an object. For a standard CD this is approximately 5,600,000,000 bits. That is the physical limit and it is a small quantity, although you can argue that we only use one side of a CD that would only double capacity and leads to the question of where does the label go? We are all conversant with canon interpretation in regards explicit/implicit statements. There is no mention of pre-recording, editing and high compression needed to specifically utilise CD as a simsense storage medium and CD is included in the same list as OMCs, therefore Edward's interpretation is "house". So, when the rules state 1MP/sec for a baseline simsense recording it is 1MP/sec regardless of storage medium.

Duration - Why did I pick 10 seconds? Firstly, no MP capacity for a CD is stated, only its ability to be effectively used as a storage medium. Secondly, considering the relative cost of OMCs in 206x a CD must have a smaller capacity, but just how much smaller? The keywords are effective usage, what in your opinion would be the shortest useful duration of a baseline simsense recording? Looking at the internet today, the shortest effective video clips are about 8-45 seconds in duration. To try and keep the MP-MB ratio at its most generous and the maths simple I made the assumption that the shortest useful duration of a baseline simsense recording would be 10 seconds.

So...

The standard capacity of CDs = 700MB
The memory requirements of baseline simsense = 1MP/sec
The shortest useful length of a simsense clip = 10 secs

Therefore...

700MB/10 seconds = 70MB/sec = 1MP/sec

Whatever, man. I dont have shadowbeat, so if you could provide the relevant quote I can comment further. Until then, since you admit that you made up the 10 second bit, I dont see that you actually have a point. However, since I enjoy giving lengthier explanations for things, I will go on.

Even without knowing the exact quote, I find it far more likely that when they mentioned the use of CDs they meant "discs that resemble CDs to give you a visual idea" than "700MB CDs" I mean, DVD as a format DIDNT EXIST when the published the book - Shadowbeat was published in 1992, and DVD-Video wasn't released until 1996 in Japan, and didn't make it to the US until 1997. So... its not like they looked at the wealth of available disc formats and chose 700MB CDs... CDs were simply the most advanced-seeming common medium at the time. Shadowrun is full of these sorts of issues, because predicting the future is a difficult thing to do.

Anyway, what *is* abundantly clear is that "pulses" and "megapulses" were designed as an arbitrary unit of computer storage for the purpose of avoiding any real-world comparisons and simplifying the game. If you really want to believe your calculation, go for it. But realize that you wont be convincing many people here that

Oh, I know the argument is weak and nobody really wants to convert MP to MB, its just that I find the cost of memory in SR INCREDIBLY, INCREDIBLY, INCREDIBLY STUPID AND BROKEN.

I would have thought that by version 3 of the rule system somebody might have adjusted the costs properly or had the guts to produce an offical erata to all BBBv3 that said, in effect, "slash the memory costs". People winge about bits and pieces of SR rules being "broken", skills/magic/matrix/rigging all got an overhaul over the years, but nobody did anything about an item that underpins all recording/storage technology. In usefulness memory in 206x costs more than it did 70 years ago (in SR history). Just how did the corps pull the wool over the eyes of the entire world to get that one past

If you have a problem with 10 seconds, what you going to do? You want more than 10 seconds on a CD, then MPs are even smaller. Less than 10 seconds? Want a 1 second duration, that leaves 1MP=700MB. CDs changed capacity? Where in canon did it say that?

The old chestnut of an arguement that says "All data in shadowrun comes with it own attached software". How the did that one come about? Its absolute bollocks on so many levels it needs a rant of its own.

ps. Sorry about the hijack. I will be able to provide the quote when either I can remember to pack my book for work or the telephone company sort out my broadband connection at home.

If Phillips still exists in SR, you're right.

Otherwise, a CD is whatever someone says it is.

~J

Am I the only one here who remembers that CDs weren't always 700MB? Although 60MB of difference is relatively little compared to the differences being assumed for the "1MP=unknown but a whole lot more than 70MB," there's a lot of time for adjustments in the technology to occur. It also proves that CD is not a specific manufacturing process such that no changes can ever occur and still use the same name. It is not irrational to suspect that at some time in the future, consumers will grow sick of 90 different proprietary data storage methods and will demand that all technologies of that time be integrated into one format that will be significantly superior to each of the competing methods. Or, the corps will trade or steal whatever manufacturing technology they don't have and eventually will all be producing such composite tech CDs.

I remember 640MB CDs. However, Philips does keep a fairly tight leash on the definition of a CD, so unless they reverse that or die they won't grow too much.

On the other hand, how long would they retain legal ownership of that definition?

~J

New optical format in Japan has produced a whopping 1 Terrabyte storage capacity using a CD sized disc. MP was designed to be a generic measurement of size, attempting to convert Megapulses to Megabytes is silly. Furthermore, the name "Mega-pulse" implies dataflow rather than a fixed quantity of digital storage as does "Mega-byte".

Personally, I've never cared much about the conversion from MP to MB. Although I don't wholly agree on the amoung of "MP" it takes to store images or video considering what is capable by today's methods, I can agree on their idea to keep these concepts vauge.

Botch, we’re talking CDs, not CD-Rs or CD-RWs. I have a copy of Battle Chess on a 640MB CD.

Also, as I said before, this is entirely dependent on Philips.

~J

discussions like these is why its best to look at SR like its a paralell universe that split of at around 1990 or so...

but we got a slashing of concealability for mobile devices so maybe we will get it on memory cost to?

infact its about to run out as we speak...

Once that happens, it's open season on what CD means.

~J

SR3 p301. simrig: a simrig is an implant that makes WET simsense recordings.

Emphasis mine.

And in the sprawl survival guide it talks about postproduction technics.

As I understand the movie industry every digital media type ever has had postproduction compressing the data in some way (even if it was only reducing image resolution). Do you have a reference for something other than the wet record?

How do you get a physical limit on the amount of compressed data a CD can hold? There is a hard limit on the number of bits you can store but if I want to store a 50-gig bitmap of solid blue (all one shade) any competent compression utility will bring it down to a few K. compression efficiency has nothing to do with the media you store the data on, only the complexity of your raw data and the quality of your encryptions program.

CD may be an industry standard but recall that there has already been one expansion while retaining the name CD (70-80 min I think). There was really nothing stoping them calling DVD CD2. It was the same size and the readers where backward compatible. SR effectively assumed that the name would stay and started using the term CD before the advent of DVDs. It would be highly improbable that the item referred to as a CD in SR don’t have much more capacity than a modern DVD.

As a final point, who would use a 10MP removable media system when for a lower price per MP you can have any capacity up to 1000MP and a cheaper r/w device?

I do concure that the price of media is unreasonably high. Compare ~$5 for a DVD RW that can hold 90 min of the best quality flat vid you can get to a opticam listing 1MP/min making offline storage 90 MP = 455 nuyen for the offline storage especially strange seeing as you can by a video playback unit for 400 and a video chip for 20

Edward

The vehicles section mentions 1MP/min for video and 1MP/min for audio, but you can digitally zoom 20x before losing quality, so 90 MP on a DVD probably isn't too unfair.

True removing resolution that is not displayable without zoom is something post production would probably do.

But this is where it breaks down for me.

Even if you accept the MP as an arbitrary measure of storage space (which I easily do) how can you justify 1 min video with 20* zoom capability taking up the same amount of storage space as 1 min of audio.

The technology exited when the game was originally released to record a 90 min interview on a couple of dollars worth of reusable media (caset tapes remember those) in SR the media to record a 90 min interview would cost 455nuyen. The quality may be better bus pleas 10000% increase in cost over 70 years.

Edward

Shadowbeat p.98

Regardless of the physical media used for storage, the amount of storage required for various forms of information is always the same. It does not matter if a user has a CD, an OMC, or his own lovingly implanted dome-chrome. It's a digital world, chummer, and a megapulse is a megapulse.


Hi-Res Video imaging = 1Mp/minute
Normal spectrum sound = 1Mp/minute
Extended spectrum sound = 3Mp/minute
Wet record baseline simsense = 1Mp/second
Dir-X Format baseline simsense = 1Mp/second (theatres)
ACT-format simsense = SimsenseMp/100 (personal systems)

the standard OMC ... Commercial configurations are available in increments of Mp up to 100Mp, then in increments of 100Mp up to the gigapulse level (1,000Gp). ...

and I really should have read this bit on SR CDs

...Six centimeters in diameter, a standard high-density/double sided digital compact disk can hold 500Mp of stored data. ...

So

Currently it is not unfair or unreasonable to take MP3 file size to be 1MB/minute. This is makes the effective storage capability of a SR CD to be around the 600MB capacity with current compression systems. If the technology is better in 206x, the capacity per of SR storage sucks big time. In fact it sucks so badly I cannot imagine how OMCs ever got into the marketplace. OK, OMCs are fast, but who would buy 1 TerraByte of off-line storage for $500,000? It is time to bite the bullet and say that low-res video, normal spectrum audio, and electronic books have no storage requirements beyond a basic 10-20 OMC.

In regards to the hermetic library, if the base library can be used in a hardcopy format then there is no justification for the cost of storage required to port it to electronic media. Remember the original is 2D, non-magical text with simple graphical images that can only be accessed at a few hundred words per minute.

There is absolutely no way that a minute of audio having the same size as a minute of video is compressed in any way, shape, or form. We can only assume that the quality and range of recording is insane, and can be manipulated later much the same way the video can. MP3s are not germane to this discussion in the least.

~J

Try the math for a 512 point surround sound audio file. More immersive than any audio currently available for comparison. Is it likely? Not with current trends. Is it feasable? To an extent, it's feasable now, just the market will not accept such an expense of storage mediums with little or no gain for most users. Is it just a random attempt at justifying the numbers that I never bothered with anyway? Yes.

The quality that CDs record at is generally accepted to be better than what the average human can differentiate.

This is why my monitor runes at high colour and not true colour.. I cant tell the difference. (especially when I am this tired and can barley see).

Is there any reference for the space required to store formatted text (the SR equivalent of .doc or .pdf). if thay give unformatted text somewhere you can work out the MB/MP as unformatted text always uses one bite per character and always will as long as we use binary computers (and the otaku fluff says they do).

Edward

*Points to digital cameras and their 10X zoom capability, using MB storage*

Times--what is it--32 frames per second? Still a lot more memory hungry than even very fine audio. No?

Pentax currently produce a digital camera with a 10xdigital zoom. It is also capable of recording MPEG-4 at 30fps. It comes with only a 64MB card as standard. The manufacturer's spec if available here.

For static images the memory requirements are.

64MB memory = 241frames@640x480 pixels = 29frames@2048x1536

This gives a memory multiplers of:

8.31 for 10x digital zoom
2.21 for 2.5x digital zoom
4.82 for 6.25x digital zoom

If you do the math a 20x digital zoom based therorectical requirements modified by how current pentax digital camera techology works the answer is

16.7 x MB requirement for 20x digital zoom.

so...

The camera can capture video at 30fps and requires 25.6MB/minute to record MPEG-4, add in the memory multiplier for 20x digital zoom at the memory requirement is 428.44MB/minute at TV resolution.

For the earlier post it can be seen that uncompressed sound requires 9.46MB/minute compared to 428.44MB/minute for MPEG-4 compressed video. We have not yet brought the video stream upto a resolution that fills a meta-human's visual field without pixelation and already video requires 45 times as much memory as stereo audio that is of a better quality than a meta-humans ear can distinguish. The memory requirement for DVD 20xzoom using pentax's current compression technology is 946.87MB/minute, 97xgreater than the uncompressed CD quality audio stream.

For the memory requirements to be the same for normal frequency audio as 20x digital zoom 2D video, something is seriously wrong. If I take, as has been suggested, that the SR sound files contain individual tracks that can be played/interigated seperately I would have use at least three 32-track samplers at a base price of 67,200 , figure in that really audio would also be compressed and the ratio is 1:900 using current compression systems.

That's right, 1 minute of 20x digital zoom, DVD quality 2D video requires the same memory storage as 900 minutes of 3D surround sound normal frequency audio.

Simsense, well, I've always imagined that would include, sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and hormone/gladular secretion effects. Staying with baseline (how do you quanitify emotion), that is 9000 extra elements for taste, approx 1000 elements for smell, and increasing video resolution to a pixel count of 130 million pixels, the maximum resolution of a meta-human eye without IR. Without adding in nerve impulse to re-create touch/pain we have a memory comsumption of approx 8,800MB/minute no-zoom and 181,000MB/minute for 20x visual zoom.

So in final, using CD quality as a base at of 9.46MB/minute, rounded to 1 decimal and assuming that it equals 1MP.

Normal spectrum audio = 9.5MB/minute = 1MP
DVD quality video with 20x digital zoom = 950MB/minute
Baseline Simsense without touch, no zoom = 8,800MB/minute
Baseline Simsense without touch, 20x zoom = 181,000MB/minute

Smoothing of the edges for game comparisons

Normal spectrum audio = 1MP/minute
Hi-Res Video, 20xzoom = 1,000MP/minute
Baseline without touch, no zoom = >9,000MP/minute
Baseline without touch, plus zoom = >180,000MP/minute

Can you see the problems with memory in SR yet?