polymnia

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polymnia
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  • Pixelmator Pro 1.7 for Mac adds type on a curve, improved ML Super Resolution

    polymniapolymnia
    Resampling improvements are great! I use On1 Perfect Resize for this purpose, it’s the best tool I’m aware of. But the core resampling engine hasn’t been upgraded in years.

    Of course higher capture resolution is the ideal solve. But every capture must occur at a particular size. After that, good resampling allows for further enlargement and is essential to modern display graphic applications. 

    It’s great to see someone actively working to improve this functionality. 
    watto_cobra

  • First Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit benchmarks show Rosetta performance impact

    polymniapolymnia
    I wonder: is it possible that the upcoming Mac-specific Apple Silicon chips might include features specifically designed to accelerate Rosetta 2?

    They can design anything they like now. Maybe smoothing the transition by accelerating Rosetta 2 would be a good move. Perhaps just for the first couple generations. They could drop it once MacOS drops support for Rosetta 2. 
    watto_cobra

  • APFS changes affect Time Machine in macOS Big Sur, encrypted drives in iOS 14

    polymniapolymnia
    rob53 said:
    What about formatting external RAID HDD as APFS? OWC’s SoftRaid is waiting for Big Sur to make this happen. My RAID can’t be used to backup my Catalina APFS volumes. 
    I’m running a Promise Pegasus RAID formatted APFS. It works perfectly. Performance is excellent. I was concerned since the marketing around APFS seemed to indicate the tech was designed with SSDs in mind. I guess a fast RAID array performs well enough. 
    watto_cobra

  • Adobe adds new features to Photoshop, with increasing use of AI

    polymniapolymnia
    jmulchino said:
    Well, good for you Fastasleep. I’ve heard this lame rationalization before and don’t get it. ‘Oh, I only pay x amount per month and it is so worth it” Most freelancers I know are an independent lot and when there was no alternative, chafed at renting software. At the end of a five years you’ll have paid $3K plus! What a bargain!
    ...and pocketed half a million. 

    But hey, some people get rich by stepping over $20 bills to pick up nickels & dimes, I suppose. 
    fastasleep

  • Sonos debuts Dolby Atmos Arc soundbar, updated Sub & Five, all with AirPlay 2 & HomeKit

    polymniapolymnia
    polymnia said:
    Fatman said:
    Almost well thought out. Sounds like it has one HDMI, so if you have a cable box, HDMI streamer, video game system, disc player, etc. you would need to route all of those into your TV's various HDMI ports - so still it can't replace a dedicated AV receiver.  Also if you do not have a TV with eARC, this is not for you.
    As a guy with a really nice AV receiver and a big surround speaker system, I don’t understand why I’d WANT to replace that with this device. I’m also a big Sonos fan, but I don’t see the AV receiver and the Arc as mutually exclusive. I use a Connect to pipe my Sonos system into my AV receiver. 

    Use the AV receiver with fancy speakers in a theater room and this Arc in a bedroom or other secondary location. 
    Love this. For me, I can’t do a whole surround sound and receiver. Too small space and no where to run wires. But that setup is clearly better than a single soundbar. Especially if you have real ceiling mounted speakers for Atmos. But this would be incredible for a bedroom or other living space where you want great sound but don’t want to run a whole surround sound system and receiver. 
    I think the slice of people who need/want a component-based surround setup gets smaller all the time, even though I am one of the faithful. When I built my surround system, Sonos made no theater components. I’d be tempted to go all Sonos if I were starting from scratch today. But I wouldn’t switch from what I have now. 

    I’m really happy Sonos is addressing the lack of high res audio. I don’t have a ton of it (aside from movies), but when I do stream high res audio to my Connect via Plex, it is down sampled. I feel weird down sampling the audio stream that is fed to the best speakers in the house. Truly a first world problem, I know. 

    Edit: the time I spent running the wires is a MAJOR contributing reason to not abandon the receiver/speaker system. That was not easy! I also ran an RCA cable out to a more socially advantageous location (not to mention toddler-proofed) in the room for the turntable. Everything hidden in wall/ceiling/trim. That was a big project. Maybe a sunk cost fallacy? Anyway, I’m really happy with both my AV receiver & Sonos gear. 
    sedicivalvole