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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 05, 2009, 03:17 PM »

I haven't used one myself but I'm told you can get HDMI switches for < $30

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General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil free home edition with 64 bit support

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 04, 2009, 07:40 PM »

I downloaded but since I'm doing ok with Vista64 and image backups I think I'll let an "early adopter" be the guinea pig. 

If I don't see a lot of disaster outcry maybe I'll get curious enough to install.  As for the mechanism on 64 bit I think they are doing something similar to Disk Write Copy where they use the Shadow Copy service to clone your system partition when you activate the protection and hot switch to the clone.  Not the same as what Sandboxie does.  When you reboot the shadow clone is discarded.  Seems more of a disk protect, at least in the freebie version.

As a result I bet it requires quite a bit of free disk space since your system partition is still there but hidden away.

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What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 04, 2009, 07:33 PM »

For free converters going to standard DVD I recommend HC encoder and Guis that use it, and DVD Flick.

-MilesAhead (October 03, 2009, 07:18 PM)

Couldn't agree more with that. DVD Flick for ease-of-use and acceptable quality (ffmpeg encoder) and FAVC, AVStoDVD, DVD-RB etc. with HC Encoder for best quality--all for $0.00.

-sajman99 (October 04, 2009, 07:06 PM)

Every time I see a request for help with a line like "how come when I drag a 700 MB avi file onto Nero the output is 2.5 GB?" it brings me right back to buying my first CD burner. 

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General Software Discussion / Returnil free home edition with 64 bit support

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 04, 2009, 06:16 PM »

It claims both 32 and 64 bit support from XP all the way to W7:

http://www.returnilv...em.com/rvs-home-free

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General Software Discussion / Re: Any photo editor+viewer with notes?

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 04, 2009, 03:22 PM »

- and I haven't found any, myself. But thanks anyway, April - I'll stop searching for the end of that particular rainbow.

-Curt (October 04, 2009, 01:31 AM)

The Windows built-in "Tooltip" extension goes by file type.  I did one to comment downloads.  The supported extensions are mostly archive file formats for that reason.  For some reason I included .gif and .jpg .. but as noted, it's only one comment per file that pops up in the tooltip.  To do it something would have to import each image as a control or picture onto a toolbar, kind of like how Browser Chooser shows the name of the browser when you mouse hover the icon.  It has to be something that supports hotspots or each pic is a separate control.

edit: if you're curious you can take a look at my tooltip program:
http://www.favessoft.com/tipoff.html

Just as I got it perfected 64 bit is kind of killing it off.  You have to use a 32 bit Explorer instance to see the tooltips in Vista64 or 64 bit W7.  So it's kind of orphaned.

edit2: an aside, one thing lost going from WinHelp to HtmlHelp in Windows is the WinHelp supported hotspots.  For one of my programs I had a picture of a dialog box and mouse hover on each control showed tooltip text in the help.  A pretty cool feature. afaik there's no way to do it in HtmlHelp.. or at least no easy way.

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 04, 2009, 02:47 PM »

http://www.consumer....-dvp5996k_98/prd/za/ might be a better choice for the future, if you can afford this player.

-Curt (October 04, 2009, 03:51 AM)

Hmmmmm, it looks the same as my 5990 except they made the "region free" official instead of doing the remote hack.  For this and karaoke you pay double.  The 5990 has upscaling 1080p HDMI connection, has USB 2.0 port and plays .wmv.  Unless this player can play .mkv it looks like you are paying the penalty for not having to open the tray and enter a number sequence with the remote. It's the old "region free" gimmick, charging you for something that's already built in.

btw- the region code, once set to 0 is in non-volatile memory.  You don't have to reset it just because the power goes out for a bit.  Some other settings may revert to default but not that one.  Set it to 0 once and forget it.

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What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 03, 2009, 07:18 PM »

I'm not up on converting for portable devices and I don't have a means of playing BluRay or HD material.  I have been messing around for a bit converting to avi/divx/xvid that's playable on stand-alone players, and converting to standard DVD.

For free converters going to standard DVD I recommend HC encoder and Guis that use it, and DVD Flick.

For free conversion of mpg source to avi/xvid playable on stand-alone I recommend AutoGK.  The really nice thing about AutoGK is it will nearly always analyze and autocrop letter boxed mpg and create 16x9 xvid or divx output. If you have DVDs from the 1990s before 16x9 was prevalent that haven't been remastered to 16x9 often you can get results with AutoGK that looks quite good on an upscaling DVD player.

For cleaning up .avi source so you can play on stand-alone a good app is AviDemux 2.4 gtk gui version.  Get version 2.4 unless you are a stickler that everything must be 2 pass.  With AviDemux 2.4 (gtk win32 gui) you can often clean up .avi source by loading with all the automation settings checked(rebuild frames, make vbr map etc.) and just saving.  If the video actually needs to be encoded you can often get nice looking output using the xvid single pass bitrate 1500 kbps.  I say don't get the version 2.5 because they changed the settings on xvid one pass mode so you can no longer put the search precision at 6.  The results of one pass encoding now aren't worth doing imho.  Stay with 2.4.

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 03, 2009, 06:58 PM »

Here's a good resource for what Innuendo is talking about:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers

Reading through those listings I found "remote hacks" that worked with all of my Philips DVD Players and my OPPO.  Esp. being a fan of Asian films I was able to play a lot of DVDs I got from Hong Kong that were region 2 or 3.  It's also good to get a player that can handle both PAL and NTSC.  Saves doing a lot of conversions. The 5990 I mentioned can handle both formats. The only thing really missing is playing x264 or HD divx/avi/xvid  .. afaik it won't play anything with res larger than 720x576 PAL or 720x480 NTSC.

Although if you have an HD avi source or some other HD format source, often DVD Flick will make a really clean looking standard DVD from it... which the player will upconvert.  Not as nice as BluRay I'm sure but ok for people on a budget like myself.

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Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Tray icon stacking

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 03, 2009, 01:31 AM »

Also if you have Vista you can do this tweak to show Taskbar buttons as icons.  It eliminates the text and just leaves the icon. I use a double height taskbar with this tweak and most of the space is used by tray icons and quick launch.  The taskbar portion is mostly open space.  Gives it a bit of a Windows Seven look too. I run a lot of utilities in the tray also.  I just let them expand left into the taskbar space since most of it is empty.

Here's the link to the tweak:
http://www.vistax64....9-taskbar-icons.html

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 03, 2009, 01:22 AM »

I have the Philips dvp 5990.  It has the USB connector.  I haven't tried .mpg files but I've played .avi and .wmv from a USB key drive.  One of these days I have to reformat a 200 GB HD that I have in an enclosure to FAT32.  It doesn't seem to mind the key drive being NTFS but I'm told powered external USB drives should be formatted FAT32 to get the most use out of 'em with the player.

Also this player does a better job with subs than players I've had in the past.  Tonight I added idx/sub subtitles to an .avi with AviAddXSubs and it didn't bother it that there were 3 subtitles in the idx/sub set.  Even my old OPPO wanted to have a single subtitle in the idx/sub that was muxed in.

Supposedly this player is UltraDivx and will do menus and chapters, but I've never created a .divx with the menus to try it out.  I'm lazy and just use the file list that pops up.
 

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 02, 2009, 07:17 PM »

Thanks for the info.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinX DVD Ripper Platium - free for the rest of Sept.

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 02, 2009, 07:14 PM »

DVDFab lets you rip and convert. It also lets you rip to VIDEO_TS, direct to another DVD (both DVD5 and DVD9 and also transcode DVD9 to DVD5) and will even copy discs 'as is' maintaining the exact structure and protection of the source if you want it to.

-Carol Haynes (September 29, 2009, 06:48 PM)

I downloaded the latest beta. So far so good.

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 02, 2009, 04:32 PM »

btw sajman are you using the HC gui, batch or another gui or wrapper program with the 0.24 beta?  I'm looking around for easy to use front ends.  Right now I'm doing a job with AvsToDVD but it still seems to be set for HC 0.23.  Have you found any nice front ends for the latest?

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 02, 2009, 02:09 PM »

I really hope Mr. Odwin returns to update FAVC by incorporating the newest HC Encoder settings. If he does, I'll definitely be downloading as soon as possible.

I feel the same way.  I sent an email to the support address on the download page.  Got no bounce and no reply.  It's been over a month.  Looks like 1.07 is it.

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

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 01, 2009, 11:53 PM »

@MilesAhead: I hate to hear about FAVC's possible demise. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've used FAVC with HC encoder for the last year and never had any issue with it whatsoever.

-sajman99 (June 22, 2009, 04:10 PM)

btw have you tried FAVC HC with Predictive Quantization setting?  I've been using it a lot.  When in a hurry I used to do QuEnc but I'm finding this a good compromise between speed and quality.  The output looks almost as good as 2 pass HC but it's only a bit slower than a 1 pass.  It kind of skips around taking samples, then does a 1 pass encoding.  Going from low bitrate to higher such as when the input is .avi or .wmv it seems to give really good results.  Esp. too if the input is 720p .avi or .wmv the output DVD looks great.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Win7: Anyone else getting excited?

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 01, 2009, 05:56 PM »

Hmmmmmm, I'd be way more impressed if they could get rid of drive letters altogether!  I just wasted an hour with my network shares because my USB dock decided to come up in Windows7 as drives F: and G: instead of H: and I:.  Couldn't use Computer Management to shift 'em back because removable drives shifted over to take the letters I want.  That and spaces in file paths have to be the biggest time wasters in all of computing!!  Sheesh!!

The more it changes the more it remains the same.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Installers: "This may take several minutes."

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 01, 2009, 05:52 PM »

I swear I did not make it up.

Kind of like the weight lifter.  If he just picks that barbell right up over his head like nothin', well, big deal!!  Has to grunt 'n groan like he's bustin' his splean, make his face turn a bit red, then, Bingo!! He majestically hoists it!!!  Like the old gimmick where the circus strongman bends a bar, then his dumb blond assistant bends it back the way it should be before storing it in the container!!

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General Software Discussion / Re: Installers: "This may take several minutes."

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 01, 2009, 05:45 PM »

Fake Progress Bar

-40hz (September 30, 2009, 08:16 PM)

This reminds me of...
 (see attachment in previous post) (see attachment in previous post)
#2 is almost certainly a fake, but I really hope #1 is a real sign somewhere!

-tranglos (September 30, 2009, 08:36 PM)

My favorite is the sign shaped like a traffic stop sign that says "Do Not Read This Sign"  .. probably saw it in Mad Magazine or something.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinX DVD Ripper Platium - free for the rest of Sept.

« Last post by MilesAhead on October 01, 2009, 05:41 PM »

Another good idea, if you are like me and hate motion menus, is MenuShrink. Converts motion menus to stills and optionally strips the audio.  Sometimes it's able to skip over the warning screen and get right to the main menu upon player insertion. As they add more languages to the copy warning, and not let you skip over it, unless you rework the disc you'll be making a sandwich for 8 minutes while that stuff shows the same message in various tongues.  They should just have a copy symbol with the circle with line through for 5 seconds.  Everyone would get the idea!

I know in many of these rippers you can select Main Movie to strip out the menus, but sometimes for subtitles you need to keep the menu.  Some tools that reprocess mpg don't always leave the remote subtitle button action as desired.  That can drive you nuts trying to get that to work!! Easier just to leave the shrunk menus.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 07:30 PM »

When I was playing around with Linux I did a lot of printing.  The books were expensive but you could get postscript files online for manuals like Bind and others.  I had an HP Deskjet 500 and got some software to interpret the postscript and also print on both sides of the page.  Then I put the stuff in 3 ring binders.  PDF was just coming in then and Linux was all about postscript.

Now I mostly print out a shopping list or a map to take with me when driving to an unfamiliar place.
Also with spiffy compilers and IDEs with source formatting, I don't want to look at source code on paper anymore.  I can remember printing that off on fanfold paper with a lame dot matrix(not that dot matrix is inherently lame, but this particular printer sure was!! The ribbons were dry when new!! Not easy on the eyes reading that crap!)

I think with cheap storage the printing of the general public has decreased but financial institutions especially still believe if it's on a hard copy people won't argue.  Any of the investment houses generate palettes of paper stuck in warehouses.  If somebody claims the transaction in the record isn't accurate, and they won't believe anything else, they drag out the indexes and hunt down the box with the paper record.  I don't think that will go away in my lifetime.

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Living Room / Re: Real code vs. Code in the movies

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 07:12 PM »

I know I could only type gibberish with Halle Berry workin' me over!! But, I would fake it as long as it takes!!!

-MilesAhead (September 30, 2009, 02:35 PM)

So would she... so would she.

-f0dder (September 30, 2009, 05:41 PM)

I get a DejaVu flashback.  I'm pretty sure you got me with this line when I first signed on.  Guess I should check the archives before giving the easy straight line.

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Living Room / Re: Real code vs. Code in the movies

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 06:59 PM »

btw, of all the "hacker break into systems" scenarios, the one in Swordfish had to be the most ridiculous. Kind of like expecting the poll vaulter to break a world record with a ball and chain on each ankle, then showing him do it.  About as lame as it gets.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Installers: "This may take several minutes."

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 06:43 PM »

IIRC Inno Setup just uses a progress bar.  A better approach I think. You tell people a 300KB program is going to take minutes to install and they think "Why?  Does it take you that long to figure out how to hose my system?" 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Installers: "This may take several minutes."

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 06:32 PM »

Windows Vista SP1 installer should have "This may reboot your computer saying Phase1, Phase2, Phase3 with each boot, waste 2 hours, then say 'Service Pack not installed ... Rolling Back'  ... so do you really want to continue? I know I wouldn't"

edit: but to your point, seems a lot of this stuff originated back with slow systems and HDs. The continued expansion and performance of systems seems like it's taking people by surprise.  Note the lack of native 64 bit compilers and IDEs. It's almost like everyone was surprised Vista64 SP1 works and now all these PCs on the rack come with 6 GB+ ram and 64 bit OS, but no 64 bit software toys afa development(or at least not free/reasonably priced for the single developer.)

But I can remember installers that would just appear to hang.  You had to watch the disk LED to know your system wasn't locked up.

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Living Room / Re: Real code vs. Code in the movies

« Last post by MilesAhead on September 30, 2009, 06:28 PM »

I know I could only type gibberish with Halle Berry workin' me over!! But, I would fake it as long as it takes!!!

-MilesAhead (September 30, 2009, 02:35 PM)

So would she... so would she.

-f0dder (September 30, 2009, 05:41 PM)

I didn't realize there was a way to fake oral sex.  Learn somethin' new all the time here.