Activity for October 15

Comment - Hauppauge HD PVR and Windows Media Center: Is it the working-class TiVo?
(Oct 15, 2010 - 12:46 PM)

Yes it does, Tool, and that alone would be one reason to invest in this item. There's RCA composite video inputs on the front of the device -- they're put there so you can plug in a camcorder, but you could just as easily plug in a VCR.

I tested the front panel with inputs from two sources, an old Canon 8mm camcorder and a newer Toshiba hybrid HDD camcorder. In the earliest tests several months ago, Total Media Extreme would often freeze the recording process (and lock up, forcing a full reboot) whenever the input from the tape skipped a few frames, which can happen when you're transcribing old tape. This problem seemed to go away after a newer Hauppauge driver was released last August, so I didn't report it as a problem in the review. I've had zero problems transcribing from the HDD camcorder, since the signal there is digital to begin with, and doesn't skip.

No, HD PVR does not have a coax connector, though it does have optical and S-Video as alternates. S-Video input from the HDD camcorder seemed a little glitchy, with dandruff-like grey flakes in the signal, even though I switched out for four different S-Video cables in case that was the problem; HD PVR liked the composite input better.

I actually haven't tried a VCR as the video source yet, though I do have good reason to. I don't particularly like TME, maybe because it was so fragile in the early testing. I also have an older Hauppauge WinTV PVR card with just an analog tuner and inputs, that no longer works as a TV tuner since the shift to digital (of course). I've used that to transcribe both old 8mm and VHS tapes using the old WinTV software, but I've had to fall back to Windows XP (on my triple-boot system) to do it since the old software will not run in Windows Vista or Win7. Still, the quality of the transcript is quite supreme -- about as good as you're going to get for SD. If you can boot a system to XP, you might see if you can pick up a used WinTV card for next to nothing (since its tuner is meaningless now), and maybe save some money.

-SF "Makes Jack Benny Look Like 'Rich Whitey'" 3
Comment - Adobe Reader faces its first genuine competition from a free alternative
(May 25, 2010 - 6:11 PM)

Fair enough. Nitro paid me zero to write this article. I would say Nitro supplied me with a free copy of Nitro PDF Reader, but it's supplying _everybody_ with a free copy of Nitro PDF Reader. My capacity to speak positively on behalf of a product has never been, and never will be, for sale. So just because I like something, or even just like the idea of something, doesn't mean I'm _owned_.

-SF3
Comment - Zuckerberg: Facebook will respect the privacy of those who really prefer it
(May 24, 2010 - 3:55 PM)

I know there's been a lot of fake shoe-selling crap in comments recently, which we're all fighting a constant battle against. But there was something worse than that posted to comments today. Some of the responses to that remain here in comments, but I've removed the offensive material and banned the commenter. That went way, way beyond what anyone should have to tolerate here, both in Betanews and in the 21st century.

-SF3
Comment - The Third Way: FCC attempts strange 'Title 1.5' broadband reclassification
(May 6, 2010 - 3:12 PM)

Thank you very much, aduffbrew, much appreciated. There are (at least) two schools of thought: We could sit around here and debate which is, to borrow a phrase I've read somewhere today, "eviler:" a deregulated commercial communications zone where the applications one uses is dictated and managed completely by the carriers, or a government regulation system with the authority to designate what measures cannot be taken to effectively manage a network.

Or we could reason a way for carriers to provide fairly priced Internet services with reasonable management and rational oversight, that's a compromise that's equally fair to everyone involved. I'm of the latter school, and I tend to believe we can't achieve these goals unless and until we lay all our cards on the table and declare what it is we want.

-SF "It's 'Less Evil'"3
Comment - Which is eviler? Apple, Facebook or Google?
(May 6, 2010 - 2:59 PM)

Eviler?