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5526

Unfinished Requests / Re: One word, three dictionaries

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 18, 2010, 05:05 PM »

Using the keyword dictionary instead of definition worked for me.  Or the word defined.

If you wanted to search specific dictionaries then you may be able to cobble something together with a macro to open new tab, then use site:merriam-webster.com word or site:thefreedictionary.com sesquipedalian etc..

btw looks like wraith is doing the tough part.  Gleaning the results. It will be interesting to see the implementation.  Should be a useful tool.

5527

General Software Discussion / Re: BD Rebuilder Beta 0.36.03

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 18, 2010, 01:18 PM »

See link in first post.  Some new goodies include hidden option to set HCencode profile to FAST NORMAL or BEST.  New versions of x264 etc..

5528

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 06:32 PM »

btw on the audio sync issues.. one "trick" I use is to make sure all my stand-alone dvd players can play both PAL and NTSC.  When I do a conversion I don't change the frame rate. If it's 25 fps I make a PAL dvd. Otherwise I make an NTSC dvd.

5529

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 05:10 PM »

Ugh...I'm trying to avoid multi step, multi software things.  I'll stick with FAVC until I have issues, then I'll probably just give up.  I don't do this that often.
I'm just surprised there aren't better one-click solutions out there.  I figure this is a very common thing people run into.  I know people always have videos on their computer, and they'd love to watch it on their regular tv, so a one click solution would be great for that.  i really liked AShampoo's attempt, if it just worked.
More programs like MakeMkv should come out.  one click, no fuss solutions.

-superboyac (November 15, 2010, 03:44 PM)

I would say with FAVC just check the run time matches the run time of the input.
For example if you have an .avi file as source, use MediaInfo and check the run time.
If it's 1 hour 46 minutes 20 seconds, and so is the play time of the dvd, all should be well.
Move the slider of the software player to near the end of the movie to make sure you still have audio all the way through. If it passes those tests then it should be a clean conversion.

Also note that AvsToDVD has had a revision or 2 since the last time I tried it.  Maybe the audio issues have been resolved.  I tried using the setting to do audio with QuEnc to avoid the aften issue, but I got the crap outs anyway. I just gave up out of frustration.

5530

Living Room / Re: Is "Quick Format" safe?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 05:02 PM »

If you change the partition type I highly recommend the full format.  I've had experience with USB keys changing from FAT32 to NTFS or vice/versa where copying data on gave no error.  But reading it back "ran out of file" at some point.  When formatting the file system type for the first time I'd say always do the full format.  The quick format amounts to a quick erase.

5531

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 04:55 PM »

Everyone has their own schemes.  I did the "small system partition" with programs and data on other partitions in the past.  Seems though, even Microsoft programs want to stick some shared something or other on C: making it difficult to predict how small is too small.

When doing that I did have Partition Magic that made it easy to steal space from the next partition if I needed to.  Now I'm more inclinded to only partition if I'm going to boot another OS and keep data on external drives.  I get the system HD < 30% usage by the time I back up. Makes restores and defrags faster. Life simpler.

I guess each person's feeling will vary with their experience.  Try a setup for awhile and see how you like it is all I can suggest. If you want to multi-partition I'd check out something like Partition Wizard as it can do more than the Windows built-in storage management.

There's something to be said for inertia. The way it is now boots so it might not be so bad.

5532

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 03:40 PM »

When you back up a partition with Macrium, chances are good when you restore it's going to overwrite the partition table.  Once you stabilize the partition scheme I would do another backup right away and throw out the old one(or at lease annotate the fact it was from the old partition scheme.)

It may be possible to restore without hosing your partitions but if something can go wrong chances are good it will, esp. when doing disaster recovery.

5533

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 03:31 PM »

I used AvsToDVD myself for awhile. I ran into too many issues with audio processing crapping out.

For DVD output from a single file I got to using HCgui manually. If the audio is fine as is, such as .ac3 I just demux the audio and save the .ac3 file.  Then I do video processing with HCgui to get .m2v file. Use DVDAuthorGui to make a dvd from the .m2v and .ac3.

Only thing is you need to use a bit rate calculator to fit the output into a dvd5 or dvd9.  But it's not difficult:

http://www.videohelp.../bitrate-calculators

Many programs insist on processing the .ac3 even when you tell them not to.  Very annoying when it craps out while doing so(aften.)

If he resolved the audio issues it would be a nice app.  I think it's difficult for front ends that use aften. Seems to be something difficult to predict about it or I'm just very unlucky.

5534

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 12:27 PM »

It would be nice if I could get $5.  A lot of sites you can't even put your URL in your sig unless everything on the site for download is free. If you use the Paypal donation button on a lot of sites you may see it has an email associated with it with the ID of [email protected] because the person originally thought they would be able to sell the stuff.  When you find the barriers then you try to at least get a donation here and there.

It's tough to sell software on internet unless it's something that helps get other stuff free. Like a binary news reader.  Most categories there's so much freeware, unless you have some white knight backer, you can't compete. How can you charge when the other guy gives it away?

5535

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 12:18 PM »

yes nice but i think Nero software is good for write video file in dvd

-johnmarsh (November 15, 2010, 02:37 AM)

I bought Nero Burning Rom Ultra v. 6.

After awhile though, the assumptions it makes starts to get in the way if you do a lot of video and learn more about how you want to put things together. It assumes you want to take sources and get a DVD.  For example, if you just want to burn a data dvd with a bunch of .avi files on it because your DVD player can play .avi and .divx, you may find it insists on trying to convert each file to a dvd title and so tells you it can't fit them all on one disk.

There are lots of different tools and no one "best" for most things.  In fact on some forums they have rules against asking "what's the best..." because it starts too many arguments. If you keep doing it, they ban you.

Nothing wrong with using Nero if it fits your needs for the most part. Only thing it has some quirks that make it less likely to peacefully coexist with other burning tools. Every time I installed it the first thing I did was make sure I got rid of InCD.  Totally useless software. Just burn an erasable as if it was a CDR if you want to use erasables for data. You'll see on a lot of forums if somebody has a burning issue and they have Nero the first question asked is, "do you have InCD installed?"  Removing it is 90% of the fixes.

I liked Nero when I was burning SVCD discs. The menu tool was very easy to use and the best I knew about at the time.  It's not a bad way to start.  Trouble with video is you can mess with it for years and still not know that much about the file formats and I-frames and all the rest of it unless you are writing software that reads those files or are very heavy into using AviSynth filters or something. It's a deep subject and a pita generally.

5536

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 12:12 PM »

Miles, I finished that FAVC dvd i was making, and it was great.  That's super easy and nice.  I love it.  I'm going to stick with that unless there's something obviously better.  I hate to get all Apple on people here, but FAVC "just works".  You pick your video files, edit the titles if you choose, and press the button.  Seriously.

Miles is all over those forums, I keep seeing your avatar.  Good stuff, thanks for all the help.

-superboyac (November 15, 2010, 08:55 AM)

Sure thing. One proviso on FAVC, I would check the Keep box in the Working Files. I don't know why, but every now and then it doesn't finish the DVD authoring.  Sometimes I get a dvd that's a few minutes short.  So check your output. Most of the time if it's broken, you can just take the video and audio files(the .m2v and .ac3) from the Working Files and use an authoring program like DVDAuthorGui to save your work.

Seems like I'd get that maybe 1 run out of 10.  But then I tend to have worse luck than most.  Hopefully it will work for you 99% of the time.

5537

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA for windows collect and resize

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2010, 02:04 AM »

I would look here and see if anyone has something close. You may be able to use their source as a starting point:

http://www.autohotke...8232d717df7a10821c54

Generally unless something is just an explorer window, I'm not a believer in resizing other people's program windows.  Often the controls turn into a mess, or they ignore size messages anyway(perhaps with the exception of editors and browsers which tend to expect to be sized to user preference. But often dialog based apps you'll end up with the controls occupying the same area if you size it larger, with just a colored panel out to the window border.  Looks really stupid.)

If there are free grid/resize/reposition apps around they should be on AutoHotKey forum or perhaps AutoIt3 scripts:

http://www.autoitscr...m/9-example-scripts/

Also I don't see the functional difference between laying out how you want a bunch of messenger windows and saving the layout with a rules based program that will duplicate the result when the windows are present, and hitting a hotkey that calculates it.  Seems to be a distinction without a difference.

5538

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA for windows collect and resize

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 14, 2010, 09:23 PM »

Have you looked at this free program?

http://www.softpedia...Layout-Manager.shtml

I haven't tried it myself but from the description it sounds like you could arrange things how you want and save the layout.

Also NirCmd has a 'win' command you can use to move windows around and resize them.  It would probably take some experimentation with partial window title matches to tune a batch file to move however many matching windows were open.. but it might work.

Also there's bound to be other freeware similar on Softpedia if you search. Window placement utilities are one of the more common freewares I would guess.

5539

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera's secret weapon

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 13, 2010, 11:05 PM »

Internet is getting like driving a car with a stick shift and manual wiper blades in a snow storm.  The crap just keeps obstructing the view!

5540

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 13, 2010, 11:02 PM »

The batch requirement is usually the fly in the ointment.

I haven't experimented much with "convert from any to any" type apps. So my suggestions would be highly dependent on the input.

Another program that has easy menu creation is
SVCD2DVD. It's not free.  Around $20 last time I checked.
The menu maker is fun to use.  You can choose background image.
Just take any image and save it as .jpg 720x576. I have some fractal
flames I made that are good for backgrounds.

SVCD2DVD is ffmpeg based. I tend to favor apps that use HC encode for DVD output.  Although DVD Flick is not bad and pretty easy to use.

If your input is BluRay I recommend BD Rebuilder. It can now output standard DVD, mkv or a compressed disc structure. It's free and gives good results.

I would look on videohelp.com for "batch adapters"
I think some guy named Superman made one for HC encode.
I didn't mess around with it enough to figure it out though.

5541

General Software Discussion / Re: SRWare Iron 5.0.380 beta browser

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 13, 2010, 06:35 PM »

There was a bug report on Chromium that google searches created a unique identifier "on the fly" to get the data they want even if you erased the unique ID in the install directory by using a utility.

Supposedly the way it goes is "Chrome" is a "branded browser" so it's ok for them to use this unique ID, but "chromium" is a "non-branded browser" so it's not supposed to do such nasties.

http://code.google.c...sues/detail?id=51693


The above link is the bug report that chromium was doing the same thing as chrome.  Somebody forgot to disable it apparently.  Supposedly it's fixed now.  

I guess the moral of the story is don't search google unfiltered.

5542

General Software Discussion / Re: Filter directory tree by file type?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 12, 2010, 01:59 PM »

Is there any program that can take a file type and return a list of directories that contain files of that type?

-JennyB (November 07, 2010, 07:33 PM)

Except for all the special programs already mentioned, I will like to remind you that Explorer does this per default. Just type .TheFiletype in Explorer's search box, when you are in a top directory, and the result will include all relevant files in every sub-folder in that directory. The speed of the result depends on whether you have indexing turned on or off.

-Curt (November 12, 2010, 07:35 AM)

I never thought to try that.  Here's a weirdy though. I typed in .txt in the Address Bar by mistake and it opened a tab in Chromium telling me it could not find the web site!!!  heh heh heh

When I used the search with .txt it found the text files though.

5543

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 12, 2010, 01:48 PM »

No matter which imaging program you want to use, the first thing I would do is make the Boot CD.  Then power your machine down.  Power up, put in the CD, make sure your external drive is already connected and has power.  Boot from the CD.

When you get into the Restore Program, make sure it can see your HD and the external drive.  If you have an unsupported disk controller, usually you won't even be able to see the drives.

If you had a proven method of restoring I'd suggest actually doing a backup and restore to test it.  But if you don't have a fall back restore it's a bit risky.  My situation was I had one imaging program I was sure worked.. until I tried to actually use it.  Turns out on this machine it would only restore in "compatibility mode" meaning 9 hours instead of 45 minutes.  Still, I knew it would do it in 9 hours, so when I switched to Macrium I actually tested the backup and restore of my system partition.

Chances are your disk controller is pretty vanilla. But assumptions have a way of leading to unpleasant surprises.  You need to burn the Boot CD anyway.  Testing the boot should take less than an hour. If the Restore Program gives off some kind of message about "compatibility mode" being required, try another software. You don't want to be forced into overnight restores when an hour or two would do.

5544

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 12, 2010, 01:55 AM »

For the OP I think an imaging program and an external USB will be useful with little in the way of learning curve.  Make a boot CD. Do a backup.  Done.

5545

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 11, 2010, 06:49 PM »

VirtualBox is nice.  Also you can use vLite to create an XP install CD with some of the stuff, like games, stripped off.  You can set it to automatically fill in the product key.  Makes for a smoother install.  Just be conservative what you strip out. If you try to take out things like IE it may install, but not run correctly.

The XP install CD made with vLite is handy for doing VirtualBox installs.

The trouble with vLite is it doesn't package your currently installed programs. Just the Windows stuff.  But there are other scripting tools that will create an install CD or DVD with your favorite programs already set up.  But the hassle is testing the scripts. (Another case for VirtualBox. You can test your installs without actually creating a partition.)

You can find out just about anything to do with custom booting here:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/

5546

General Software Discussion / Re: After re-installing XP - what?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 11, 2010, 01:14 PM »

If you can afford docking stations and/or external USB drives, the simplest is to make a backup image using a program like Macrium Reflect or Paragon Software or one of the other imaging programs.

If the machine becomes unbootable, or you just want to go back, you boot from CD and restore an image from the external drive.  Some will also restore over network if you have networked drives.

On my systems I installed a USB 3.0 card.  It gives you 2 USB ports.  I plug in a USB 3.0 docking station and just stick an internal drive into the dock.  USB 3.0 is fast.  I have WD Caviar Black 6 Gbs and 3 Gbs internal drives I use in the docks.  By keeping a lot of data on these I can keep my system disks lean enough that I can clean 'em up a bit with CCleaner, defrag, then have greater than 70% free space. I back up that image.  Even from a USB 2.0 drive you can restore in less than an hour if you keep your system drives lean.

I haven't had to restore from USB 3.0 yet. I have to make a WinPE boot with the USB 3.0 driver to get the speed. (But I have USB 2.0 docks in case of emergency.)

For the additional storage it depends how  you want to set up. If you want everything in the tower you may want to use some of those drive adapters that let you can plug drives in like sliding in a drawer. I don't mind having docks all over my desk so I went with docking stations. Or you can do NAT networked externals etc..

But the simplest with no messing around is, back up the image to USB 2.0 external drive.  Make a boot CD.  You can try a new OS. I put Windows Seven Beta on my Vista machine, tried Windows Seven 64 bit.  Didn't like it.  Put the Vista64 that came with the machine back on.  Using the images and Macrium Reflect.

The main thing is make sure the restore program on the boot CD can see your HD and the external drive when you boot it.  If you have a Raid driver or some other unusual hardware you can get an unpleasant surprise when you go to restore.

They are easy to use once you've done one.  If you have an expendable machine or know someone with a guinea pig machine, you could do a backup and restore just to see how it goes.  When your machine won't boot the mood is usually one that hampers thinking. You don't want to figure it out then.  If you've done a run through, then you have confidence you can fix it.

Also if you can afford more than one external or use the approach that allows you to remove internal drives, it's a good idea to keep a backup image not connected to the machine. If you get a virus that spreads across your Lan you can disinfect, then hook up the external that wasn't connected to get a safe restore.

For free backup programs for imaging you can try:
http://www.thefreeco...backupandimage.shtml

5547

General Software Discussion / Re: pin a document to start menu

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 10, 2010, 06:28 PM »

Right clikc and pin to start menu is not an option for me.  It wasn't in my recently used list but it is now and still doesn't show up.  I have tried to drag it to the start menu and it doesn't work either even if it is a shortcut.

What i found on google were the same suggestions that you have given.  I know I have done this before and I think I just dragged it there but doesn't work now.

-techidave (November 10, 2010, 02:57 PM)

Perhaps it was only programs but I seem to remember dragging shortcuts onto the Start Menu Icon as far back as Win98.  If your data file opens the program by file type association then create the batch file
StartyMyDoc.cmd

in it put
@echo off
start mydoc.doc

or whatever the name of the document is.
Drag a shortcut to the .cmd file onto quick launch. If that doesn't work, I give up.

5548

General Software Discussion / Re: pin a document to start menu

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 10, 2010, 02:50 PM »

I think even in old versions of Windows if you drag a file to the Start Menu icon on the Taskbar, you get a shortcut in the Start Menu popup list. It may fall off after awhile. I'm not sure if it's permanent or MRU or even MFU.  A lot of Windows stuff is frequency rather than recency.  Which is the impetus for most of my utilities it seems.

Also in XP I believe you could make a shortcut to the document on the desktop.  Drag that to the Quick Launch Bar.  Then delete the desktop shortcut.  One click on the Quick Launch icon would bring it up.

5549

General Software Discussion / Re: BD Rebuilder Beta 0.36.02

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 10, 2010, 12:02 PM »

Among other fixes in this release, is the dvd output size calculation.

See link in first post.  Also you can quickly get to latest changes here:

http://www.videohelp...m/tools/BD_Rebuilder

edit: I did a run outputting to standard dvd5.  The size was about 4.2 GB instead of 4.02. I'll be curious to see how subs are handled in a future update.  I put in a feature request for a "hidden option" to set HCencode to Best Profile.  The author said he'd include it in a future release.  Just for an experiment I used HCgui manually and created the same dvd5 I did with BDRB only with Best Profile.  It might be just a tad better on color for things deep in the shot(people at a distance for example) but close-ups I can't see any difference.

5550

General Software Discussion / Re: Transpose 1.3.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 09, 2010, 05:36 PM »

btw for those using Chromium nightly builds or latest betas, Control-Shift Click got broken at some point. I submitted a bug report.  Rather than opening a link in a new Tab in the foreground, the tab opens in the background.  On my machines I backed off to Chromium build 63747 to get that functionality back. I don't know what build introduced the bug.  But I know 63747 works.

Naturally if the native Control-Shift Click does not work, mapping Control Click to it won't work either.  Hopefully they will fix the bug soon.

edit: as of build 66067 open new Tab in Foreground is still broken. I'm tired of downloading and trying it. I'll just keep using 63747 build. I got an update saying it was fixed in a build I already tried a week ago. It's not fixed.  Evidently it's the fix mechanism itself that's broken.