Home Theater/HDTV/et al...

bmwracer wrote:
Good to know. But first I have to buy a DVD burner. And a video capture card. :hehe:

Whatever you do, AVOID ATI TECHNOLOGIES!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had NOTHING but troubles with drivers and 3rd-party software compatibility. But, that's a different thread in itself. :(

--- groink

groink wrote:
Whatever you do, AVOID ATI TECHNOLOGIES!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had NOTHING but troubles with drivers and 3rd-party software compatibility. But, that's a different thread in itself. :(

Um, you would recommend....? :hehe:

groink wrote:
Whatever you do, AVOID ATI TECHNOLOGIES!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had NOTHING but troubles with drivers and 3rd-party software compatibility. But, that's a different thread in itself. :(

--- groink

yah ATI video cap cards/video cards, are bad with drivers.. their customer service sucks too! if you want a video cap card, try matrox.. i've had one for about 4-5 years, and still love it.
:nut:

amrayu wrote:

yah ATI video cap cards/video cards, are bad with drivers.. their customer service sucks too! if you want a video cap card, try matrox.. i've had one for about 4-5 years, and still love it.
:nut:

Heh. I currently have a Matrox (Millennium) card... :)

groink wrote:
Whatever you do, AVOID ATI TECHNOLOGIES!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had NOTHING but troubles with drivers and 3rd-party software compatibility. But, that's a different thread in itself. :(

--- groink

Well, ATI used to suck. They have been a lot better in the last two years, ever since they released their Catalyst drivers (basically like NVIDIA's system of unified drivers). All ATI products older than two years aren't very good. As for good DVD burners, I've had good success with the Pioneer A05/105.

thetenken wrote:Well, ATI used to suck. They have been a lot better in the last two years, ever since they released their Catalyst drivers (basically like NVIDIA's system of unified drivers). All ATI products older than two years aren't very good. As for good DVD burners, I've had good success with the Pioneer A05/105.

Coincidentally, it's the Catalyst drivers that are giving me trouble.

I right now use the ATI RADEON 9600 All-in-one card. Bought the card in early October 2003. I've done the following about a dozen or so times now:

- Install Windows XP Professional without any service packs or other hotfixes. Just your plain vanilla install.

- Install the Catalyst drivers 3.10 and the ATI multimedia software (8.1)

- Test, test, test... Things work so far.

The next steps sent the installation straight to heck...

- Upgrade to Windows Media Player 9.0

or upgrade to DirectX 9 (http://www.atitechnologies.com/support/faq/directx.html)

or install Service Pack 1 or later

or run Windows Update and have it start its first round of updates

- Kaboom!!!!!! Following things occur:

1) The ATI Scheduler, when run, crashed the recorder software.

2) Crashes InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2.0 when exporting a project to file (the ATI DLLs are the cause of the crash, according to the dump).

3) Crashes about two other video editing packages, same DLLs

4) InterVideo WinDVR 3.0 video capture is very choppy.

5) Weird enough, it conflicts with ANY PCI-based Ethernet card I tossed into the computer. Each time I boot up, blue screen of death. The ATI DLLs shown to be the cause of the crash. Ended up buying a USB-based Ethernet adapter as a work-around. The engineer says the ATI card I have eat up a lot of resources, with no way of overwriting the settings.

On each and every one of these problems, I spoke to a tier-2 or higher level engineer. And we were never able to solve the problems. I also tried two motherboards: ASUS P4SDX and the ABIT VP6. Same symptoms on both. Worked on this stuff for about 1.5 months before giving in.

SOLUTION: So right now, my capture machine is using the ATI card, with absolutely no patches/updates installed. And, I have it disconnected from my network to avoid any security issues seeing I can't patch the installation. In this configuration, I don't have a problem. This project is by far the biggest ass-kicking I've ever received after almost 20 years working with Microsoft Windows-based PCs.

Why do I still live with this card? It's still one of the best video capture cards on the market. I like the video quality this card cranks out. And it's cheap!

In a perfect world, I'd be using a Power Macintosh G5 with a good video capture card and iLife. But just the G5 alone is an arm-leg.

--- groink

My God, what a total pain... I'l have to think twice before considering the ATI card... :sweat:

More test results on the LVD2002:

Looks like there is something quirky about The Italian Job DVD that gives the player fits... Ejecting the disc corrects the problem as always...

Tried Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Grave of the Fireflies, Tokyo Story, and Seven Samurai and all of 'em played with nary a hitch. :applaud: :D

bmwracer wrote:More test results on the LVD2002:
Tried Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Grave of the Fireflies, Tokyo Story, and Seven Samurai and all of 'em played with nary a hitch. :applaud: :D

Man, that's quite a diverse collection of entertainment you have there.

Speaking of the LVD-2002... I've been playing around with a bunch of JPOP MTVs. One of them is Natsukawa Rimi's video. You can d/l it here via BT:

http://www.d-addicts.com/bt/torrents/Natsukawa%20Rimi%20-%20Namida%20Sousou.mpg.torrent;jsessionid=aFRA8SoXO7x5

It's a MPEG-1 video/audio file, about 43MB. The video plays well, but the audio is totally hosed! The audio plays just fine on my PCs. It also has trouble playing other MPEG-1 files on the same disc. I'm wondering if it's the formatting of the disc, or maybe the guy who created these videos did something strange in the capture making the LITEON gag. If the other LVD-2002 owners could please download the file and try it on your units, that would be great!

--- groink

groink wrote:
Man, that's quite a diverse collection of entertainment you have there.

Here's a complete listing: http://dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=bmwracer :D :hehe: :hehe:

Speaking of the LVD-2002... I've been playing around with a bunch of JPOP MTVs. One of them is Natsukawa Rimi's video. You can d/l it here via BT:

http://www.d-addicts.com/bt/torrents/Natsukawa%20Rimi%20-%20Namida%20Sousou.mpg.torrent;jsessionid=aFRA8SoXO7x5

It's a MPEG-1 video/audio file, about 43MB. The video plays well, but the audio is totally hosed! The audio plays just fine on my PCs. It also has trouble playing other MPEG-1 files on the same disc. I'm wondering if it's the formatting of the disc, or maybe the guy who created these videos did something strange in the capture making the LITEON gag. If the other LVD-2002 owners could please download the file and try it on your units, that would be great!

I'll try to download it today and try it out... :)

is their a player that you can buy that can play all file types (avi, ogm mpeg etc.) and that you don't need any codecs to be able to play these files.... its like built in???. all this codecs are making me nuts.!!!

thanks

kumukurukuk wrote:is their a player that you can buy that can play all file types (avi, ogm mpeg etc.) and that you don't need any codecs to be able to play these files.... its like built in???. all this codecs are making me nuts.!!!

thanks

Let me guess... You're a Windows user. :naughty: Microsoft Windows is designed to function around video and audio codecs so that, in theory, any player you use will utilize the same codecs. Then that way, if a new codec is invented, all you need to do is install the codec, then all of your players will utilize it. Well, like I said it's in theory... So codec hell is what we're all faced with.

On the Mac OS X platform, VLC is a killer player... Plays almost anything!

--- groink

All the necessary codecs and tools you need are:
- ffdshow, handles divx and xvid.
- ogg directshow filter, handles ogm files (xvid needed).
- mpeg 2 codec, enables to play svcd files. DVD software feature the codec such as Power DVD and Intervideo. Media Player Classic fetures the codec as well.
- Mp3 sound codec and AC3, enables sounds on AC3 encoded movies.
- divfix, fixes corrupted avi files.
- VCDgear and Mpeg corrector, fix corrupted mpeg files.
- Vobsub, enables to display the seperate subtitles.

Media players:
BSplayer (I call it "Backstreet Boys" player :mrgreen:) and Media Player Classic are my fave media players!

Too lazy to type the addresses, google to the help :mrgreen:

kumukurukuk wrote:is their a player that you can buy that can play all file types (avi, ogm mpeg etc.) and that you don't need any codecs to be able to play these files.... its like built in???. all this codecs are making me nuts.!!!

thanks

Are you talking about a standalone CD/VCD/DVD player or a software player for your PC/Mac?

Pemu wrote:BSplayer (I call it "Backstreet Boys" player :mrgreen:)

LOL!!!!!! There's a popular Chinese take-out joint over in the town of Aiea in Hawaii, I think it's something like "Wah Chung Kam Wong" or something like that... But when I refer to the place as "Wang Chung"*, everyone seems to understand what I'm referring to.

* - Wang Chung was a British singer in the 80's, a total white boy without a single drop of Chinese blood.

--- groink

groink wrote:

LOL!!!!!! There's a popular Chinese take-out joint over in the town of Aiea in Hawaii, I think it's something like "Wah Chung Kam Wong" or something like that... But when I refer to the place as "Wang Chung"*, everyone seems to understand what I'm referring to.

* - Wang Chung was a British singer in the 80's, a total white boy without a single drop of Chinese blood.

--- groink

Correction: Wang Chung was a British group, neh? Their big hit was Everybody Wang Chung Tonight... :hehe:

bmwracer wrote:
Correction: Wang Chung was a British group, neh? Their big hit was Everybody Wang Chung Tonight... :hehe:

Damn! It was a group???? I didn't know that! LOL!

groink wrote:Damn! It was a group???? I didn't know that! LOL!

As far as I know. I just remember the video... :hehe:

I want to buy an all region free dvd so I can watch more japanese movies. Any suggestions? I found one its only 109 but it doesnt really have a brand. Heres the link to it http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/super.htm Give me your opinions, I would really appreciate it :)

IkematsuSosuke wrote:I want to buy an all region free dvd so I can watch more japanese movies. Any suggestions? I found one its only 109 but it doesnt really have a brand. Heres the link to it http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/super.htm Give me your opinions, I would really appreciate it :)

Check this thread: http://jdorama.com/viewtopic_2867.htm

Groink, Amrayu, and I have the LiteOn LVD-2002 which is remote-hackable to turn off Region Codes and Macrovision protection... It looks like it's been discontinued, but might still be available at some places... We paid about $110USD for the player...

Hope this helps! :D