Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
At 08:05 AM Monday 8/3/2009, KZK wrote: David Brin Wrote: > Today's DVD's > 1- are not universal if you record on "minus" or "plus" mode and many >units throw fits, even then 1a. Get a better Player. Sony. Avoid Philips/Magnavox for electronics. See earlier exchanges about people (frex on Social Security) who had to get what they could to avoid losing all TV, including local news and weather. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
David Brin Wrote: > Today's DVD's > 1- are not universal if you record on "minus" or "plus" mode and many >units throw fits, even then 1a. Get a better Player. Sony. Avoid Philips/Magnavox for electronics. 1b. Why even bother with the minus format. It's inferior, and it's pretty much dead. Use DVD+RW. or DVD+R for throwaways. > 2- fast-forward and reverse are a mess. They are twichy and over and > undershoot like mad. 2a. Yes, but still better than a lot of VCR's. My current VCR, the only standalone HiFi VCR BestBuy still sold when I bought it, FF's/Rw's at about 3 times as fast as I can react and doesn't stop imeadiately when I press the button. The bastard machine over shoots by several minutes. 2b. Get a better Player that has 10 or 15 second incremental advance buttons. Sony. RDR-GX330. > 3- menu navigation is often torment I have never come across a DVD with menu's so complex I couldn't figure them out. > 4- You cannot copy incrementally, onto the end of a segment of DVD > that you already recorded some before. You can "record" that way with some burners. I don't think "copy" is something their designers want people doing. (Do that kind of thing on a computer with the appropriate software). > 5- Very few computers let you use a DVD as an optical mass storage > device, even though it is the perfect medium for making your monthly > hard-disk backup. They insist it can only be used AS a DVD-video > storage device. Not a hardware issue. Get better software. > 6 - Even with new hacks and machines, there is still collusion > between manufacturers and studios, meant to diminish and hinder > copying of anything you legitimately own. Yes, there are reasons for > this. But clearly the market is not functioning, or some company > would simply be selling units that do what the customer wants. The same as it ever was. William T Goodall wrote: > Even with HD the frame rate (50Hz/60hz) is still different between > NTSC and PAL. (NTSC and PAL have nothing to do with HD being analog > formats but the 50/60 Hz is the same so the labels have stuck). Just shows another reason why the PAL format is so inferior (also Framerate should be independent of device). For an NTSC machine to play at a rate good for all reasonable frequencies (24fps film, 30fps TV, 60fps TV) it just has to play at 120hz (and show the same frame 2-5 times). For a PAL machine to do the same it would need to refresh at 600hz. PAL just sucks, period. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:17 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: And the mandated DTV changeover was just another excuse to get money out of people who were satisfied with things the way they were, even those who have little or naught to spare. . . . ronn! :) On that, I'll agree with you. Did we really need to get rid of broadcast NTSC-M signals and orphan a technology that was specifically designed to be backward-compatible with the first generation of broadcast TV? And did we really need to replace them with 8VSB, which I have to say does much more poorly in fringe areas than NTSC-M did? I agree, I'm not convinced the move to DTV was a good thing. "That was like a bad romantic comedy in fifteen seconds." -- Toby Ziegler ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
Ronn! Blankenship said the following on 8/2/2009 8:17 PM: > And the mandated DTV changeover was just another excuse to get money out > of people who were satisfied with things the way they were, even those > who have little or naught to spare. Never mind the need for that freed up airspace for other uses... --[Lance] -- GPG Fingerprint: 409B A409 A38D 92BF 15D9 6EEE 9A82 F2AC 69AC 07B9 CACert.org Assurer ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
At 12:19 PM Sunday 8/2/2009, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Aug 1, 2009, at 10:15 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:31 PM Saturday 8/1/2009, David Brin wrote: Today's DVD's 1- are not universal if you record on "minus" or "plus" mode and many units throw fits, even then Another problem, at least with the unit I have, is that if I want to record a program (frex) from 8 to 9 on channel m followed by one from 9 to 10 on channel n onto VHS, it works fine and I get both programs in full (assuming my clock is sufficiently in sync with the clock the station is using). If I try to do the same thing to record to DVD±RW, when it finishes recording the first program instead of changing channels and recording the second program it spends anywhere from about 30 seconds to 2 minutes displaying "Writing to disc . . . " and a status bar and so I miss the beginning of the second program. (Or the end of the first if I try to compensate for that "feature" by setting the first recording to end at 8:58 or 8:59 . . .) Is that the case with all DVD±R/RW machines, or just the [relatively] cheap one I got in order to have something in place before the end of analog broadcasts? Depends on the make/model. This sounds sort of like what a Sony would do .. This particular box bears the Magnavox brand. Another annoying thing it does: if there is already a disc (perhaps a partly-used ±RW disc with sufficient space) in the drive, it will not allow me to set the timer (iow, pressing the button to start that process does nothing) unless I first eject the disc. Then after setting the timer, I have to close the drawer with the disc and wait for it to load the disc before activating the timer. "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -- John Ruskin And the mandated DTV changeover was just another excuse to get money out of people who were satisfied with things the way they were, even those who have little or naught to spare. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
On Aug 1, 2009, at 10:15 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:31 PM Saturday 8/1/2009, David Brin wrote: Today's DVD's 1- are not universal if you record on "minus" or "plus" mode and many units throw fits, even then Another problem, at least with the unit I have, is that if I want to record a program (frex) from 8 to 9 on channel m followed by one from 9 to 10 on channel n onto VHS, it works fine and I get both programs in full (assuming my clock is sufficiently in sync with the clock the station is using). If I try to do the same thing to record to DVD±RW, when it finishes recording the first program instead of changing channels and recording the second program it spends anywhere from about 30 seconds to 2 minutes displaying "Writing to disc . . . " and a status bar and so I miss the beginning of the second program. (Or the end of the first if I try to compensate for that "feature" by setting the first recording to end at 8:58 or 8:59 . . .) Is that the case with all DVD±R/RW machines, or just the [relatively] cheap one I got in order to have something in place before the end of analog broadcasts? Depends on the make/model. This sounds sort of like what a Sony would do .. "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -- John Ruskin ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
At 07:31 PM Saturday 8/1/2009, David Brin wrote: Today's DVD's 1- are not universal if you record on "minus" or "plus" mode and many units throw fits, even then Another problem, at least with the unit I have, is that if I want to record a program (frex) from 8 to 9 on channel m followed by one from 9 to 10 on channel n onto VHS, it works fine and I get both programs in full (assuming my clock is sufficiently in sync with the clock the station is using). If I try to do the same thing to record to DVD±RW, when it finishes recording the first program instead of changing channels and recording the second program it spends anywhere from about 30 seconds to 2 minutes displaying "Writing to disc . . . " and a status bar and so I miss the beginning of the second program. (Or the end of the first if I try to compensate for that "feature" by setting the first recording to end at 8:58 or 8:59 . . .) Is that the case with all DVD±R/RW machines, or just the [relatively] cheap one I got in order to have something in place before the end of analog broadcasts? 2- fast-forward and reverse are a mess. They are twichy and over and undershoot like mad. 3- menu navigation is often torment 4- You cannot copy incrementally, onto the end of a segment of DVD that you already recorded some before. Seems to work OK when I use a DVD±RW disc. Or do you mean that if frex I was masochistic enough to record Part I of "Meteor" one recent Sunday night and then Part II on the same disc the next week when I put the disc in later to watch it the menu would show two separate entries on the disc and playback would stop and go back to the menu at the end of the first part rather than running that whole disaster [of a] movie seamlessly, or what? 5- Very few computers let you use a DVD as an optical mass storage device, even though it is the perfect medium for making your monthly hard-disk backup. They insist it can only be used AS a DVD-video storage device. What kind of DVD drive do you have on your computer? Mine is a Sony brand (don't recall the model number, but it dates back to 2005 or so) which takes all four types of DVD±R/RWs (as well as CD-R/RWs) and works just fine for recording data, except for using enough resources to slow things down enough to notice when it's burning a disc. 6 - Even with new hacks and machines, there is still collusion between manufacturers and studios, meant to diminish and hinder copying of anything you legitimately own. Yes, there are reasons for this. But clearly the market is not functioning, or some company would simply be selling units that do what the customer wants. Or maybe it's just that the consumer "wants" something he's not supposed to want . . . :D . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
