NiCds are still king in their current handling ability.
As a result, NiCds are still used in R/C cars.
But they've been relegated to a very small niche that has rather extreme demands on one aspect of the battery.
Li-Ion is the only chemistry that can compare to NiCd in this regard, and hobbyists are slowly switching to Li-Ion with the advent of "hobbyist" packs with integrated protection circuitry like batteries sold by Pila and Copia.
Most accounts I've seen on www.candlepowerforums.com call the Rayovac charger a "pressure cooker" and is voted Most Likely To Destroy Your Batteries.
People there are big fans of Maha chargers. They just released one that has an individual charge controller for each cell, which means that you can charge non-matched batteries safely, AND you don't have to charge 2 or 4 at a time - You can charge 1 or 3 if you wish.
As to the types of batteries out there: Alkaline - Reasonably long shelf life, high internal resistance. Good for low-current applications like TV remotes and HP48 calculators. Gentle discharge curve.
NiCd - Toxic, lowest capacity rechargeables. Lowest internal resistance, which is why they're still popular in R/C cars because of their insane current handling capabilities. Flat discharge curve with a steep dropoff at the end.
NiMH - Almost identical to NiCd except non-toxic, double the capacity, and somewhat increased internal resistance. Excellent for medium to high-discharge-rate devices such as CD players and digital cameras. Same basic charging algorithm as NiCds, although the charger must be aware of minor differences between NiCd and NiMH batteries. Both will actually start DROPPING their voltage as they are charged beyond capacity. Modern smart chargers detect this, but the peak and subsequent drop are much smaller with NiMH, requiring a more sensitive charger.
Lithium - Extremely high capacity, current handling capability, and the longest shelf life. Most are 3v, although I've seen 1.5v "Lithium" AAs (might not actually be lithium.) Non-rechargeable Lithium Ion - Rechargeable, high capacity, high current handling ability. Very lightweight. Unfortunately quite flammable. Between the low internal resistance and flammability, it is not legal to sell bare Li-Ion cells in the U.S. to someone not licensed to work with Li-Ions. Almost anyone you buy "cells" from in the U.S. (such as www.onlybatteries.com) indicates that the cells are sold in a pack with some sort of protection circuitry if you read the fine print. (This circuitry cuts off the battery if a short circuit is detected, preventing the batteries from exploding.)
Lead-Acid - An oldie but goodie. Highest energy density per unit volume, but horrible density per unit weight. DIRT CHEAP. Still used when enormous capacity and current handling ability is needed at minimal cost. (Read: Car batteries.) A number of variants exist. Standard car batteries have very thin electrodes designed to maximize surface area for maximum current handling ability. These types don't like being discharged very deeply. "Deep cycle" cells have thicker electrodes, allowing them to be cycled more deeply but with less current capacity. (Still quite a bit, and nowhere near as deep as any other rechargeable chemistry.) "Gel cells" are a deep-cycle variant that uses a gelled electrolyte. These are much safer and can be sealed, which makes them optimum for situations where the battery might get wet or tipped over. (Automotive lead-acids are vented and cannot be safely tipped over.)
Because of the fact that Japan imports all of their fossil fuels, energy costs there are VERY high.
It doesn't help that a significant portion of Japan's nuclear reactors were shut down for safety reasons. (They're working on reopening them, but last I heard Japan was going to be facing a major energy crisis this summer.)
I'm guessing you don't live in California, where solar power is becoming quite popular due to astronomical electricity costs. 17% for you might only be $4.20, but 17% in some states might be ten times that, even for a small apartment.
Keep in mind that the Centrino is returning to the "does more per clock cycle" mantra as opposed to the P4's "Do less per clock cycle so you can clock it insanely fast" mantra.
P4 laptops are AT LEAST to 2.4 GHz, if not more.
Yes, not quite as fast as desktops, but still quite fast. Also, in a car PC, heat isn't as much of an issue, since you don't have to worry about the power consumption of a fan sucking up battery life. As someone else pointed out, unless you're driving a super-high-end BMW or Lexus or Mercedes, you can get away with quite a powerful fan before the noise becomes noticeable. If you happen to be a ricer, you could put in triple 60mm screamers and still have the engine drowning out your PC... Same thing if you're driving any convertible with the top down.
Nothing geeky about them, but many of the National Parks in the US are amazing.
Moab, Utah is situated near the entrances to both Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. You can easily spend two weeks or more in these parks alone. If you do go to that area, make sure to go to Goblin Valley State Park (About 1.5 hours from Moab, it's REALLY neat.)
Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon in Utah are really neat too.
If you include Canada, don't forget the Canadian Rockies (Banff and Jasper National Parks) - My family has gone on at least three two-week vacations to that area and there's still more to see.
Depending on how they sent the email, this is likely one of the "tricks" where the text content and HTML content differ.
Many mail clients (IMP for example) will display the text version, and show the HTML version as an attachment. Very likely the "missing" advertisements are in an HTML attachment.
If you feel the need to keep consuming alcohol for the effects, try wine.
Beer has a lot of "non-alchol" calories, whereas most of the calories in wine are from the alcohol. (Depends on the wine - Some wines have lots of residual sugars, others don't.)
I can tell you this: If I drink a glass of wine, it affects my bloodsugar minimally, if at all. And I'm guaranteed to feel some effects.
If I drink a bottle of beer, often I won't feel any effects, but will have my bloodsugar spike.
That said, if you're going for the drunken effect on a regular basis, you have other problems... Drinking in moderation can be healthy (There have been a number of studies that moderate drinking, such as 2-3 glasses of wine spread over the course of a week, can be beneficial to your heart. Drinking 2-3 glasses in one sitting is Bad for your liver.), but drinking frequently and heavily is bad news.
Both carbs and protein are approx. 4 calories/gram.
I think fat is 9. Which kills your justification for the Atkins diet.
I have mixed opinions on the Atkins diet. Some studies have shown that it works, others are skeptical. It may allow you to lose weight but might still clog your arteries.
Nutritionally, I'm a fan of a balanced diet (not too much or too little of anything) combined with exercise for the weight loss.
(I'm diabetic and can't stand water, so diet soda is the clear choice).
That said, exercise is still needed. Cutting down on the beer will help a lot, but take it from someone who tried to control weight with diet alone - It doesn't work unless you go on a near-starvation diet. (You will fell very hungry sometimes, so your willpower will be tested to extremes.) You can stave off weight gain (I cut down my diet and went from slowly gaining to staying even), but losing the weight is much harder.
As to exercise - It's amazing how much difference a short 15-minute walk around the office park can make. I started going for regular after-lunch walks, and my insulin requirements dropped DRASTICALLY in a matter of days. Admittedly, I'm somewhat lucky in that there is a set of nature trails behind where I work, so my post-lunch walks are quite pleasant.:)
For the other stuff, wait 'till you get home. Also, see if there's a health club local to your office park where you can go for a quick workout. (There's one in mine that people will go to for a few half-hour sessions a week.)
The definition of the "giga" and "mega" prefixes vary though. Sometimes "giga" is 1024^3, sometimes it's 10^9. Mega is defined as either 1024^2 or 10^6.
This isn't US-specific. Typically, the following use the power-of-1024 definitions: OSes, semiconductor storage (RAM/flash/ROM)manufacturers.
The following usually use base-10 definitions All other storage mfrs. (Looks better on spec, and non-semiconductor storage isn't bound by practical constraints to being a power of 2), bandwidth measurements
While I have an extreme problem with the government tracking my comings and goings, I find your comment interesting considering that I want to install an APRS setup in my car.
http://www.aprs.org/ has more information. The basic premise is that it will broadcast your position peridically encapsulated with AX.25 UI packets over an amateur radio interface. Typically 1200bps AFSK on (I believe) 144.39 MHz. Anyone who wants to can tune in.
I think a major aspect of it in addition to "general availability" is that you can turn off your APRS beacon any time you want...
Dell is most likely wishing that they did not use a Philips single-format drive to provide a DVD recording option on their latest laptops.
There are a large number of threads on Dell's support forums with people who are having problems burning discs with that POS drive that are readable in any other machine. (PC or standalone).
That drive is really going to hurt Dell's reputation...
They're at it again with their shoddy quality control. Some batches are amazing, other times people who rave about them get a 50% coaster rate on their second batch of discs.
Ritek G03 and G04 seem to be the current "golden standards" as far as affordable media go. No one has had problems with G03 (1x, usually burnable at 2x reliably) or G04 (4x). I ONLY use Ritek -R media in my drive.
I currently use Sony RWs. Going to try Riteks soon. Stay away from Optodisc. I ordered a batch of Opto RWs, every one of them refused to read reliably in my laptop's DVD drive, and half of them had visible surface flaws. Fortunately, Rima has an excellent service department and gave me no hassles about exchanging the Optos for G03 -Rs.
" I picked up a Pioneer A05 (rebranded) for about $150 after a rebate. Just couldn't pass up that offer. It's now using an unofficial firmware to remove the 2x CSS read mode so I can rip my own DVDs (for backup[1]) at 7-8x. My only beef with DVD-R is that there's no official standard for 4x media, which makes it somewhat hard to come by and fairly expensive. You can find really good deals on branded 2x discs, though, which sort of makes up for it. If the 4x discs come down in price, great, I'll start buying those, but otherwise, for the price I paid, I'm not complaining."
4x media IS standardized by the DVD Forum. Which is why the Pioneer 105 does not need any media table maintenance in order to burn ANY 4x disc on the market. 4x media isn't that expensive these days, and seems to be dropping around 20 cents every 2 months, while good 1x media (Ritek G03) is actually slowly rising in price. (2 months ago, a 25 pack of Ritek G04 4x media was $2/disc, and G03 was $1.20/disc. Now they're $1.80 and $1.30 respectively).
2x media, on the other hand, is NOT standardized. It's a "manufacturer certified overclock", which means that unless your 2x media (which is really 1x media that has been tested to burn at 2x by Pioneer) is in the 105's media table or you're using 2x4all hacked firmware, you're not going to burn at 2x. (Example: Samsung BeAll "2x" media.)
Interestingly enough, the only 4x burner that has any trouble with not burning all 4x discs at 4x is the Sony dual-format burner. From all I've heard, that burner has so many firmware bugs that it's not all it's made out to be by the +R fanboys. One of the top 5 most recurring topics on the www.firmware-flash.com forums is "What media actually burns at 4x in the DRU-500?"
And don't get me started on +R only drives. The Philips DVD+R drive sold as an option on recent Dell laptops has trouble burning discs recognizable in any other drive. Yup, that's not a noname drive, but one made by Philips. I think it's sad when the creator of a disc format can't even make a drive that burns readable discs.
In the case of CD and DVD, the industry decided to standardize on Philips and Sony. As a result, they won.
But in every case where Sony or Philips have decided to go against the industry with their own standard, they failed.
Sony: Beta Philips: DCC. The only reason Sony won with MD was because they were going against a company with as bad a track record as they do as far as format wars. Sony: Memory Stick. It's still alive, but SD/MMC is going to wipe it off the face of the earth in due time. Everyone is behind SD these days - It's standardized and it's smaller.
The only readily available DVHS recorder/player on the market is the JVC HM-DH30000U (Maybe there's a new one available now...), but probably over 25% of 30ks went back to the service center within months and in some cases JVC is taking many months to fix returned units.
I've heard that the Mitsubishi units are good, but they're impossible to find.
If you want to get DVHS, you also need to find: An HDTV tuner with 1394 output Invest in a good broadcast TV antenna (None of the cable HD boxes seem to have 1394 outputs) Invest in an HDTV display.
Actually, one of the best options for many Slashdotters would be a Mitsu unit combined with a PCI HDTV tuner card. (If I'd been able to find a Mitsu unit I would've bought one for use with my MyHD MDP-100 tuner card.)
But others are VERY nice players that rival the "name brands". In some cases they blow away the "name brand" players. Apex makes one of the most feature-packed portables out there. Apex is well on the way to joining the ranks of "Name Brand" manufacturers.
You can get a decent one for $60ish nowadays. $100 is where you start finding progressive-scan DVD players.
If the poster thinks DVD is worse PQ than VHS, he either:
a) Is using a REALLY shitty DVD player, even shitter than my $60 Rowa, which makes even VCDs look better than your average VHS. (Oddly, while I get horrendous artifacts when playing VCDs on any PC player, I get NO visible artifacts when displaying to an NTSC TV via a composite cable.)
b) Is comparing based on a VERY badly encoded DVD. CSI: The Complete First Season disc set by any chance? (Worst DVD PQ I've ever seen, but still better than VHS. I could simply be spoiled after watching CSI in full HDTV widescreen glory - the Complete First Season is 4:3!)
I don't think I mentioned it in my post, but Rima is where I get my media too. Their service is excellent and so are their prices. I think I mentioned those shitty Optodisc RWs - They let me exchange them for Ritek G03s without any hassle at all.
I've heard mixed things about the Princo 4X. While a lot better than the 1X Princos, I've heard that they still have some serious QC and consistency issues. (One batch will be perfect, then the next one you get will have a 50% coaster rate.) I pay extra for Riteks from Rima, but it's worth it, I have never had a flawed Ritek burn, even running the 1x G03s at 2x.
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NiCds are still king in their current handling ability.
As a result, NiCds are still used in R/C cars.
But they've been relegated to a very small niche that has rather extreme demands on one aspect of the battery.
Li-Ion is the only chemistry that can compare to NiCd in this regard, and hobbyists are slowly switching to Li-Ion with the advent of "hobbyist" packs with integrated protection circuitry like batteries sold by Pila and Copia.
Most accounts I've seen on www.candlepowerforums.com call the Rayovac charger a "pressure cooker" and is voted Most Likely To Destroy Your Batteries.
People there are big fans of Maha chargers. They just released one that has an individual charge controller for each cell, which means that you can charge non-matched batteries safely, AND you don't have to charge 2 or 4 at a time - You can charge 1 or 3 if you wish.
As to the types of batteries out there:
Alkaline - Reasonably long shelf life, high internal resistance. Good for low-current applications like TV remotes and HP48 calculators. Gentle discharge curve.
NiCd - Toxic, lowest capacity rechargeables. Lowest internal resistance, which is why they're still popular in R/C cars because of their insane current handling capabilities. Flat discharge curve with a steep dropoff at the end.
NiMH - Almost identical to NiCd except non-toxic, double the capacity, and somewhat increased internal resistance. Excellent for medium to high-discharge-rate devices such as CD players and digital cameras. Same basic charging algorithm as NiCds, although the charger must be aware of minor differences between NiCd and NiMH batteries. Both will actually start DROPPING their voltage as they are charged beyond capacity. Modern smart chargers detect this, but the peak and subsequent drop are much smaller with NiMH, requiring a more sensitive charger.
Lithium - Extremely high capacity, current handling capability, and the longest shelf life. Most are 3v, although I've seen 1.5v "Lithium" AAs (might not actually be lithium.) Non-rechargeable
Lithium Ion - Rechargeable, high capacity, high current handling ability. Very lightweight. Unfortunately quite flammable. Between the low internal resistance and flammability, it is not legal to sell bare Li-Ion cells in the U.S. to someone not licensed to work with Li-Ions. Almost anyone you buy "cells" from in the U.S. (such as www.onlybatteries.com) indicates that the cells are sold in a pack with some sort of protection circuitry if you read the fine print. (This circuitry cuts off the battery if a short circuit is detected, preventing the batteries from exploding.)
Lead-Acid - An oldie but goodie. Highest energy density per unit volume, but horrible density per unit weight. DIRT CHEAP. Still used when enormous capacity and current handling ability is needed at minimal cost. (Read: Car batteries.) A number of variants exist. Standard car batteries have very thin electrodes designed to maximize surface area for maximum current handling ability. These types don't like being discharged very deeply. "Deep cycle" cells have thicker electrodes, allowing them to be cycled more deeply but with less current capacity. (Still quite a bit, and nowhere near as deep as any other rechargeable chemistry.) "Gel cells" are a deep-cycle variant that uses a gelled electrolyte. These are much safer and can be sealed, which makes them optimum for situations where the battery might get wet or tipped over. (Automotive lead-acids are vented and cannot be safely tipped over.)
Because of the fact that Japan imports all of their fossil fuels, energy costs there are VERY high.
It doesn't help that a significant portion of Japan's nuclear reactors were shut down for safety reasons. (They're working on reopening them, but last I heard Japan was going to be facing a major energy crisis this summer.)
I'm guessing you don't live in California, where solar power is becoming quite popular due to astronomical electricity costs. 17% for you might only be $4.20, but 17% in some states might be ten times that, even for a small apartment.
Keep in mind that the Centrino is returning to the "does more per clock cycle" mantra as opposed to the P4's "Do less per clock cycle so you can clock it insanely fast" mantra.
P4 laptops are AT LEAST to 2.4 GHz, if not more.
Yes, not quite as fast as desktops, but still quite fast. Also, in a car PC, heat isn't as much of an issue, since you don't have to worry about the power consumption of a fan sucking up battery life. As someone else pointed out, unless you're driving a super-high-end BMW or Lexus or Mercedes, you can get away with quite a powerful fan before the noise becomes noticeable. If you happen to be a ricer, you could put in triple 60mm screamers and still have the engine drowning out your PC... Same thing if you're driving any convertible with the top down.
Stop the chase car, then put the pedal to the metal to catch up...
Nothing geeky about them, but many of the National Parks in the US are amazing.
Moab, Utah is situated near the entrances to both Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. You can easily spend two weeks or more in these parks alone. If you do go to that area, make sure to go to Goblin Valley State Park (About 1.5 hours from Moab, it's REALLY neat.)
Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon in Utah are really neat too.
If you include Canada, don't forget the Canadian Rockies (Banff and Jasper National Parks) - My family has gone on at least three two-week vacations to that area and there's still more to see.
Depending on how they sent the email, this is likely one of the "tricks" where the text content and HTML content differ.
Many mail clients (IMP for example) will display the text version, and show the HTML version as an attachment. Very likely the "missing" advertisements are in an HTML attachment.
I get spams like this all the time.
If you feel the need to keep consuming alcohol for the effects, try wine.
Beer has a lot of "non-alchol" calories, whereas most of the calories in wine are from the alcohol. (Depends on the wine - Some wines have lots of residual sugars, others don't.)
I can tell you this: If I drink a glass of wine, it affects my bloodsugar minimally, if at all. And I'm guaranteed to feel some effects.
If I drink a bottle of beer, often I won't feel any effects, but will have my bloodsugar spike.
That said, if you're going for the drunken effect on a regular basis, you have other problems... Drinking in moderation can be healthy (There have been a number of studies that moderate drinking, such as 2-3 glasses of wine spread over the course of a week, can be beneficial to your heart. Drinking 2-3 glasses in one sitting is Bad for your liver.), but drinking frequently and heavily is bad news.
Both carbs and protein are approx. 4 calories/gram.
I think fat is 9. Which kills your justification for the Atkins diet.
I have mixed opinions on the Atkins diet. Some studies have shown that it works, others are skeptical. It may allow you to lose weight but might still clog your arteries.
Nutritionally, I'm a fan of a balanced diet (not too much or too little of anything) combined with exercise for the weight loss.
Switch to diet soda.
:)
Has the benefit of supplying caffeine if need be.
(I'm diabetic and can't stand water, so diet soda is the clear choice).
That said, exercise is still needed. Cutting down on the beer will help a lot, but take it from someone who tried to control weight with diet alone - It doesn't work unless you go on a near-starvation diet. (You will fell very hungry sometimes, so your willpower will be tested to extremes.) You can stave off weight gain (I cut down my diet and went from slowly gaining to staying even), but losing the weight is much harder.
As to exercise - It's amazing how much difference a short 15-minute walk around the office park can make. I started going for regular after-lunch walks, and my insulin requirements dropped DRASTICALLY in a matter of days. Admittedly, I'm somewhat lucky in that there is a set of nature trails behind where I work, so my post-lunch walks are quite pleasant.
For the other stuff, wait 'till you get home. Also, see if there's a health club local to your office park where you can go for a quick workout. (There's one in mine that people will go to for a few half-hour sessions a week.)
Everyone defines millions and billions the same.
The definition of the "giga" and "mega" prefixes vary though. Sometimes "giga" is 1024^3, sometimes it's 10^9. Mega is defined as either 1024^2 or 10^6.
This isn't US-specific. Typically, the following use the power-of-1024 definitions:
OSes, semiconductor storage (RAM/flash/ROM)manufacturers.
The following usually use base-10 definitions
All other storage mfrs. (Looks better on spec, and non-semiconductor storage isn't bound by practical constraints to being a power of 2), bandwidth measurements
REALLY old Stallone movie. Would make a great game.
Oh wait, they did that already in spirit but not name. (Carmageddon).
While I have an extreme problem with the government tracking my comings and goings, I find your comment interesting considering that I want to install an APRS setup in my car.
http://www.aprs.org/ has more information. The basic premise is that it will broadcast your position peridically encapsulated with AX.25 UI packets over an amateur radio interface. Typically 1200bps AFSK on (I believe) 144.39 MHz. Anyone who wants to can tune in.
I think a major aspect of it in addition to "general availability" is that you can turn off your APRS beacon any time you want...
in the foot.
Dell is most likely wishing that they did not use a Philips single-format drive to provide a DVD recording option on their latest laptops.
There are a large number of threads on Dell's support forums with people who are having problems burning discs with that POS drive that are readable in any other machine. (PC or standalone).
That drive is really going to hurt Dell's reputation...
" ...but the Sony DRU-500AX burns 4x DVD-R/-RW"
Sure, with a bit of prayer.
One of the top 5 most asked questions on the forums at www.firmware-flash.com is, "What media actually burns at 4x in my DRU-500?"
That drive has some serious issues with 4x -R media.
I've heard mixed things about Princo 4x.
They're at it again with their shoddy quality control. Some batches are amazing, other times people who rave about them get a 50% coaster rate on their second batch of discs.
Ritek G03 and G04 seem to be the current "golden standards" as far as affordable media go. No one has had problems with G03 (1x, usually burnable at 2x reliably) or G04 (4x). I ONLY use Ritek -R media in my drive.
I currently use Sony RWs. Going to try Riteks soon. Stay away from Optodisc. I ordered a batch of Opto RWs, every one of them refused to read reliably in my laptop's DVD drive, and half of them had visible surface flaws. Fortunately, Rima has an excellent service department and gave me no hassles about exchanging the Optos for G03 -Rs.
That in some European countries, Philips is pushing for DVD-R media to be taxed at double the rate of DVD+R.
" I picked up a Pioneer A05 (rebranded) for about $150 after a rebate. Just couldn't pass up that offer. It's now using an unofficial firmware to remove the 2x CSS read mode so I can rip my own DVDs (for backup[1]) at 7-8x. My only beef with DVD-R is that there's no official standard for 4x media, which makes it somewhat hard to come by and fairly expensive. You can find really good deals on branded 2x discs, though, which sort of makes up for it. If the 4x discs come down in price, great, I'll start buying those, but otherwise, for the price I paid, I'm not complaining."
4x media IS standardized by the DVD Forum. Which is why the Pioneer 105 does not need any media table maintenance in order to burn ANY 4x disc on the market. 4x media isn't that expensive these days, and seems to be dropping around 20 cents every 2 months, while good 1x media (Ritek G03) is actually slowly rising in price. (2 months ago, a 25 pack of Ritek G04 4x media was $2/disc, and G03 was $1.20/disc. Now they're $1.80 and $1.30 respectively).
2x media, on the other hand, is NOT standardized. It's a "manufacturer certified overclock", which means that unless your 2x media (which is really 1x media that has been tested to burn at 2x by Pioneer) is in the 105's media table or you're using 2x4all hacked firmware, you're not going to burn at 2x. (Example: Samsung BeAll "2x" media.)
Interestingly enough, the only 4x burner that has any trouble with not burning all 4x discs at 4x is the Sony dual-format burner. From all I've heard, that burner has so many firmware bugs that it's not all it's made out to be by the +R fanboys. One of the top 5 most recurring topics on the www.firmware-flash.com forums is "What media actually burns at 4x in the DRU-500?"
And don't get me started on +R only drives. The Philips DVD+R drive sold as an option on recent Dell laptops has trouble burning discs recognizable in any other drive. Yup, that's not a noname drive, but one made by Philips. I think it's sad when the creator of a disc format can't even make a drive that burns readable discs.
In the case of CD and DVD, the industry decided to standardize on Philips and Sony. As a result, they won.
But in every case where Sony or Philips have decided to go against the industry with their own standard, they failed.
Sony: Beta
Philips: DCC. The only reason Sony won with MD was because they were going against a company with as bad a track record as they do as far as format wars.
Sony: Memory Stick. It's still alive, but SD/MMC is going to wipe it off the face of the earth in due time. Everyone is behind SD these days - It's standardized and it's smaller.
The only readily available DVHS recorder/player on the market is the JVC HM-DH30000U (Maybe there's a new one available now...), but probably over 25% of 30ks went back to the service center within months and in some cases JVC is taking many months to fix returned units.
I've heard that the Mitsubishi units are good, but they're impossible to find.
If you want to get DVHS, you also need to find:
An HDTV tuner with 1394 output
Invest in a good broadcast TV antenna (None of the cable HD boxes seem to have 1394 outputs)
Invest in an HDTV display.
Actually, one of the best options for many Slashdotters would be a Mitsu unit combined with a PCI HDTV tuner card. (If I'd been able to find a Mitsu unit I would've bought one for use with my MyHD MDP-100 tuner card.)
Admittedly some of their models are crap.
But others are VERY nice players that rival the "name brands". In some cases they blow away the "name brand" players. Apex makes one of the most feature-packed portables out there. Apex is well on the way to joining the ranks of "Name Brand" manufacturers.
Is expensive for a DVD player these days.
You can get a decent one for $60ish nowadays. $100 is where you start finding progressive-scan DVD players.
If the poster thinks DVD is worse PQ than VHS, he either:
a) Is using a REALLY shitty DVD player, even shitter than my $60 Rowa, which makes even VCDs look better than your average VHS. (Oddly, while I get horrendous artifacts when playing VCDs on any PC player, I get NO visible artifacts when displaying to an NTSC TV via a composite cable.)
b) Is comparing based on a VERY badly encoded DVD. CSI: The Complete First Season disc set by any chance? (Worst DVD PQ I've ever seen, but still better than VHS. I could simply be spoiled after watching CSI in full HDTV widescreen glory - the Complete First Season is 4:3!)
I don't think I mentioned it in my post, but Rima is where I get my media too. Their service is excellent and so are their prices. I think I mentioned those shitty Optodisc RWs - They let me exchange them for Ritek G03s without any hassle at all.
I've heard mixed things about the Princo 4X. While a lot better than the 1X Princos, I've heard that they still have some serious QC and consistency issues. (One batch will be perfect, then the next one you get will have a 50% coaster rate.) I pay extra for Riteks from Rima, but it's worth it, I have never had a flawed Ritek burn, even running the 1x G03s at 2x.
Considering that TDK is currently marketing "Armor Plated" DVD-Rs that supposedly have some sort of protective coating.
2x the price of 4x Ritek media for a 1x disc, but if durability is your thing, a few "Armor Plateds" are probably worth it.
Check your DMA settings.
Even a 48x CD-R uses less than 1-2% CPU on a 1.1 GHz Athlon, unless DMA has somehow been turned off. Then even 24x will peg the CPU...