Reading reviews at VCDHelper I picked the Canopus equivalent product over the Dazzle one. I get no dropped frames and perfect audio/video sync. I am alot happier compared to the days when I used my Matrox Marvel G400. The Dazzle is rated at 7.2/10 with 41 votes and the Canopus is rated at 9.4/10 with 85 votes.
BTW, VCD help has a bunch of Video Capture guides that seem to be better than the one in the article.
The thing that immediately ticked me off was how it insisted on gaving an icon in the task tray. I didn't look hard enough through RealPlayer's options so I never found the option to turn auto-startup off (something most software doesn't hide). I would delete the registry entry to prevent it from starting up automatically. However, every time I used RealPlayer it would replace the registry entry.
I stopped using RealPlayer because of this behavior alone.
I have been considering buying an X-Box just so I can use it as a media server.
I have heard people putting in large hard drives into their X-Box to do this sort of thing and to store all their X-Box games on it. No more carrying around the original games. Supposedly the X-Box binary newsgroup is #4 in terms of number of message headers. I heard its also possible to simply rent games then rip them to an X-Box hard drive.
Most of this is illegal though so I am not advocating it. I can see why Microsoft is upset about Mod chips. BTW, I don't do this because: 1) I don't own an X-Box. 2) Even if I did I wouldn't play game on it because I prefer PC games.
However, I really like the idea of using it as a media server for my LEGALLY owned mp3's, DivX's (home movies), family photos (slideshows), and DVD's.
Don't have kids do you? My newborn loves to unplug things. Since he is not strong enough he pulls the cord and prys the plug off. In the process he will sometimes touch the metal prongs and get zapped.
Fortunately we have been more cautious about keeping and eye on him and eliminating plugged in items within his reach, so he hasn't gotten hurt lately.
Why not just call them a bunch of pirates, as Disney, RIAA, MPAA, etc. call individuals who allegedly are involved in copyright infringement. Then the developers can claim "X" dollars lost and say how their children, pets, etc. are starving because of piracy.
It runs Windows 98! I evaluated it for purchase by the company I work for. It seemed to work well but we chose a Lecroy scope instead because in general I haven't been happy with support for any PC based control system. PC components seem to go into obsolescence far to quickly. O-Scopes should last many years and I am skeptical about getting parts for a PC-based scope at a time when it is 10 years old.
I didn't look into it, but they may be using some 3rd party software to replace the Window's kernal with a RTOS. I ran some control software that did this for WinNT 4.0. I think that it was called Intime.
This control software: http://www.entivity.com/vlc.htm replaces the HAL of WinNT with a RTOS. You can crash NT and rip out the HD and the control software still runs, no HMI though. It had a crappy programming environment (flowcharting) but I was sort of impressed with its stability.
How's this? I will send it as soon as I can figure out their stupid "ODBC error".
--------- I offer a consumer's viewpoint on a copy protection mechanism. Both of my examples have to deal with Macrovision, a copy protection scheme that has been around for years. I would hope that from my examples you will notice the frustration I have as a consumer with poorly implemented copy protection technology.
Example #1: I own a video capture card: a Matrox Marvel G400. I use it to capture analog video obtained from my analog Hi-8 camcorder into digital form for 1) preservation of the video, and 2) transferring of the video onto a compact disc (Video CD format). Having the video on a Video CD (VCD) allows me to play my home movies on a DVD player that supports VCDs. Using computer software I can add special effects and menus to my videos. The finished product is quite impressive and I don't have to do deal with storing my home movies on bulky, deteriorating VHS tapes.
Here's my run in with Macrovision. Since I capture my own home movies there shouldn't be any Macrovision problems since Macrovision is not present on the camcorder's video. One would think that, but I do have problems. Matrox's software prevents recording of video that contains Macrovision. They state that this is a legal requirement. During scene transitions (places where I hit the pause-record button on the camcorder) the video contains a little bit of flicker. The flicker is an artifact of pausing the camcorder. Matrox's software interprets this flicker as Macrovision and stops capturing. To solve this I have to capture my video in bits and pieces, split at any scene where I pressed the pause button on my camcorder. I then have to use software to combine the many parts of video into one video file.
Another solution would be to use a hacked Matrox driver I found on the Internet that allows my capture card to ignore the Macrovision requirement. However, doing that would make me a criminal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, and open me up to a 6 figure fine and years in prison. By the way, do violent criminals get this type of punishment for their crimes?
Example #2: I had to hook up my father's DVD player to his 10 year old (but high end) TV. His TV only has coaxial style connectors for video input. The DVD player doesn't have this type of connector, rather it has RCA style phono jacks. Therefore to connect his DVD player I thought to plug the DVD player's phono jack into a VCR's phono jack. The VCR would act as an RF modulator and convert the signal to the video signal of coaxial style connector. I tried it but it didn't work. The problem was that the Macrovision protection somehow activated itself because I passed the signal through a VCR. Therefore, the picture was very dark. The Solution was to buy a video stabilizer (a questionably legal product depending on who is talking) that removes the Macrovision protection and place it in between the DVD player and the VCR. It works, but technically speaking I broke the law.
I ran into the same scenario for my own entertainment system. My TV does have an RCA style phono jack on the back but it is currently being used. My solution was to buy a switch to switch between the DVD player and the other device. This is not a high-tech solution. Instead of being able to use a remote control to select the signal source for the TV I have to use a mechanical switch. I am not saying that I am lazy and don't want to get up to switch the video source, I have to wonder why I have to down-grade my entertainment system because of flawed copy protection technology.
Hopefully you see from my two examples that Macrovision is not a transparent copy protection scheme for my use. It is intrusive and it annoys me. Although I have solutions to enable use of my equipment in a perfectly legal and intended way, I have to break the law (the DMCA) in order to do so. Current proposed legislation (SSSCA/CDBTPA) will be even more intrusive, and thus more annoying. I am against buying any electronic equipment that contains the proposed level of copyright protection that the legislation imposes.
That's exactly what Doctorow's article on the "analog hole" describes. They give a couple example, one is where someone is video taping their child playing in the living room but the camcorder shutsoff because some watermarked cartoon comes on TV. Sick.
I have enough bad experiences with Macrovision. I use a Marvel G400 video capture card to capture my own camcorder recordings (simple home movies). Often the recording software shuts down at points where I paused recording because it somehow thinks Macrovision is active. It's really annoying.
I strongly suspect that I don't value your nuts anywhere near as much as you do.
A LONG time ago I saw a movie where this guy would place bets of various types where the prize was something welthy if he lost and the person's finger if he won.
Maybe there is a sicko out there that likes to show off a collection of left nuts.
rational pricing - I agree with all except this one. Instead how about a stiff fine to go along with the rest. They hurt consumers with their ir-"rational pricing" combined with their anti-competitive practices. Therefore, strip some of that profit away.
If their practices allowed for true competition, then who cares what their prices are? Competition would then set the product pricing. However, due to their practices, their pricing was not set by the market.
("Oh no! The sight of the buildings actually standing might offend or upset someone!")
Negative association. During a scene featuring the WT towers, instead of people thinking about the story or cool effects/CGI people might have flashbacks of 9/11. IANAHP (Hollywood producer) but I wouldn't want people thinking those things during my movies unless the movie was about 9/11. This issue will probably change with more time.
The display resolution is 852x480. This is actually a tiled 3x1 display. Don't expect it in stores soon since we are just starting to get a pilot line (400/month) going.
The pictures of the display on the web site suck. one could say that they are fake and the product is vaporware. Far from it though. While there is still a lot of work to be done, the displays work and are gorgeous to look at.
BTW, a lot of plasma displays I have seen have VGA and DVI inputs.
Hollywood is important to the county, but the computer industry is more important.
Specifically, this will cost the tech industry money to address an entertainment industry issue. The added cost will be handed down to the consumer. Jokingly, this could be called the "Hollings/MPAA" tax.
I agree with you. However, people ask me for advice on computers all the time. Also, I build systems using good but inexpensive parts for others. Most of these people cannot afford the price premium of SCSI. Therefore, I am looking for the best IDE solution.
Slashdot Mirror
Must have been doing a good job though - she was breathing rather fast.
Reading reviews at
VCDHelper I picked the Canopus equivalent product over the Dazzle one. I get no dropped frames and perfect audio/video sync. I am alot happier compared to the days when I used my Matrox Marvel G400. The Dazzle is rated at 7.2/10 with 41 votes and the Canopus is rated at 9.4/10 with 85 votes.
BTW, VCD help has a bunch of Video Capture guides that seem to be better than the one in the article.
the stupid take-over-your-computer prefferences.
The thing that immediately ticked me off was how it insisted on gaving an icon in the task tray. I didn't look hard enough through RealPlayer's options so I never found the option to turn auto-startup off (something most software doesn't hide). I would delete the registry entry to prevent it from starting up automatically. However, every time I used RealPlayer it would replace the registry entry.
I stopped using RealPlayer because of this behavior alone.
I have been considering buying an X-Box just so I can use it as a media server.
I have heard people putting in large hard drives into their X-Box to do this sort of thing and to store all their X-Box games on it. No more carrying around the original games. Supposedly the X-Box binary newsgroup is #4 in terms of number of message headers. I heard its also possible to simply rent games then rip them to an X-Box hard drive.
Most of this is illegal though so I am not advocating it. I can see why Microsoft is upset about Mod chips. BTW, I don't do this because:
1) I don't own an X-Box.
2) Even if I did I wouldn't play game on it because I prefer PC games.
However, I really like the idea of using it as a media server for my LEGALLY owned mp3's, DivX's (home movies), family photos (slideshows), and DVD's.
Timothy needed a chance to post it too.
Be fair, the other story is right at the bottom,
LOL.
Here's a link to the previous story. It will only be there for another day or two though.
Maybe MS will try to embrace and extend this:
http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/
Don't have kids do you? My newborn loves to unplug things. Since he is not strong enough he pulls the cord and prys the plug off. In the process he will sometimes touch the metal prongs and get zapped.
Fortunately we have been more cautious about keeping and eye on him and eliminating plugged in items within his reach, so he hasn't gotten hurt lately.
Why not just call them a bunch of pirates, as Disney, RIAA, MPAA, etc. call individuals who allegedly are involved in copyright infringement. Then the developers can claim "X" dollars lost and say how their children, pets, etc. are starving because of piracy.
Check out this O-scope:
d s7000/eng/index.html
http://www.tek.com/Measurement/Products/catalog/t
It runs Windows 98! I evaluated it for purchase by the company I work for. It seemed to work well but we chose a Lecroy scope instead because in general I haven't been happy with support for any PC based control system. PC components seem to go into obsolescence far to quickly. O-Scopes should last many years and I am skeptical about getting parts for a PC-based scope at a time when it is 10 years old.
I didn't look into it, but they may be using some 3rd party software to replace the Window's kernal with a RTOS. I ran some control software that did this for WinNT 4.0. I think that it was called Intime.
This control software:
http://www.entivity.com/vlc.htm
replaces the HAL of WinNT with a RTOS. You can crash NT and rip out the HD and the control software still runs, no HMI though. It had a crappy programming environment (flowcharting) but I was sort of impressed with its stability.
Speaking of SW nerds... check out the Conan Obrien's guest star Triumph as he investigates SW nerds.
/humor/movies/triumph/starwars
Go to
My apologies to the webmaster and the server this file is on.
How's this? I will send it as soon as I can figure out their stupid "ODBC error".
---------
I offer a consumer's viewpoint on a copy protection mechanism. Both of my examples have to deal with Macrovision, a copy protection scheme that has been around for years. I would hope that from my examples you will notice the frustration I have as a consumer with poorly implemented copy protection technology.
Example #1: I own a video capture card: a Matrox Marvel G400. I use it to capture analog video obtained from my analog Hi-8 camcorder into digital form for 1) preservation of the video, and 2) transferring of the video onto a compact disc (Video CD format). Having the video on a Video CD (VCD) allows me to play my home movies on a DVD player that supports VCDs. Using computer software I can add special effects and menus to my videos. The finished product is quite impressive and I don't have to do deal with storing my home movies on bulky, deteriorating VHS tapes.
Here's my run in with Macrovision. Since I capture my own home movies there shouldn't be any Macrovision problems since Macrovision is not present on the camcorder's video. One would think that, but I do have problems. Matrox's software prevents recording of video that contains Macrovision. They state that this is a legal requirement. During scene transitions (places where I hit the pause-record button on the camcorder) the video contains a little bit of flicker. The flicker is an artifact of pausing the camcorder. Matrox's software interprets this flicker as Macrovision and stops capturing. To solve this I have to capture my video in bits and pieces, split at any scene where I pressed the pause button on my camcorder. I then have to use software to combine the many parts of video into one video file.
Another solution would be to use a hacked Matrox driver I found on the Internet that allows my capture card to ignore the Macrovision requirement. However, doing that would make me a criminal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, and open me up to a 6 figure fine and years in prison. By the way, do violent criminals get this type of punishment for their crimes?
Example #2: I had to hook up my father's DVD player to his 10 year old (but high end) TV. His TV only has coaxial style connectors for video input. The DVD player doesn't have this type of connector, rather it has RCA style phono jacks. Therefore to connect his DVD player I thought to plug the DVD player's phono jack into a VCR's phono jack. The VCR would act as an RF modulator and convert the signal to the video signal of coaxial style connector. I tried it but it didn't work. The problem was that the Macrovision protection somehow activated itself because I passed the signal through a VCR. Therefore, the picture was very dark. The Solution was to buy a video stabilizer (a questionably legal product depending on who is talking) that removes the Macrovision protection and place it in between the DVD player and the VCR. It works, but technically speaking I broke the law.
I ran into the same scenario for my own entertainment system. My TV does have an RCA style phono jack on the back but it is currently being used. My solution was to buy a switch to switch between the DVD player and the other device. This is not a high-tech solution. Instead of being able to use a remote control to select the signal source for the TV I have to use a mechanical switch. I am not saying that I am lazy and don't want to get up to switch the video source, I have to wonder why I have to down-grade my entertainment system because of flawed copy protection technology.
Hopefully you see from my two examples that Macrovision is not a transparent copy protection scheme for my use. It is intrusive and it annoys me. Although I have solutions to enable use of my equipment in a perfectly legal and intended way, I have to break the law (the DMCA) in order to do so. Current proposed legislation (SSSCA/CDBTPA) will be even more intrusive, and thus more annoying. I am against buying any electronic equipment that contains the proposed level of copyright protection that the legislation imposes.
That's exactly what Doctorow's article on the "analog hole" describes. They give a couple example, one is where someone is video taping their child playing in the living room but the camcorder shutsoff because some watermarked cartoon comes on TV. Sick.
I have enough bad experiences with Macrovision. I use a Marvel G400 video capture card to capture my own camcorder recordings (simple home movies). Often the recording software shuts down at points where I paused recording because it somehow thinks Macrovision is active. It's really annoying.
Yes, that was it. Thanks
You forgot left nut
I strongly suspect that I don't value your nuts anywhere near as much as you do.
A LONG time ago I saw a movie where this guy would place bets of various types where the prize was something welthy if he lost and the person's finger if he won.
Maybe there is a sicko out there that likes to show off a collection of left nuts.
And there are 4 more new movies in the series. If reviews like these continue I wonder if they will all get made.
rational pricing - I agree with all except this one. Instead how about a stiff fine to go along with the rest. They hurt consumers with their ir-"rational pricing" combined with their anti-competitive practices. Therefore, strip some of that profit away.
If their practices allowed for true competition, then who cares what their prices are? Competition would then set the product pricing. However, due to their practices, their pricing was not set by the market.
("Oh no! The sight of the buildings actually standing might offend or upset someone!")
Negative association. During a scene featuring the WT towers, instead of people thinking about the story or cool effects/CGI people might have flashbacks of 9/11. IANAHP (Hollywood producer) but I wouldn't want people thinking those things during my movies unless the movie was about 9/11. This issue will probably change with more time.
I am linking to your post which contains an "illegal" link. Did I just brake the law too?
This is a shameless plug. But it has a good drool factor so it shouldn't be shunned too bad.
/.
I work for a company, Rainbow Displays, that is making a 37.5" tiled LCD. This was previously covered here on
The display resolution is 852x480. This is actually a tiled 3x1 display. Don't expect it in stores soon since we are just starting to get a pilot line (400/month) going.
The pictures of the display on the web site suck. one could say that they are fake and the product is vaporware. Far from it though. While there is still a lot of work to be done, the displays work and are gorgeous to look at.
BTW, a lot of plasma displays I have seen have VGA and DVI inputs.
Hollywood is important to the county, but the computer industry is more important.
Specifically, this will cost the tech industry money to address an entertainment industry issue. The added cost will be handed down to the consumer. Jokingly, this could be called the "Hollings/MPAA" tax.
Yeah, but did you reach them ALL?
I agree with you. However, people ask me for advice on computers all the time. Also, I build systems using good but inexpensive parts for others. Most of these people cannot afford the price premium of SCSI. Therefore, I am looking for the best IDE solution.
Conner was bought out by Seagate (I think).