Recent Posts

1026

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by Innuendo on April 18, 2010, 12:34 PM »

I also assume that if off-the-shelf computers actually work with an operating system it didn't ship with, it's merely coincidental.

-daddydave (April 13, 2010, 11:35 AM)

I have to give respect to Dell in that regard. I had a Dell XPS Gen 4 and a Dell 8400 system over here & they both came with Windows XP. When the time came I upgraded them both to Vista with no problems. Later, when the time came again I upgraded them both to Windows 7 with no problems.

There were no weird drivers in either PC, either. Every piece of hardware could be upgraded by using the drivers off of the component manufacturer's web site.

1027

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 17, 2010, 08:18 PM »

LOL, I'm also curious what Innuendo's DVD Rebuilder log files indicate on the total Rebuild Time.

-sajman99 (April 17, 2010, 01:53 PM)

I always delete that out of habit. Next encode I do I'll try to remember to take screenshots & not delete the log.

Don't know about 8 instances of HCenc all open on the desktop, though. DVD-RB has always opened them minimized. Don't know off-hand if I can change that.

1028

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 17, 2010, 08:16 PM »

Even if you have a set top box that plays .mkv you have to make some decisions about storage.  If a stack of Sata drives in a cabinet is an option that's cool.

-MilesAhead (April 16, 2010, 11:55 PM)

Storage isn't a problem. I don't have tons, but my PC has 2 TB of storage in it & a NAS with two 1.5 TB drives in it. Never mind that that's all nearly full because I'm a packrat of epic proportions, though....

1029

General Software Discussion / Re: Process Tamer speeds up my games & internet speed!

« Last post by Innuendo on April 17, 2010, 08:12 PM »

Go and look at sites like www.blackviper.com to see which services can be disabled.

-Shades (April 17, 2010, 11:32 AM)

I love Black Viper's site. His advice has brought in quite a lot of money for me when I have to fix what his advice broke on clients' PCs.

1030

Skrommel's Software / Re: Noise - AVG and McAfee hate it

« Last post by Innuendo on April 17, 2010, 08:08 PM »

Can't you mark them as exclusions so they are not flagged as malware?

1031

General Software Discussion / Re: Outpost 7 BETA-testers wanted

« Last post by Innuendo on April 17, 2010, 08:06 PM »

I've been beta-testing since Beta 1 and v7 is really shaping up to be a powerful piece of security software.

I'd encourage everyone who isn't happy with what they have to give it a try.

1032

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 16, 2010, 09:33 PM »

I haven't seen any development on DVD-RB in quite awhile.  I think most people are just burning to DVD9.  Seems Dobbs has moved on to BluRay.

-MilesAhead (April 16, 2010, 07:02 PM)

Dobbs has stated that just about all the features possible are implemented & all bugs fixed. It's not that he has moved on, but DVD-RB is feature complete. He did say he wanted to release another version sometime soon to take advantage of some new features in HCenc, though.

If you get 'em from an online outlet like SuperMediaStore $1.33 ea for 8x DL isn't all that outrageous.

No, that's not outrageous, but when you can get DVD5s for $.25 each, though....

Also if you start with an HD resolution .mkv most of the time you don't want to shrink down to DVD5.

I don't have an HDTV as of yet & if I did in order for .mkv to be attractive to me there'd have to be set-top boxes that can read the format. I haven't shopped online for one yet, though.

1033

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 16, 2010, 06:56 PM »

DVD Rebuilder Free (which I have) and DVD Rebuilder Pro work a bit differently, but I too would guess there's no compatibility issue updating the HC .exe.

-sajman99 (April 16, 2010, 01:10 PM)

I was fortunate enough to stumble across DVD Rebuilder before it hit v1.0 & Mr. Dobbs was generous enough to give anyone a Pro license with a contribution as little as $10. I jumped on it.

I've found HCenc to be excellent at low bitrate encoding, and I've been able to put 2.5-2.75 hour retail movies on a DVD5. Granted I don't have a gigantic screen HD TV, but the HC encodes look very nice on my modest equipment.

Same here...don't have an HDTV yet. Still waiting for the technological advances to stabilize a bit. Right now anything you buy is made near obsolete by the next year's models.

1034

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 16, 2010, 11:14 AM »

I don't use DVD-RB much now since I have DVD9 burners.

-MilesAhead (April 15, 2010, 10:12 PM)

I don't think I have ever seen a burner (at least not for years and years) that could not burn a DVD9. I mostly go for DVD5s because the blank discs are exponentially cheaper than DVD9 blanks.

Only thing with DVD-RB it's tough to make a small test case since if it fits in a DVD5 it doesn't want to process it.

If it fits in a DVD5 already why would you want/need to process it? I've seen some retail movies that top out at 5.5-6.5 GB, though. They'd be an exellent small test case.

1035

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 15, 2010, 09:13 PM »

edit: not sure what's up with HCenc_024_SSE4.exe.
But the gui shows SSE4 not available on my quad core.
Maybe it's an Intel i7 only thingy?

-MilesAhead (April 15, 2010, 06:35 PM)

Your processor should support SSE4.1. Intel i7 processors support SSE4.2. I don't know if HCenc_024_SSE4.exe requires SSE4.2 or not.

Found this info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE4


Wonder if the new HCenc beta (SSE4 or not) is drop-in compatible with DVD Rebuilder Pro? Anyone know?

1036

General Software Discussion / Re: Any upload hash checking/comparing software?

« Last post by Innuendo on April 14, 2010, 09:34 PM »

Globalscape or Rhino software (?) has the feature you want, but you have to be running their software on both ends of the transfer (their FTP server & their FTP client) so I doubt that option would work for you.

1037

Living Room / Re: How do you rip your DVD collection? (I want to know)

« Last post by Innuendo on April 14, 2010, 09:29 PM »

Is there any set-top box type device that can play mkv files?

1038

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 14, 2010, 09:21 PM »

So far I've done 3 or 4 encodes with the new HC beta and haven't noticed anything weird with 2 pass.

-MilesAhead (April 13, 2010, 01:34 AM)

I've always done the 2 pass. Maybe I should try the 1 pass once and do a comparison.

1039

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 11:31 PM »

I like my WD set top box but the real piss off is they abandoned the 1st generation box(which is what I have) and pretty much said, "well, if the stuff you don't like ain't fixed in the Nov 2009 firmware update, guess you got to buy Gen. 2."  That's really annoying.

-MilesAhead (April 12, 2010, 11:28 AM)

The time has come to start looking for a replacement for my current set-top box for playing AVIs and the like. I guess WD is off the list if that's how they are going to treat their customers.

Seriously, there are many old comments still floating around about how slow HCenc is. To give credit where credit is due, the HCenc developer hank315 has really improved (in both speed and quality) his encoder in the last few years.

-sajman99 (April 12, 2010, 03:13 PM)

At the risk of sounding like a video encoding snob, anyone who says HCenc is slow doesn't know the difference between an encoder and a transcoder. I won't bore everyone with technical mumbo-jumbo, but the long & short of it is that if one cares about video quality one encodes & doesn't transcode. HCenc is just as fast as any other encoder on the market (if not faster) while yielding results that are as good as (and often better) than its competition.

Yup.  Just back in the Feb. beta I noticed about a 5% increase in throughput over the previous beta.  Plus the default is to run at idle priority.  If you are leaving the machine to just process video you might as well bump it up to at least Normal setting.

-MilesAhead (April 12, 2010, 03:48 PM)

And here my experiment was with HCenc left at the default idle priority & the default version that's installed with the latest DVD Rebuilder Pro. Guess I need to update HCenc as that version has to be over a year old that I was using.

1040

General Software Discussion / Re: Alternatives to Daemon Tools?

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 11:08 PM »

I only have one nag about MagicDisc: it doesn't reset current working directory, even when you unmount an ISO file. This means you have to mount a new .iso (or shut down the tray icon app) if you want to delete the folder you have recently mounted an ISO from.

-f0dder (April 12, 2010, 02:49 PM)

Agreed. It was one of the few things that put me off of using the program regularly, but considering all the functionality that you get for free for a lot of people this one bug might be worth putting up with in order to enjoy all the functionality.

1041

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: FREE Ashampoo Burning Studio 2009

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 11:04 PM »

One other disadvantage of Ashampoo is that once you get one of their products, you'll be bombarded with emails offering you upgrades, other products, ad nauseum.

-cyberdiva (April 12, 2010, 06:18 PM)

Oh man...words do not exist that would allow me to agree to your statement as fully & completely as I wish I could! I signed up for a free Ashampoo offer *once*. It was well over a year before the spam deluge stopped.

1042

Living Room / Re: How do you rip your DVD collection? (I want to know)

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 08:25 AM »

It all depends on what you want to do, superboyac. If you are just going to be sitting in front of your PC watching movies your choices are wide open. If you are wanting to have a solution that you can watch on your TV then the choices get a lot more limited & you may need to buy a piece of equipment to hook up to your TV. If you are wanting a solution that can be played on anyone's TV & equipment your choices dwindle to very few.

So what's your perceived scope of use? That will let us know what to suggest.

(And on the topic of MP3s vs. FLACs, for the most part I can't tell the difference, but there are certain songs that have complex enough 'sound' that every lossy format exhibits audio artifacts so I went with FLAC myself for the purity. The other reason I went with FLAC was that this is a one-time ripping of my discs. Since FLAC is lossless I can convert to any other format without the loss I'd experience if I were to convert MP3s to a different format.)

1043

General Software Discussion / Re: HCenc beta

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 08:18 AM »

Last night I used DVD Rebuilder Pro (with HCenc) for the first time on my new PC. Coming from an old Prescott CPU I was amazed.

There were 8 (eight!) instances of HCenc running simultaneously chewing through that DVD like nobody's business. I'd tell you how long it took, but I forgot to look at the log when I was finished. I was still thunderstruck by how fast it all went.

Miles, I do agree all the 264 stuff is going to blow this DVD crap all the way, but I'm stuck with this and Divx till I can find a nice set-top box that can process x264 without keeling over from the load.

1044

General Software Discussion / Re: Alternatives to Daemon Tools?

« Last post by Innuendo on April 12, 2010, 08:12 AM »

I have tried every virtual disc program available & there are only two products in this category of software worth using, IMHO. Those two are Daemon Tools and MagicDisc. Every other virtual disc program leaves out support for half of the disc image formats that exist.

1045

Best Weather Monitor Tool / Re: Weather Watcher isn't freeware

« Last post by Innuendo on April 11, 2010, 12:37 PM »

You can still download the last free version at this address:  http://www.singerscr....php?f=67&t=3000

-DETerry (April 11, 2010, 11:58 AM)

Thanks for this. I have an older version of Weather Watcher on a PC here & was thinking I should update it to the latest freeware version, but I wasn't relishing the idea of having to track it down. You saved me a lot of work.

1046

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by Innuendo on April 11, 2010, 12:35 PM »

The one for the store I use most often also comes with check cashing privileges, so not only did the info I gave them have to match what is printed on my checks, I had to show them photo ID to prove it was mine.

-app103 (April 11, 2010, 11:19 AM)

I can see your point there. I had forgotten about check cashing privileges as the only checks I ever write any more are to pay my water bill and fortunately, I've heard that soon I'll be able to pay even that bill online & my checkbook will just sit and gather dust.

[/quote]I am sure the woman that bought a ton of plastic bags at her local supermarket because she was making sandwiches for the homeless didn't appreciate the cops showing up at her house with a search warrant looking for drugs.[/quote]

I'm sure the authorities also scan people's buying habits to see if they are buying any of the ingredients known to be used to manufacture drugs (meth and the like) as well.

The fact that she also bought a large quantity of bread, bologna, and cheese completely slipped past them at the time.

The authorities probably just thought she had a major case of the munchies. 

1047

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by Innuendo on April 11, 2010, 09:36 AM »

     Minds may change when you read Googles small print.
     My take is, that is exactly what Google knows you WON'T do.  "Analytics" is a nice way of saying what I was taught was "back end" data.

-1NR1 (April 11, 2010, 01:30 AM)

People think just because a form is put in front of them on the internet or at the grocery store (for those discount cards) that we are legally bound to answer the information truthfully. They are just forms, people, put before you trying to get you to disclose personal identifiable information so they can track you & what you do.

All these people who hand over their private lives to FaceBook & Google...if a stranger came up to them on the street and asked for their name, where they lived, and other personal questions, would they disclose the answers freely?

I know everyone's privacy rights are eroding, but just because 'they' want to know everything about you doesn't mean you have to help them by telling your personal info to any & all who ask for it.

1048

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by Innuendo on April 11, 2010, 09:27 AM »

Do you remember any sort of privacy policy when you filled out the form for that little key tag? I don't remember one. They don't tell you what data they are collecting about you or what they are doing with it, who they are selling it to, sharing it with, or anything else.

-app103 (April 11, 2010, 01:26 AM)

No, I don't remember there being a privacy policy when I signed up for mine. I don't remember the form saying I had to put down my real information so I made everything up & the cashier happily took it without checking my identification. 

In this modern day and age, privacy is an illusion. The only real privacy you have is in your mind (and only as long as you keep your thoughts in there and don't let them out)

True, there is a lot less personal privacy in today's world than there used to be, but what we do have we don't have to give up without a fight.

1049

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by Innuendo on April 10, 2010, 06:45 PM »

January  year (09) I have a computer 64 BIT (TOP OF THE LINE ? )
nothing work. Have to go back to to 32.
Pain in the ass to be in the frontline.

-Bjorn_Bear (April 10, 2010, 04:50 PM)

You may have had trouble in 2009, but running a 64-bit OS is hardly being on the 'front line' anymore. Every computer you can buy at the Big Box stores come with Win7 x64 anymore.

If, however, you are building your computer yourself a little research before buying your components will yield a happy experience with Windows 7 x64.

My only aggravation is my old CRT monitor doesn't have a 64-bit driver for it. 

1050

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Nitro PDF Pro v6 US $40

« Last post by Innuendo on April 10, 2010, 02:38 PM »

What do you use for PDF, Innuendo. Just curious is all.

-cmpm (April 10, 2010, 12:32 PM)

Well, I don't use anything for PDF...other than Foxit Reader. I have no need to create PDFs, only read them.

However, for those needing to create them, this certainly looks like it may be the way to go.