How many members of this site use dial-up?

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

12/12/2005 10:13:53 PM · #27

I think larger would be great. It could be setup as a user option and have 3 sizes instead of the two now in use - have thumb, 600-ish & large (800-ish). The 600-ish would be displayed if there were no large but could be generated like the thumbs from the large.

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

12/12/2005 10:15:37 PM · #28

You really want the site to be resizing your image?

12/12/2005 10:16:19 PM · #29

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

Dunno, maybe scroll for 32 pixels? OR size your vertical entry to 750? or 730?

Originally posted by ClubJuggle:

Originally posted by hyperfocal:
800 max pixel & 250k limit is a reasonable request. The DPC really hasn't kept up with the huge bandwith and server space advancements (or lower cost$$) in last few years.

How do we go about displaying 800 max pixels (verticlaly) on a 1024x768 screen?

~Terry

It's generally considered bad web design to design graphics larger than the normally displayable screen. As it is a 640 pixel vertical image is barely displayable in the web browser on a 1024x768 screen in the defaoult configuration of the most popular browsers. To go beyond that would essentially force us to say that the site was designed for 1280x1024, and that's not a reasonable move to make given the current hardware typically on the consumer's desk.

~Terry

12/12/2005 10:18:51 PM · #30

Originally posted by robs:

We believe it is unfair for users to base their votes on a server-generated resize of an image.

Speaking as a member of Site Council we do not have the resources to deal with the tickets help requests and other problems that server-generated resizing would entail.

~Terry

fotomann_forever

12/12/2005 10:23:43 PM · #31

As a web designer myself, I can't see what advantages 800xD images would carry. 800xD isn't really going to offer the eye much more detail than a 600xD image. However, I can see the major disadvantages.

Scrolling would be a major factor. People hate scrolling and a major webdesign no-no is to force them to scroll every page. As previously stated, most people do not exceed 1024x768 screen resolution.

Even if it were to be a 7:1 ratio of people that use bradband versus dialup on DPC, is it worth alienating those in the lower ratio?

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

12/12/2005 10:29:57 PM · #32

Originally posted by ClubJuggle:

We believe it is unfair for users to base their votes on a server-generated resize of an image.

Yeah, That a fair enough issue. The medium generated could always be echoed back to anybody who submitted a large image and they could accept it (knowing some people will not see the large) or they could provide a medium orig instead if they didn't like the generated medium. But I agree it might get messy - another thread about bad generation as well as why didn't this score higher :-)

The screen res can and I assume is captured, so the survey is not necessary since more viable number would be available. I assume there must be a not insiginifant number with smaller screens.

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

12/12/2005 10:43:03 PM · #33

Significant or not it's not usually a good business practice to exclude or otherwise make the the site less managable for some of your clientele.

Marjo

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

12/12/2005 10:53:23 PM · #34

MadMan2k

Sony Alpha a6400

Tamron 70-180mm F/2.8 Di III VXD

12/13/2005 12:01:21 AM · #35

I use dial-up, and I have a screen that isn't able to run 85Hz or above at over 1024x768 resolution.

Even the 150kb file size limit is pretty big to 56k users - it probably takes about 40-60 seconds to load, or even longer if you're loading other pages in the background. Sure increases the time it takes to vote on image for challenges, and doubling that filesize wouldn't help any.

Katmystiry

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

12/13/2005 12:02:17 AM · #36

We are computer geeks here and haven't used dialup in more than 6 years :)

Brent_Ward

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM

12/13/2005 01:31:45 AM · #37

noone said we would double the files sizes. And this is a photography site. It's like going into a gallery and looking at 4x6's. It's crazy. And I seriously doubt that it would exclude that many people or cause them not to partake in the challenges.

The people over at FM & photosig don't seem to have a problem with bigger than 640px. Why here?

I would like to see a serious poll of paid members who are using dial-up. :D

OdysseyF22

Panasonic DC-G9

Olympus 12-45mm f/4.0 Pro

12/13/2005 01:35:57 AM · #38

I just escaped dial-up (Cable rocks!), but I remember all too well how slow it was. Voting was painful, and in the few months that I didn't have high speed here, I only voted on one challenge. Making things bigger is NOT a good idea, IMO, due to scrolling for everyone, and loading for the dial-up members. It works the way it is, and works well. My "vote" is to keep it as is.

Brent_Ward

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM

12/13/2005 01:37:46 AM · #39

You can still have a 150k limit at 800x600. And it's not like you have to upload your image as 800x600, you would just have the option.

Art Roflmao

Canon EOS-6D Mark II

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

12/13/2005 01:38:52 AM · #40

Originally posted by cpanaioti:

Significant or not it's not usually a good business practice to exclude or otherwise make the the site less managable for some of your clientele.

I respectfully disagree. I often make decisions that alienate "less important" clients in favor of policies, practices or systems that enhance the services to either the overwhelming majority and/or the most important clients.

It's just a calculated decision the admins will eventually have to make - allow the increase and risk losing the dial-up users, or leave as is and risk losing others who are frustrated with the limitations.

Personally, I would like to see 800x600, but I wouldn't leave because of, or in spite of it and I am inclined to believe fewer will leave because of lack of change than would because of change.

That said, time and technology march on and I can't imagine if this site was 15 years old that we would still be catering to 2400 baud modems.

taterbug

Nikon D300

12/13/2005 01:52:24 AM · #41

Just for the sake of the 'poll'...I am on dial uuuuuuuuuuuuupppppp hereeeeee.....................
:-)

but I'm just a poor old hick!
:-P

Brent_Ward

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM

12/13/2005 01:56:13 AM · #42

Originally posted by Art Roflmao:

Originally posted by cpanaioti:
Significant or not it's not usually a good business practice to exclude or otherwise make the the site less managable for some of your clientele.

I respectfully disagree. I often make decisions that alienate "less important" clients in favor of policies, practices or systems that enhance the services to either the overwhelming majority and/or the most important clients.

It's just a calculated decision the admins will eventually have to make - allow the increase and risk losing the dial-up users, or leave as is and risk losing others who are frustrated with the limitations.

Personally, I would like to see 800x600, but I wouldn't leave because of, or in spite of it and I am inclined to believe fewer will leave because of lack of change than would because of change.

That said, time and technology march on and I can't imagine if this site was 15 years old that we would still be catering to 2400 baud modems.

This site hasn't proven it's self to be to progressive...

Art Roflmao

Canon EOS-6D Mark II

12/13/2005 02:01:18 AM · #43

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

This site hasn't proven it's self to be to progressive...

Yeah, but not necessarily a bad thing. Some things change too fast and follow whims and trends. The attractive qualities of this site are things the admins don't have any control of anyway, IMO.

crayon

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

12/13/2005 02:05:09 AM · #44

Originally posted by Art Roflmao:

The attractive qualities of this site are things the admins don't have any control of anyway, IMO.

Like Ken's cap with his name embroided on it :P
can I mail order one of those? make one for me! I want "Art Roflmao" on it as well!

12/13/2005 02:13:12 AM · #45

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

No one said doubling, but if the max file size was increased from 640Â² to 800Â², the typical entry size would ramp up from 640x480 to 800x600, an increase of about 56%. To maintain image quality, we'd have to ramp up the max file size to 235k, so assume that we'd go to 250k to keep the numbers round. That's a 67% increase.

From a site perspective, this means:

- It would take dialup users 67% longer to vote.
- In Iceland (we have a lot of members there), Internet users are taxes per-kB on content downloaded from overseas. These users would have a 67% increase in their cost of voting.
- Bandwidth costs for image-handling (the major portion of bandwidth usage), especially at peak times (rollover) would increase by 67%. This might necessitate a corresponding increase in membership fees.

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

The people over at FM & photosig don't seem to have a problem with bigger than 640px. Why here?

Neither FM nor Photosig have business models that require serving hundreds of images per user for voting. For a member to vote on every image in a typical challenge week, we need to serve about 65-90MB of image data per member. Last week, which included a Free Study, anyone who voted on every entry pulled down about 130 MB of image data. Increase that by 2/3 and you're talking about a gigabyte for every 5 voters. That adds up quickly. When multiplied out by the typical number of votes cast, we served about 31 Terabytes of image data to the voters in the 4 challenges currently posted in results.

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

I would like to see a serious poll of paid members who are using dial-up. :D

Can we include users who have to pay per-kB for Internet access (that includes but is not limited to all of Iceland) and users from countries with out-of-country bandwidth limitations (that includes but is not limited to all of New Zealand)?

~Terry

12/13/2005 02:14:24 AM · #46

Originally posted by mystopia:

We are computer geeks here and haven't used dialup in more than 6 years :)

Affordable broadband is not available everywhere.

~Terry

Message edited by author 2005-12-13 02:19:28.

12/13/2005 02:15:29 AM · #47

Originally posted by Brent_Ward:

You can still have a 150k limit at 800x600. And it's not like you have to upload your image as 800x600, you would just have the option.

I think we all know how well voters respond to entries that use less than the maximum size available.

~Terry

12/13/2005 02:18:54 AM · #48

Originally posted by Art Roflmao:

That said, time and technology march on and I can't imagine if this site was 15 years old that we would still be catering to 2400 baud modems.

That's absolutely correct. At this point the primary factor holding us to 640 is probably screen resolutions, not connection speeds -- though connection speeds are still a very important factor. We really can't go to 800 pixels until the overwhelming majority of users are capable of displaying 800 pixels vertically.

~Terry

Art Roflmao

Canon EOS-6D Mark II