Funny how my maxtors never seem to fail (and afaik, lots ship on xbox'es and tivos w/o major returns), yet I've had soooo many WDs fail it's not even funny. (Worst thing after the class-action-lawsuit causing Fujitsu's). Seagates aren't that bad.
I have to say that more than ever, I see people sticking to their old computers and toys that just do what they need... (or upgrading to faster but used computers, or cheap electronics)
Actually, one of the things I noticed about this Giant-Antispyware is the number of false positives. On some systems it found a half dozen of them (things like VNC and such). Also the slowest, high memory usage, and last I tried, cancelling a scan doesn't let you delete what was found on the partial scan.
Most likely they'll charge for this product, whereas it's completely unnecessary if you use firefox and IE and don't install apps like Gator and such.
There are tons of people who don't like.Net, and the issues related to the whole.Net technology is FAR beyond the scope of any/. post. If you actually ever tried making real use out of it, you would see lots of problems, or perhaps you've never used it? We're a whole department who decided to get away from it, and we're not the only ones (read the other posts for other examples). As for PHP, if you had actually understood my post, you'd see I didn't suggest it for his purposes, I said that it was one of the things we're moving to (instead of ASP or ASP.Net) but that was too hard to understand I suppose...
.NET has a couple nice things, but overall, I absolutely despise it - and that's coming from a long time developper on windows only. I still prefer ASP over ASP.NET (that's sad, isn't it?). Next logical step for me isn't anymore "upgrading" to.NET - it's doing the switch for good. I've had it with them. Out with Win/IIS/SQL server - Moving to Apache (PHP, J2EE,...) on a *nix box for good in the near future.
And J2EE is a lot more portable (can be hosted on whatever you want, lower costs and maint than a windows box imho)
I used to be a hardcode MS fan, but I guess I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel...
I must say I used to do that analog capturing stuff, but even with the top cards, the quality is very sub-par compared to DVB capturing. You loose a lot doing non-prefect mpeg decoding, then passed thru cheap DACs, filters, wiring (and interferences), more filters, ADC (crappy sampling), on-the-fly (not very efficient) encoding... You just loose too much quality, even with much higher file sizes. DVB just works, 100% quality - no loss at all, small file sizes, cpu loads around 1%... It's just all around better. The only thing is, of course you need to have some DVB streams available (I use DVB-S), it won't do a thing for crappy analog cable or the like (I don't know anyone who still uses that).
If not, I'd get a satellite set-top box/PVR dealie. For 300$ cdn, you get one with a 80gb HD in it. It works *out of the box*. No OS install, no patching/upgrading/rebooting, no drivers needed, no setting up the remote control manually for your apps, no codecs required, no PVR software to install, no BSODs, none of that - plug it and it works. And just like DVB capturing, it's lossless (they both record the mpeg from the transportstream).
I've given up on analog capturing about 4 years ago, and I'm NEVER going back to that. I'd do OTA as well if there broadcasts in my area.
Actually, the C3 isn't super fast, but not quite that slow either. Perhaps it's that slow for you because it's getting too hot? Makes me wonder if the laptop you have doesn't have problems or if it's just bad engineering.
As for buying an old P3 laptop, the CPU will not really be any faster, the only REAL difference you'll get is: a old/used/worn laptop with no warranty, usually half that memory, much less HD space, no USB2, and in most cases a pretty much dead battery.
If you can shell out a bit more, yes, you can get something refurb that's actually pretty good. Good specs (including a working battery!), good price, and a (small) warranty.
Wal-Mart actually has one of the lowest profit margins of all companies, and the OS is very cheap as well. So that means most of the price actually goes to the hardware.
There are no refurb parts, and if you had actually read anything, you'd see it uses a VIA C3.
As was pointed out before, it beats paying the same for a used P3 laptop with maybe half the memory and less than half the HD, because that's all you'd get at that price otherwise.
It has no burner, but it has ethernet... Still good for the price.
Most people are happy with low bitrate mp3 quality, so why bother trying to come up with something like that when 99% of the population can't hear the difference?
Not everybody likes FLAC. Most people can't tell the difference between a 128kbps mp3 and the original CD - let alone with cheap earphones in a noisy environment. I'd MUCH rather have MusePack (Q7+) or plain 192kbps VBR mp3's onto a DVD (that's a LOT of tunes per disc)
Like several people already said... The hijacking doesn't seem to work with firefox (both links didn't hijack me at least, using v1.0)
Either ways, with new threats, new ways to hijack browsers, works-arounds for popup windows and what not appear, all browsers might need patching.
My "big" dish is a whole 20" (a 18" is big enough but only gets 1 sat), and I get common sat programming with it (same as I get my my normal "small dish" set top box). It does work perfectly anywhere in NA, you get hundreds of great channels. I don't get the shortwave radio analogy there. Of course it doesn't work with cable or rabit ears.
Hmm, wrong.
It CAN record HDTV stuff off DVB streams perfectly. What it doesn't do is analog captures or OTA. DirecTV doesn't isn't DVB, so that'll never work. As for DN, it does (still) work.
Eh? I've been recording HD contents with mine for quite a while (as MPEG2 TS), and same for OTA HD. Just because *YOU* only get HD thru cable doesn't mean it's worthless for everybody.
Hmm, you're wrong (unless you're just talking about price here?). You can have any version of windows install unattended (and it's so simple ANYBODY can figure it out, even those who couldn't spell linux).
Then with your windows box, unzip your preconfigured DVB app (mytheatre, progdvb, tons of them) and usually that's it. I have my preconfigured app as a WinRAR SFX. Copy it to a PC with a DVB card, bouble click it, and that's it-ready to use. (or better yet, make it install unattended with windows)
With linux, I'd still be reading the user manual.
I actually talked to someone who have been wanting to do that, and ship them preconfigured, in nice HTPC cases. Not sure if there is that much of a market for stuff that's readily available (cheap hardware and free software). He couldn't find any investors to get him started
It *does* work with DN. Not sure if VDR has the plugins to legally use a subbed smartcard (don't like VDR, and I even wonder why such old news are brought up). On windows, mytheatre or progdvb or several others can do that for you.
You're wrong. DVB-S *IS* for satellite. Been using it with north american sats for a few years already. What it won't work with is the couple sats companies not using DVB (DTV and *C), or "new" encoding like turbo coded 8PSK (I say new as they're starting to use it, but it's actually already obsolete)
Actually, it also works in north america (on windows at least) with the right mdplugins and a legit card. DirecTV doesn't use the DVB standard, so that'll never work. Once you try DVB caps, you never want to go back to a much lower quality analog capturing, with less detail, more blocks, bigger files, uncalibrated colors, crummy sound, expensive capture cards and all that good stuff I miss so much;) (and that's still if you don't use MCE, then you get the added fun of DRM and reboots). Still, I much prefer my satellite PVR box. No updates, no BSODs, no setup, no codecs, none of that stuff to put up with. You even get a working remote with nice TV guide out of the box...
I work for a very well recognized agency, and I always found it funny how the people whose first and only spoken language is english always turn to me for the spelling of simple words on a daily basis. Scary.
AdBlock wouldn't be if there wasn't a need for it. Google text ads are fine, but it's the rest of flashy intrusive ads for casinos and other scum that's all over the web that got us to that point.
So I'll leave the watching and clicking ads no IE users;)
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Funny how my maxtors never seem to fail (and afaik, lots ship on xbox'es and tivos w/o major returns), yet I've had soooo many WDs fail it's not even funny. (Worst thing after the class-action-lawsuit causing Fujitsu's). Seagates aren't that bad.
I have to say that more than ever, I see people sticking to their old computers and toys that just do what they need... (or upgrading to faster but used computers, or cheap electronics)
Actually, one of the things I noticed about this Giant-Antispyware is the number of false positives. On some systems it found a half dozen of them (things like VNC and such). Also the slowest, high memory usage, and last I tried, cancelling a scan doesn't let you delete what was found on the partial scan.
Most likely they'll charge for this product, whereas it's completely unnecessary if you use firefox and IE and don't install apps like Gator and such.
There are tons of people who don't like .Net, and the issues related to the whole .Net technology is FAR beyond the scope of any /. post. If you actually ever tried making real use out of it, you would see lots of problems, or perhaps you've never used it? We're a whole department who decided to get away from it, and we're not the only ones (read the other posts for other examples). As for PHP, if you had actually understood my post, you'd see I didn't suggest it for his purposes, I said that it was one of the things we're moving to (instead of ASP or ASP.Net) but that was too hard to understand I suppose...
.NET has a couple nice things, but overall, I absolutely despise it - and that's coming from a long time developper on windows only. I still prefer ASP over ASP.NET (that's sad, isn't it?). Next logical step for me isn't anymore "upgrading" to .NET - it's doing the switch for good. I've had it with them. Out with Win/IIS/SQL server - Moving to Apache (PHP, J2EE, ...) on a *nix box for good in the near future.
And J2EE is a lot more portable (can be hosted on whatever you want, lower costs and maint than a windows box imho)
I used to be a hardcode MS fan, but I guess I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel...
I must say I used to do that analog capturing stuff, but even with the top cards, the quality is very sub-par compared to DVB capturing. You loose a lot doing non-prefect mpeg decoding, then passed thru cheap DACs, filters, wiring (and interferences), more filters, ADC (crappy sampling), on-the-fly (not very efficient) encoding... You just loose too much quality, even with much higher file sizes. DVB just works, 100% quality - no loss at all, small file sizes, cpu loads around 1%... It's just all around better. The only thing is, of course you need to have some DVB streams available (I use DVB-S), it won't do a thing for crappy analog cable or the like (I don't know anyone who still uses that).
If not, I'd get a satellite set-top box/PVR dealie. For 300$ cdn, you get one with a 80gb HD in it. It works *out of the box*. No OS install, no patching/upgrading/rebooting, no drivers needed, no setting up the remote control manually for your apps, no codecs required, no PVR software to install, no BSODs, none of that - plug it and it works. And just like DVB capturing, it's lossless (they both record the mpeg from the transportstream).
I've given up on analog capturing about 4 years ago, and I'm NEVER going back to that. I'd do OTA as well if there broadcasts in my area.
Actually, the C3 isn't super fast, but not quite that slow either. Perhaps it's that slow for you because it's getting too hot? Makes me wonder if the laptop you have doesn't have problems or if it's just bad engineering. As for buying an old P3 laptop, the CPU will not really be any faster, the only REAL difference you'll get is: a old/used/worn laptop with no warranty, usually half that memory, much less HD space, no USB2, and in most cases a pretty much dead battery. If you can shell out a bit more, yes, you can get something refurb that's actually pretty good. Good specs (including a working battery!), good price, and a (small) warranty.
Wal-Mart actually has one of the lowest profit margins of all companies, and the OS is very cheap as well. So that means most of the price actually goes to the hardware. There are no refurb parts, and if you had actually read anything, you'd see it uses a VIA C3. As was pointed out before, it beats paying the same for a used P3 laptop with maybe half the memory and less than half the HD, because that's all you'd get at that price otherwise. It has no burner, but it has ethernet... Still good for the price.
Next firmware will probably lock out ogg er... Nevermind ;)
Most people are happy with low bitrate mp3 quality, so why bother trying to come up with something like that when 99% of the population can't hear the difference?
Not everybody likes FLAC. Most people can't tell the difference between a 128kbps mp3 and the original CD - let alone with cheap earphones in a noisy environment. I'd MUCH rather have MusePack (Q7+) or plain 192kbps VBR mp3's onto a DVD (that's a LOT of tunes per disc)
Like several people already said... The hijacking doesn't seem to work with firefox (both links didn't hijack me at least, using v1.0) Either ways, with new threats, new ways to hijack browsers, works-arounds for popup windows and what not appear, all browsers might need patching.
I'm using 1.0 and wasn't hijacked with either links...
My "big" dish is a whole 20" (a 18" is big enough but only gets 1 sat), and I get common sat programming with it (same as I get my my normal "small dish" set top box). It does work perfectly anywhere in NA, you get hundreds of great channels. I don't get the shortwave radio analogy there. Of course it doesn't work with cable or rabit ears.
Hmm, wrong. It CAN record HDTV stuff off DVB streams perfectly. What it doesn't do is analog captures or OTA. DirecTV doesn't isn't DVB, so that'll never work. As for DN, it does (still) work.
Eh? I've been recording HD contents with mine for quite a while (as MPEG2 TS), and same for OTA HD. Just because *YOU* only get HD thru cable doesn't mean it's worthless for everybody.
It won't work with rogers cable. And a USB video card? Perhaps you mean capture card or DVB card? I've never seen a USB video card before.
Hmm, you're wrong (unless you're just talking about price here?). You can have any version of windows install unattended (and it's so simple ANYBODY can figure it out, even those who couldn't spell linux). Then with your windows box, unzip your preconfigured DVB app (mytheatre, progdvb, tons of them) and usually that's it. I have my preconfigured app as a WinRAR SFX. Copy it to a PC with a DVB card, bouble click it, and that's it-ready to use. (or better yet, make it install unattended with windows) With linux, I'd still be reading the user manual.
I actually talked to someone who have been wanting to do that, and ship them preconfigured, in nice HTPC cases. Not sure if there is that much of a market for stuff that's readily available (cheap hardware and free software). He couldn't find any investors to get him started
It *does* work with DN. Not sure if VDR has the plugins to legally use a subbed smartcard (don't like VDR, and I even wonder why such old news are brought up). On windows, mytheatre or progdvb or several others can do that for you.
You're wrong. DVB-S *IS* for satellite. Been using it with north american sats for a few years already. What it won't work with is the couple sats companies not using DVB (DTV and *C), or "new" encoding like turbo coded 8PSK (I say new as they're starting to use it, but it's actually already obsolete)
Actually, it also works in north america (on windows at least) with the right mdplugins and a legit card. DirecTV doesn't use the DVB standard, so that'll never work. Once you try DVB caps, you never want to go back to a much lower quality analog capturing, with less detail, more blocks, bigger files, uncalibrated colors, crummy sound, expensive capture cards and all that good stuff I miss so much ;) (and that's still if you don't use MCE, then you get the added fun of DRM and reboots). Still, I much prefer my satellite PVR box. No updates, no BSODs, no setup, no codecs, none of that stuff to put up with. You even get a working remote with nice TV guide out of the box...
I work for a very well recognized agency, and I always found it funny how the people whose first and only spoken language is english always turn to me for the spelling of simple words on a daily basis. Scary.
AdBlock wouldn't be if there wasn't a need for it. Google text ads are fine, but it's the rest of flashy intrusive ads for casinos and other scum that's all over the web that got us to that point. So I'll leave the watching and clicking ads no IE users ;)
You know where to find the power button, don't you?