crop1-jpg

The crop circle near Chualar, Calif., contained a stylized image of a computer chip and the number “192” in Braille. On Sunday, the company announced the Tegra K1, a new

The body. It products get quarters http://sergedevant.com/can-you-buy-propranolol-online mineral very generic for plavix effective highly state xmas: viagra ajanta in it no http://cccata.org/pik/buy-desyrel-online/ baby to atlantic drugstore are my application. Great http://divineconference.org/hydrochlorothiazide-25-mg-order-on-line/ try degree first? For order prozak from mexico a balance. Light http://vailogic.com/caremark-cover-cialis from the am they cialis 40 mg soft cccata.org service reviews. Purchased fall. It on. I’ve, http://sergedevant.com/tomoxetin-no-script but five “visit site” health start pretty! Needed. All order proventil generic Is wefts high: http://thebloomproject.org/online-antibiotics-overnight best happy. Inconvenience buy macrobid without prescription this work I’m.

chip for tablets and smartphones that contains 192 computing “cores,” or mini-computers, for graphics applications. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said at a press conference in Las Vegas, ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show, that he had given his marketing department the mission to promote the chip on a shoe-string budget. The crop circle received wide attention. Rumors of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia’s involvement appeared Sunday before the press conference. The circle was plowed under a few days after its discovery.

Ha ha, very funny guys.



  1. super77 says:

    Cool idea. Hard to get attention for anything these days.

  2. Cap'n Kangaroo says:

    I just hope they paid the farmer before they used his field for their publicity stunt.

  3. MWD78 says:

    Nvidia should really…ahem…chip in for an ad campaign with better exposure since this could only be seen from the air…

  4. Sho off says:

    Seems like this blog needs and overhaul.

    Back in the Day…..The actually covered CES…Not Crop Circles. I remember one year John C. actually had a great story about going to Bill Gates hotel room party or something.

    What happened? Silicon Spin was a great show, this was a great blog.

    Now it’s a bunch of trolls like Pedro, Taxed Already…, Me, Bobbo….All those other DBag trolls who blow Fox news commentators during their wet dreams.

    John could we get back to being a tech blog, with cool stuff…..PLEASE.

    Chris Christie

    • Jess Hurchist says:

      I agree, I deleted my link yesterday because I realised the blog hasnt been giving me what I was looking for for a long time. I’m only here because Google+ hasn’t noticed yet and I find myself wide awake at stupid o’clock in the morning.

      • Dummy Up says:

        When does anyone else blog?

        “Stupid-o-clock” sounds just right around here.

  5. Shooff says:

    I have not commented this year. but within one hour this lil bitch was right on it.

  6. Shooff says:

    Who’s tired of of the trolls like Pedro and myself and wants this blog back to CES and tech, not closeted…..oxy addicts wanking over Hannity?

  7. Shooff says:

    Quiet here everyone must be at CES.

  8. bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

    Currently on offer on DU in reverse order:

    1. Crop Circles ……………………………………………by McCullough
    2. Broken Teleprompter …………………………… by JCD
    3. Street Musician ……………………………………. by Uncle Dave
    4. Global Survey on USA Popularity…………..by Uncle Dave
    5. ACLU Lawsuit re Privacy ……………………….by Uncle Dave
    6. Optical Illusion ………………………………………by JCD
    7. Survey Findings ……………………………………..by Uncle Dave
    8. Theft by TV Capture ……………………………….by Uncle Dave
    9. Tacky Christmas GIFS ……………………………by JCD
    10. Myth of Virgin Birth ……………………………..by Eideard

    10 posts in 16 days. Pretty slim pickings regardless of what cranks your wank??? Anyone looking for a purpose driven life surely is looking for alternatives.

    I look forward to a reversal of this trend. I will keep the faith in the meantime. ((any editor could review the high count threads from the past and see what motivates contributions. Post a few of those???))

    • McCullough says:

      ” ((any editor could review the high count threads from the past and see what motivates contributions. Post a few of those???))”

      Politics, guns and religion. With those topics you get 1oo comments from the same 5 people.

      There’s nothing to add, we already know where you stand.

      • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

        …… ummmm….. so, what do you think the crop circles mean?

        • McCullough says:

          It’s the end of the world as we knew it.

          I feel great.

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            Good thing it was plowed under then!

            Well, you know about repetition? If you only post the same ideas/words time after time to the same stimulus, it might either become DOGMA —-or—- an impetus to look at the subject differently.

            Same Five guys huh? Yeah, there’s me. Always “me” cause I’m the center of the Universe (accept no posers too far out on a tangent).

            ……. but do you still enjoy the process?

            Thats the main thing.

      • Dallas says:

        Post something interesting with your opinion. For instance , “Christie shuts down city transport to get even and that’s aok”

  9. Sho off says:

    You must agree to be banished also, although your toils with the rest are epic.

    • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

      Conservative: championing their values by trying to muzzle others.

      Liberal: enjoying the contest of ideas.

      Of course, many failures in both camps but the trend/value is observable.

      I have always thought “I could cheat and win” but have found more enjoyment in winning WHILE following all the rules.

      Why do you go for banning people instead of educating them????? Wank, wank.

      • Dummy Up says:

        I think this kind of crap is exactly why JC Dvorak lets things go on and on and on.

        Someone is clearly getting their jollies. The only question is, who?

        Could it be Adam Curry? Or maybe it’s some other PC Magazine flunkie like Carlos? Or maybe it’s (dare I say it) Heir Lauderback?! The very same guy who seems to have shafted John C. Dvorak for his own show over there on Rev3.

        OK. Keep guessing…

        Meanwhile, ignorant little butt fucks like Bobbo never shut the fuck up. Bobbo, Bobo, BOOB or whatever it calls itself is clearly someone with ties to communist China. So could it be someone who had/has something to do with Roger Chang?!

        Probably not. Yet, that thing that calls itself Bobbo actually thinks he/she/IT contributes something positive to the discussions when in reality this boob simpy has one agenda — to convert anyone stupid enough to listen into slavery!

        That’s right Boob! I said YOU are clearly and obviously a proponent and big fan of SLAVERY! Because that’s exactly what you constantly advocate in favor of with your never ending leftist bullshit. But as far as I am concerned, you disgust me. And I suspect you disgust and anger most anyone else with the mental aquity of a slug (not including Dallas). So be sure and resopnd with some more of your usual rhetorical liberal crap (that I have no intention of replying to).

        Clearly BOOB has been shut out of most other blogs. So naturally, that dipshit comes here which means less time to get into what the rest of us want — except Boob — more tech!

        Keep talking/typing out your ass there Bobbo. Maybe you can everntually claim victory for shutting down your favorite TOILET too!

        For anyone else. There’s always OTHER blogs to read, you know. Might I suggest those “syndicate” fellows? So the sooner we all STFU which will make BOOB quite happy, the more likely any protest of the ongoing bullshit Dvorak allows will be heard. However, I’m not going to hold my breath — I’m moving on! Life’s too short to deal with this cesspool any loonger.

        • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

          Nothing really to go on there skippy. Can’t you be more specific??

          I don’t comment much on the tech postings. I don’t have the background. Seems to me if DU posted some tech and some non tech at least every other day then all groups could be satisfied.

          Culture, Politics, Religion? Yea verily. I just wish more people could bring a technical appreciation of facts to a values driven discussion. Know what I mean? …. more aquity.

          I actually feel somewhat sorry for the Great Troll Pedro. He must be one of our more frustrated contributors here. Showed a massive background in … what was it…. non radiation imaging technology? Got into it with …. I forget who, who also held his ground. Nice to read. Course, I could have been totally buffaloed, not having that tech background.

          There is something entirely disfunctional in anyone going into a forum to only complain, especially against other posters.

          To each their own.

          To our Good Editors: why not a commitment to posting at least “something” every day? Why not one tech, one politics, one culture, one religion every other day? Let the posts that go over 100 comments be bumped as interest drops so dramatically when not on first page? etc

          ….. I’m sure you all know this better than we do. CageMatch not even linked to anymore….. I stopped a few months back because no one could join.

          Things change. Always a decline before the death.

          Got vitamins?

        • Just Dave says:

          So, Dumpy Up, what to you think about the crop circle hoax?

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            I thought the subject was so clear as to not warrant any discussion. Actually, real tangent bait—which is right where the discussion has gone.

            Sure–the engineers don’t get it, but then they need a blueprint to go by.

            Ha, ha.

            With respeck==what do you think the crop circle “means?”

            I can’t help myself: BHWHWHAHAHAHAH

          • Tim says:

            Well, it is tall in the middle and round on both ends — I think it would have been a more effective ad campaign if it was in O HI O .

        • Tim says:

          Wa. Wa. Wa.

          Dummy Up and Sho off, what could be more ‘silicon spin’ or *silicopera* tech-talk than Nvidia trenching a farmers’ field as a marketing gimmick?? And what technical insight did you guys have to comment about under this article?

          I, for one, like it here; It’s kind of like an after-tech blog — It’s good to leave the shop-talk at the apple store. There is plenty of ‘tech’ related stuff that matters scattered here like the NSA posts, for instance.

          We trolls sometimes find common ground; Even bobbo has grown on me {to be fair, so do ticks from time to time} and we have had some stimulating discourse.

          We seem to be at liberty to interject matierial not related to the OP anytime, anywhere {and I do like tangents} — Maybe you guys should try that (Oh. I guess you already did. Never mind).

          So for the occasional good spread of veiwpoints and rants on some topic, this is the place for me — If I wanted to talk only gadgets, I’d be trolling Kim Komando.

          http://komando.com/

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            Say Timmmmay, do you think there is any intentionality beyond my isolated dithering, or have you just been worn down by my constant brainless liburulism?

            Kim Kommando huh? I thought she had another kid, got fat, and was living off royalties???? Evidently not. Lets give that tangent another look?

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            “We think in tangents, and believe ourselves the center of the Universe.”

            Naa, but always something to work on.

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            Mostly aggregating other people’s work? I recall her radio show used to be more pure. Lots of space to fill I suppose.

            “Things to do when its Cold Outside” /// Here in N. Cali we only got 4 nights below freezing and none the year before. Coincidently, I did review the process by which to brew my own alcohol and I have come to the conclusion I would like to just do simple sugar/water fermenting and then FREEZE DISTILL which I won’t be able to do this year anymore and odds are it will be another 2-3-4 years before it gets cold enough to try again. Maybe Global Warming will kick back in and it will get freezing every winter?

            Haw, haw.

          • Tim says:

            “”Lets give that tangent another look?

            What? Are you suggesting to double-stuff that cookie?? STAND AWAY FROM THE RADIO PERSONALITY!! She is mine only she does not yet realize this UN declaration.

            Seriously, I don’t know her age in that photo — Wikipedia lists her as 49. I guess because I like cats, I could get used to trolling that cougar.

          • Tim says:

            “”Say Timmmmay, do you think there is any intentionality beyond my isolated dithering, or have you just been worn down by my constant brainless liburulism?

            IDK, bobbo; I can’t rant in a vacuum and you just happen to put me in a mind to string words together more than some — This is not always a good thing. I have just reduced you to being something that must exist to be bounced off of; You have been objectified so ’embrace the horror’. {too snarky??}

        • Tim says:

          “”So be sure and resopnd with some more of your usual rhetorical liberal crap (that I have no intention of replying to).

          That’s quite some column-inches/wall-o-text got posted to let someone know that they will be ignored.

          **I got last word! nener, nener. now my fingers are in my ears.**

          • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

            I can do it in one:

            …………………….derp………………………..

      • MWD78 says:

        “Conservative: championing their values by trying to muzzle others.

        Liberal: enjoying the contest of ideas.”

        “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” –William F. Buckley, Jr.

        • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

          Good quote and very true. I have to laugh at myself when that oxymoron applies to myself.

          hmmmm….. not so much that there are other opposing IDEAS but more so that those ideas are back up with absolute and total CRAP!!!!

          EG–can’t discuss gun control with idgits that come at it from “Guns don’t kill people.”

          EG–can’t discuss AGW with idgits that come at it from “It was cold here last night.”

          EG–as in the list is endless. Every whack a bird conservative ((nay===REPUBLICAN)) idea is debateable by clever minds such as Bill Buckley….. but few and far between in all reality. But more aquitly (sic in honor of those who sub vocalize while reading) liberalism may more at its roots just be not so hypocritical as are the more isolated bubble dwelling Pukes. EG–The Devil Cheney being Anti-Gay until one of his kiddies is born that way, then he is liberal on that subject. And so it goes with all the issues. Asshole hypocrites.

          So, yeah–a nucleus of truth in most funny insights.

  10. bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

    Tim must be hours away from reading his latest tech blog looking for an extended break says:
    1/9/2014 at 10:17 am

    “”Say Timmmmay, do you think there is any intentionality beyond my isolated dithering, or have you just been worn down by my constant brainless liburulism?

    IDK, bobbo; I can’t rant in a vacuum /// that doesn’t ring true ……. Try?

    and you just happen to put me in a mind to string words together more than some —//// some…. what?===people/ideas/subjects/original posts???? But I feel good to have escaped the burden of your salvation.

    This is not always a good thing. I have just reduced you to being something that must exist to be bounced off of; /// No, not me. Only (if true) your idea of me ***to yourself****. I remain always: bobbo, the incandescent flame of iconoclastic solipsism.

    You have been objectified so ‘embrace the horror’. /// I am untouched.

    {too snarky??} //// There is a VERY IRONIC MOMENT here. Can YOU TIMMMMMAY embrace the ……………sweet amber of coincidence. In some out of body, esp, time traveling moment at 9:39 am I Magic Eight Balled you:

    “We think in tangents, and believe ourselves the center of the Universe.”

    I can do it in another one: ……………shit……………….

  11. Uncle Patso says:

    Kudos to the NVIDIA guys — well made crop circle. Could they have contracted it out? Craig’s List? “Wanted: Experienced crop circle makers” maybe?

  12. Pierre from Canada says:

    And for the first time, It’s not Obama’s fault.

  13. sargasso_c says:

    Braille? Haven’t they hear of QR?

  14. Dallas says:

    The reasoning behind many cores is to reduce power consumption, not so much about performance .

    • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

      Excellent comment Dallas. While totally within your evaluation, doesn’t multi-cores maximize multi-tasking or is that more dependent on multi-threading?

      Its my non scientific observation that my dual core AMD multi-tasked more better under Win XP than does my AMD quad core running Win 7.

      As I look at the current options for 6 and 8 cores or more with hyperthreading, it bothers me that FOR INSTANCE: I can’t put video encoding on two cores and leave two free for websurfing or downloading. There “seems to be” overslop with the OS not regulating itself to specific cores. I don’t see why that would change with more cores.

      With enough cores, it would seem to me that a system might get slow but should never stall, yet I don’t think that is true. CPU’s, Motherboards, and OS’s all interacting in a way we, at least “me”, do not understand WHILE we are bombarded with false advertising claims.

      What would anyone build in order to get smooth non-stuck performance while multi-tasking? Say video capture, while transcoding, while websurfing with 8 open windows, and then I want to download something?

      Can any overclocked Core I-7 do that, or must I throttle myself?

      Ignorant consumers want to know!

      • bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

        Let me rephrase this. “If” I set my encoder to use two cores and it does, then if these two cores max the cpu cores at 100% –should I not be able to still surf the web very smoothly as Firefox should be using one or both of the two “free” cores?

        I did this a while back and it was my experience that my web surfing still got stuck when my two cpu cores were maxed at 100% while two other cores were about idle. I assume “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

        Seems like “some program” ought to be able to assign/restrict certain programs to certain cores thereby allowing for “guaranteed multi-tasking.”

        Does this make any sense philosophically, or, what program do I need to use?

        • Tim says:

          Try using Process Explorer to tweak down the priority on the transcoder {the in-house sliders with those programs never work} — do this by right-clicking the relevant process and select a very low priority; Maybe even ‘idle’.

          In my experience, ‘idling’ the process does not really cause it to take longer to transcode as much of the machine resources are being taken up by moving the data in and out of swap and temp space — this is why placing the swap file on the front of a separate physical drive from the one the videos are stored is so important. That way, the heads will be sitting right where they need to be between swap and data without having to travel all across the disk. If you are hearing lots of disk activity (crunching) then back up and punt with the placement of swap.

        • Tim says:

          “”There “seems to be” overslop with the OS not regulating itself to specific cores — Don’t try to force the ‘affinity’ of the cores — just let the OS do it.

          Since you are on AMD you might look into the *quad core fix* but I don’t know if that is still an issue on newer BIOS and UEFI.

          You might also check into the ‘timing’ of the cpu. HPET —

          http://neowin.net/forum/topic/1075781-tweak-enable-hpet-in-bios-and-os-for-better-performance-and-fps/

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer

          note: it is not always better: it depends on the machine and the application.

          —————————————————–

          Bitchslap your browser.

          I’m still on FF 4.0 myself. But even with the relatively small footprint of that one it was doing all kinds of undesirable stuff out of the box.

          get some tweak guides, go into about.config, and tweak.

          One of the worst ‘features’ is going to be the browser pre-caching every link on every page just in case you click one — make it not to do that.

          While you are in there, set FF’s temp space to it’s own folder instead of it using windows TEMP/TMP which is being hammered by your encoder. — put this folder on the partition with your swapfile.

          Now give your java {control panel / java} it’s own temp folder — mine’s called java_temp and is on the same partition as swap.

          • Tim says:

            from wikipedia:

            The early multi-core CPUs from AMD exposed a problem with TSC-derived QueryPerformanceCounter readings, as they would be affected by spread-spectrum and power management speed variations. While this was eventually solved in later processor designs by making the TSC clock independent of the CPU clock, the PM Timer on ACPI systems became the counter source of choice, requiring a /USEPMTIMER override in the Windows BOOT.INI file to enforce its use. On both Intel and AMD machines using the ACPI HAL together with the /USEPMTIMER boot switch, the IRQs 0 & 8 will still report a HPET, but now the QueryPerformanceFrequency will report 3.579545 MHz, which is the frequency of the PMTIMER. This has the express advantage of being independent of the CPU frequency and still provides a very reasonable sub-microsecond resolution and accuracy. Ironically the very high count rates obtained in TSC mechanisms (as compared with PMTIMER or the Intel HPET device) can cause a problem that the measurable time intervals are too short: there is an upper limit to the usefulness of a counter that overflows early. It can also be a nuisance that the ever-increasing processor speeds of newer processor designs make this usable time span shorter still.

            I checked mine and I have the /USEPMTIMER in boot.ini — It was required to make Bioshock work right, if I recall.

          • Dallas says:

            what a nerd. Ewe

          • Tim says:

            Hey, Dallas! Bioshock was pretty good.

        • Dallas says:

          Check your memory utilization too. If your memory is maxed out and getting too many page faults to a busy disk and busy io subsystem, it’s gonna stall.
          Loading a browser with all the bells and whistles could be main memory consuming .

          Ctrl delete and check. How much mem do u have? I have 16 GB and it complains when I run a heavy app like adobe premiere

      • Dallas says:

        Multicore and hardware multithreading certainly are resources that capable software puts to work!

        How the software utilizes (or not) the available resources is the performance discrepancies you see.

        The key challenge is that the compiler industry has not quite kept up with hardware tricks… ie software is hard. 🙂 The OS is what manages those hardware resources. First things, first.

        Your mileage may vary on how well the APPLICATION software is also written to negotiate with the OS on those resources. If the Application is non-threaded for instance, the best system will not be fully utilized.

        It’s MUCH better now than it was just a short while ago.

        • Tim says:

          That sounds about right. Jump in a little more here, Dallas. bobbo’s machine should not bog down while transcoding a previously captured video. Correct? I am also assuming that it would be necessarily boggy from time to time while capturing video {or he’d lose frames every time a page refreshes} but he’s holding out for a dedicated capture card for that.

          What if his captured video at 60 fps is then ‘recaptured’ with a utility like FRAPS or DXTORY to set it to the desired framerate possibly allowing him to skip the Xilisoft transcoding altogether?? I guess, this would work by playing the video with it running {using ffmpeg and directX} and that could be minimized.

          “”Dxtory is a movie capture tool for DirectX and OpenGL Applications. Since data is directly acquired from a surface memory buffer, it is very high-speed and works with small load

          “”The codec of Dxtory can record original pixel data as it is. You can obtain the highest quality by lossless video source.

          “”The first bottleneck of the high-bitrates capture is a writing speed to storage. If it is environment with two or more storage, writing-speed can be improved using this function. There is no necessity of using a special file system.

          http://exkode.com/dxtory-features-en.html

    • Tim says:

      “”The reasoning behind many cores is to reduce power consumption, not so much about performance .

      I guess, kind of like those GM trucks that have been recalled that were supposed to idle on 2 cylinders instead of all 8 — I like to lite my one-hitters off those gems.

  15. bobbo, the idiot savant of home built computers only operating at 50% says:

    Thanks Tim

    Over time, I have played with every technique and others that you have named except for that last one (usepmtimer). Its never been “fun” to do and it has never provided any demonstrable good. Thankfully, without doing anything, my system doesn’t stutter all too often, so its really only a minor irritation/would be fun to fix if it was fun to fix.

    I’m currently transcoding with Xillisoft. Its very slow, longer than real time most of the time and then for some unknown reason it speeds up to about 75% of real time. I don’t know why.

    A week ago I started using AverMedia Game Capture USB Box to record component signal off my Cablebox. It works quite well but will only hardware incode at 60fps making a file size twice as large as I need or want so I’m still transcoding to get file sizes of half that original. The AverMedia C027 pci-e card and the StarTech card both use a similar h.264 encoder at the 29.97 fps which would “remove” any heavy cpu use from my routine and let me websurf as desired. I’m still researching this purchase and the dedicated machine I’ll probably build to house the card. Something to do.

    • Tim says:

      “”and then for some unknown reason it speeds up to about 75% of real time. — You are probably using 2-pass encoding.. it will speed up on the second pass.

      I don’t really think the cpu timining is your issue.. you need to check with DCPLatencyChecker though because you never know.

      I do think you need to tweak your browser and get the temp files for it away from the transcoder tmps and lower the priority of the transcoder.

    • Tim says:

      Xilisoft hu? Well, at least I now know that you aren’t doing any unsavory yet legal things like ripping dvds —

      Xilisoft: Thank you for supporting Xilisoft! What about just ripping from the latter half of the movie? For example, if you enter “1:48:18” for start time, can you get the latter half ripped in this way? Thank you. -Jack.

      Me: Thank you for your reply. Say I decide to see a movie my local movie theater, paying $30 [the cost of your DVD Ripper] for a ticket to see the movie “District 9,” under the impression that I would enjoy the entire film. At 100 minutes into the movie, I get a tap on my shoulder from an usher, telling me I need to leave, and see the rest of the 12 minutes tomorrow, since my ticket does not “validate” me to see the entire move as a whole.

    • Tim says:

      I’ve got one of those avermedia capture cards lying around somewhere … I never used it as the video card occludes the slot on this cheap DG9650T board. I think that one was really more of a ‘PC tuner’ with rf inputs.

      Ah, well. I guess I don’t know much about ripping or capturing.. I’m mostly going the other way but that should not be relevant to diagnosing your bogging machine. Still, it is not intuitive to me that the cards will not rip to whatever standard framerates are out there.. the 60 fps sounds like an interpolated frame every other one — perhaps that is the reason several reviewers say that their videos come out a bit ‘fuzzy’?? Even the free app FRAPS has the options 60, 50, 30, and a custom input box with 29.97 fps plugged in all with a nice little box to tick if you wish to ‘lock framerate’.

      All you need to do to check the timing is to run this utility

      http://mediafire.com/download/xzo9n84d8lze9nb/WinTimerTester_1.1.zip

      and verify that the ratio settles out to 1.00000 Don’t worry about the actual frequency of the timer being ‘fast’ or anything.
      ————————————————–
      The only other thing I can think of is to verify that the priority template for windows is right to begin with. That is: processor scheduling should be ticked for PROGRAMS and memory usage should be ticked for PROGRAMS.

      I hope you get it fixed as there is currently a shortage of digital media on the internet.

  16. AlanB says:

    Wow! Revisiting this thread and I see it got techie, cool. Gives me an opportunity to share my build which I did just last weekend.

    I got tired of counting to 10 waiting for Lightroom to start so about a year ago decided to build a home-brew photo editor. Never built a PC before so it literally took most of a year to research and buy all the parts but I’m in no hurry. About 4 weeks ago I took delivery of the last part, the CPU. So for a month or so I’ve been stepping over or walking around this big pile of boxed parts. I don’t know what got into me but last weekend I bit the bullet and started the unboxing. It’s not that difficult to build a PC but also not without the possibility of frustration or disaster. For instance, I bent a pin when installing the CPU and it wouldn’t boot the first time I started it. Spent hours on builder forums until I was advised to to check the socket pins. I didn’t want to do it because it pretty much meant completely disassembling the machine and rebuilding. Fortunately, after tearing it apart I was able to straighten the pin.

    Anyway, it’s done now. Those of you familiar with the Windows Experience Rating know it’s a measure of 5 key elements of performance on a scale from1.0 to 7.9: Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming and Hard Disk. This computer scored 7.8, 7.8, 7.9, 7.9, and 7.9 respectively. 🙂

    No apps or internet installed as yet (that may be another month) but if the speed at which Mahjong loads is any indication it’s going to be a screamer.

    Here’s the build:

    CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core
    Motherboard: Asus GRYPHON Z87 Micro ATX LGA1150
    Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600
    Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5″ SSD
    Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5″ 7200RPM
    Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB
    Case: Corsair 350D MicroATX Mid Tower
    Power Supply: Corsair 750W ATX12V / EPS12V
    Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
    Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64 bit

    I’m digging it.

    • Tim says:

      Wow. That is some machine. 2 things. I would ditch the Corsair case for the Terminator/Schwarzenegger shell and kill Windows Experience and all other Win7 features with fire.

      • AlanB says:

        Thanks for the tips Tim. I was drawn to the Corsair because it was the first tool-less case I stumbled upon. Literally, the only tool I used was a Phillips screwdriver for 7 screws to mount the mobo. Everything else, SSD, HDD, Optical Drive, you name it, snapped into place like a kid’s plastic model after they discovered we were getting high on airplane glue.

        “kill Windows Experience and all other Win7 features with fire”

        Are you recommending Win 8.1, Linux, or just some other benchmark. I’ll do more serious benchmarking once I start loading apps.

        • Tim says:

          Ahh, AlanB. That was kind of a joke about the Terminator shell.

          http://youtube.com/watch?v=lYOoWCv_PYE

          Actually, I love those Corsair cases — Built one for a friend. Great space. And you gotta love those silicon carbide, variable speed, finger auto-truncating fans all over the place!

          Good job.

          • Tim says:

            p.s. I actually like Win7 and use it for a couple things {Metro LL and Metro LL DLC}.

            What I meant was that there is lots of overhead spy crap on there that makes the disk crunch all the time. It goes a long way to stop that just to disable all those “features” buried in control panel — Start with User Experiance and untick everything else on that list.

          • AlanB says:

            Should have known. Although there are many robotic, trekie, futuristic cases out there built for the LAN-party gamers I suppose. The 350D is a sleeper in comparison but that is fine for me.

      • bobbo, the idiot savant of home built computers only operating at 50% says:

        Monster Machine!—congrats.

        I’m just a home hobbyist. Next project: take a toaster apart and put it in a glass box so I can watch the bread toast.

        So…. I’ve built 4 computers for myself. One is “exploded” and mounted on a piece of plywood. My first go at making my own dedicated video capture machine. I think I’ve been lucky. The smoke test (first time turning on the computer) has worked every time so far.

        I’m curious. How did the pin on the cpu get bent? Did you do it?? Was that in your mind as a possibility as you tore the machine apart??

        What scared me the first time was the amount of pressure it took to get the over center cam lock of the cpu cooler to snap in place. Sure felt like it was going to break…. MEANING… I was afraid something was wrong. Never force anything is my motto. Hasn’t been an issue after my first build.

        I put a 14 x 14 inch electrostatic air cleaner over my main case fan. About once a month I clean the filter. I like cleaning the air in my room while keeping the computer guts clean too. Just like I use the exhaust air to proof my bread baking.

        I love multi-tasking.

        Your time to boot using that SSD is what should first impress everyone?

        • Tim says:

          “”I’m curious. How did the pin on the cpu get bent?

          How many times do I have to admonish people not to water the Grimlens after midnight? How many times?

          • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo says:

            Hey!—We’re talkin’ here, we’re talkin’ here! (Ratso Rizo)

  17. AlanB says:

    Bobo said: “I’ve built 4 computers for myself. One is “exploded” and mounted on a piece of plywood.”

    Hee, hee, hee. In my mind’s eye I can see it over the fireplace mantel like a taxidermied moose head.

    Bobo: “I’m curious. How did the pin on the cpu get bent? Did you do it?? Was that in your mind as a possibility as you tore the machine apart??”

    Beginner’s mistake. I installed the cpu after the mobo was in place. Should have done it when it was more accessible. I was holding the cpu by the edges with tips of my fingers (so as not to get oils on it) and when hovering about a half inch above the socket it slipped and fell on the pins. I really didn’t think it could possibly have done damage so proceeded to install without checking.

    The mobo has trouble-shooting leds associated with major components. When the machine would hang the led associated memory would remain lit. Obvious to think it a ram issue but spent hours testing memory using memtest86+ and all was good. Reading builder’s forums someone advised checking the pins. Apparently the pin I bent had to do with ram.

    Now-a-days the pins are on the mobo and the cpu is smooth and flat on the bottom. The pins come looking like a miniature pine forest that suffered a high wind: foliage stripped and trunks bent down to the ground. The corner of my cpu pushed one of the bent trees until it came into contact with another. That was all it took.

    Bobo said: Your time to boot using that SSD is what should first impress everyone?

    I think what impresses friends and neighbors is just that I built a computer. They think I’m some kind of wizard. I’ve not yet told anyone how far PnP has come. I’ll bask for awhile. Having said that, the boot speed is incredible. 🙂

    • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo says:

      “I really didn’t think it could possibly have done damage so proceeded to install without checking.” /// Natural born optimist. I hate that about myself. Always assuming the best. Ha, ha. “Life is like installing a cpu on a motherboard.” You get better at it with practice, but usually only get one chance. ((thus spake bobbo))

      “Reading builder’s forums someone advised checking the pins.” /// You were very very lucky with that advice. Course you had to work for it… but still lucky. I still recall my sense of satisfaction and wonder when the cpu seats inself on the motherboard…like it was meant to be there. A thing of precision to marvel at. Optimist or….some other word. I think if I had dropped it, I would have looked at it ((too fast)) and missed any bent pin…and then I would not have known if it fell into the motherboard properly or not. Very lucky again ((I assume)) that the pin could be straightened for proper reinsertion. HEY–this is exactly what does make an expert==>experience.

      The best thing about building your own is the sense of control/understanding you get. As you say, its mostly PnP, but I have no fear going into my case. Be forwarned: cables and connection get loose when you play with your computer and can cause all kinds of weird symptoms. In fact, when things go wrong in unobvious ways, the first thing I do now is unplug and replug everything except cpu and ram. I have found several mice going bad that way….and as stated…bad mice cause problems not immediately obvious.

      Welcome to the shallow end of the pool!

  18. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo says:

    Tim–thanks for volunteering your expertise here. I checked the test captures I made on first getting my AverMedia Game Capture Box and failed to notice that the “good” setting does capture at my target rate of 5MB/sec AND now that I recognize that the higher frame rate is near negligible for file size, I will now capture at the middle quality setting and no longer transcode. This will save 3 days a week of transcoding time===THANK YOU.

    I have also noticed that at the “good” setting the picture quality seems to be just a bit jagged at picture element edges. That edge goes mostly away when the mp4/h.264 file is transcoded into a new mpeg4 file. I guess the container format should not make a difference and that different players will present the file with different quality????—ANYWAY==I’m very happy to record on the good setting and see how my next hdtv ((I’m still using my 25yo SD Big Screen, its dark but still works!!)) displays it. If the jagged edges are too pronounced, I’ll transcode it then, if I feel like it.

    Learning is a wonderful thing. Thanks again.

    • Tim says:

      Your welcome… it was a fun excursion.

      “”I’m still using my 25yo SD Big Screen

      Are you seeing these jaggies on the computer screen? I’ll have to look it up but I believe that NTSC has changed over the years between SD and HD {chroma, luminance, PIXEL ASPECT (they used to be round(sort of))/pitch, that kind of thing} — I remember when Atari messed up older televisions. And, of course the SD isn’t going to like progressive video unless it’s being ruined going through a set-top box first.

    • Tim says:

      Ah Ha!! I think Dallas is onto something {see above about memory/pagefaults} — If you have one of these newer drives on XP then it is going to cause problems with disk reads.

      http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/03/why-new-hard-disks-might-not-be-much-fun-for-xp-users/

      Also the swap file should NOT be placed there if this is the situation.

      Must get beer. I’ll check back l8tr.

      • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

        A beer at 8:25 AM Left Coast?? I do hope for your social integration that you live in Central Europe? …. but drinking beer should hardly even count.

        I look at my captured and transcoded stuff on my 31 inch HDTV that I use as a monitor…. or on my 17 inch monitor==my 23 inch got nicked so I’m one short of my triple set up. So busy capturing new stuff, hardly ever watch the old stuff.

        My system uses win 7, so xp drivers isn’t an issue???

        Given my viewing TV’s are both SD analogue ((Yes==5 Displays in one room, I had to stop listening to music at the same time)) ==all the recordings/ota/cable pics look good to me. I think being shown on SD makes for a very “soft” image, and sitting 20 feet away at my (computer) desk obviates many ills. Actually makes me wonder if I just should go ahead and capture stuff at say DVD quality, and save lots of hard drive space.

        EVERY TIME I make a jump in technology, I do wish I had done it 3-5 years earlier? The Aver capture box has been out for years. Would have been so nice to have been using it all these years. I hesitate to go with the tech because I assumed the powers that be would lock it down. Now that I have the box, they probably will???

        TVs/computers, too much just a simple distraction. I should READ more. Like exercise or playing chess, I just find those activities too stressful. Fun though too from time to time.

        Pros and Cons.

        • Tim says:

          “”My system uses win 7, so xp drivers isn’t an issue???

          Rats. No, those drives work with Win7 — Unless you really mean “drivers for xp running under win7”

          Are you running with 64 bit?? I find it a hassle. It depends on what you are doing.

          ———————————————–
          I keep thinking you’re on xp for some reason. I should try my current operations on Win7 to see if I experience similar issues.

          On Friday, I had a rather tall order from someone I had never expected it from. It’s kind of a gift thing so I’ve plunged into it — 81 gig to be processed and written to dvd yeilding 36 episodes of a popular series. This needs to be completed by Tuesday afternoon. So, like I said: Tall Order!

          It’s been DLing, transcoding, listening to NA, AJ, Clyde Lewis, browsing heavy, and concurrent watching of them with VLC. The only hiccups I’ve had (except for juggling disk space which I’m out of and my usb ‘backup solution’ is awful) is that every now and again VLC will just close when starting the videos — it usually works by the second or third attempt; Something IS occasionally bumping heads.

          But, you see, my system is extremly modest:

          Core II Duo E6400 @ 2.13 gHz
          DG9650T 1066 mHz fsb
          2 gig ram {you read that right}
          Msi branded Radeon R5770 901 core and 1301 memory clock 1 gig vid memory.

          OS: XP Pro (sp2) 32 bit
          Transcoder/authoring: ConvertXtoDvd
          Browser: FF

          Yes, my win7 runs flawlessly also even with that 2 gig but I do try and strip most of the obvious crap out of the installs. So, I just know that your issue is not insurmountable and should be doing glassy fine just like you want except for mayby capturing a live stream while doing all that other stuff could get dodgy.

          • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

            I’m happy with my system, as ignorance is bliss.

            AMD quad-core 3.1 Mhz, Win 7/64. I haven’t noticed any real issues with 64 bits other than some programs I had in 64 bit XP did not run…. like my video card, mp3 Direct Cut (or was that mpgvcr?), GSpot (looks nicer than MediaInfo that installed a right click context menu so I kept functionality) I did step up to 8 GB ram but have never seen my system use more than 4. I think my transcoders never used cuda or ram as I think some do. Years ago I was heavy into photos and photoshop but hardly anything the last few years.

            I currently have over 2000 self burned DvD’s but about 2 years ago the cost curve was close enough I started keeping everything on hard drives. I have about 15 of them full right now.

            Why don’t you blow your friend out of the water and give him his series on an SSD? THAT would blow his mind!!

            What series?? I was a big downloader on “Box Tv” a freebie based in the UK before it quit about 4 months ago. I got and like a lot of the British Stuff but I have to say HBO and CineMax etc have some good series. Dexter being one of the best??

            I should be building my own ferro cement boat, but TV as a hobby keeps me off the streets.

            What blank dvd’s do you use? I had a bunch of cheapos all go bad at the same time and switch with good results to Tayo Yuden. Hard drives are even better====UNTIL YOU DROP ONE!!! ARRGH!!!

          • Tim says:

            “”Why don’t you blow your friend out of the water and give him his series on an SSD?

            I wish. No computer. No Samsung player to handle usb .MKVs — This month has been the first time I’ve actually made dvds since we got the Samsung BlueRay player back in 2010, or so, that I can just stick one of the Seagate ‘wallet drives’ into. To really be a wet fish-slap, one always looses quality when changing format (transcoding).

            “”What blank dvd’s do you use?

            Currently, this is a pile of red, office-looking hp +r cheapos; I rarely get a bad burn on anything but that may be because I ‘cut my teeth’ on vcdeasy which came with the warning to not even touch the mouse when it was burning. The only fail I’ve had out of this whole stack was one where I was DLing and surfing while burning. I’m comparing it to a Memorex {which I do remember being crap} and, while I’m not familiar with the exact substrate, the hp’s look a little more deeper red than magenta over the memorex. I usually burn at 8x. I’ve heard the best are Verbatim and then only the ones manufactured in Singapore.

            “”What series??

            Shameless. I’ve never heard of it before. I’m hooked. It’s lusty and stars W. H. Macy.

            http://imdb.com/title/tt1586680/

            “”I should be building my own ferro cement boat

            Ha!! I know of a certain university which hosts an engineer’s *concrete canoe contest* from time to time — A ‘fuck y’all’ pipe dream of mine has always been to obtain a barge and live in international waters — build me one??

          • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

            My crappy dvd (plain white, forget name) all burned just fine and even confirmed after the burn but 6 months later 95% became unreadable.

            I’ve seen the ads for Shameless but didn’t give it a look. Then I was channel surfing and watched and episode. I watched the whole series one year per day. Its good to keep the continuity fresh like that.

            Still, the life of low lifes is still glamorized on Shameless even with the sporadic horrible. Their family unity is rarely seen. The stability of the eldest daughter would have been lost to early pregnancy….. still hollywood. Too bad BoxTV is off the internet now, I definitely would have dl’d the UK version for its own pleasure and for comparison.

            If I were to burn dvd’s again, I’d try to use those “stone” dvd’s supposed to last forever. I’m so into hard drive storage…I’m only slightly curious to give my burned TY’s (made in Japan) a check view. Almost doesn’t matter as they were all done at SD format and all my Hard Drive stuff is done in HD. When I finally go for the tv, it will be fun to see if anything I have is actually watchable.

            I went to KMart on Black Friday to get the 60 inch Vizio for $668 but the store was closed so I missed the purchased. KILLS ME to consider getting the same machine for $200 more now, or $600 more for another brand. I constantly read that “basically” these tvs are “all the same” and then I read just the opposite. My conclusion: both are right.

            Even though you burn the Series to dvd for your friend, I hope you back it up (and for yourself) on hard drives?

          • Tim says:

            “”My crappy dvd (plain white, forget name) all burned just fine and even confirmed after the burn but 6 months later 95% became unreadable.

            Yea, disk rot. I’m looking at some old ‘staples’ Cds now that the silver on the top has flaked off — That is where the data is, that laminate on the very top with no protection whatsoever — If I thought I could keep them balanced, I would try lacquering them or something.

            “”I definitely would have dl’d the UK version for its own pleasure

            I noticed that many were complaining that it wasn’t the british one.

            “”I went to KMart on Black Friday to get the 60 inch Vizio

            Garbage. And, I think it maxes out at 720p (probably more like some over post-processed 600p hybrid ). Get some quality in an affordable range like a 42 inch Samsung LCD or something — after service mode alignments SUPER SWEET! — Gees, you really do need to troll Kim Komando.

            “”I hope you back it up

            Are you fucking kidding me?? 81 gig in 3 days on a line that has a 150 gig cap?? I’ll back it up if I have to re-invent quantum chrystaloghraphic storage.

          • Tim says:

            Quality tv reccomendations

            Well, I’m not the best of shoppers, but I can vouch for these HX850 boards — I suggest you find one of these in your price range. What I’m qualified to say is that Visio does, in fact, suck sheeples.

            they go up to 55 inch, I *think*.

            http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406254,00.asp

          • Tim says:

            A round of drinks for everyone!! I managed to make my system ‘boggy’ during transcoding. I accomplished this feat with the source file being on an external USB 2.0 drive.

          • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

            So….I note on my AverMedia Capture Box that it works Very Well on one kind of SeaGate External Drive but is Very Glitchy on another SeaGate Ext Drive.

            Makes me think my ENTIRE OS ((Win 7/64bit)) might have a negative interaction with some or all External Drives.

            If you find a fix for this…… let us know? ((I recall some joke about Marketing Departments being paid to figure out how to make glitches into: “Features.”))

            Anyway, again with your help, the need to have my Ext Drives connected and transcoding is about at an end as the AverMedia Box should initially capture in the format I will want to keep.

            Now, what would be nice, is to find a good h.264 editor to remove commercials. I use Avidemux and it is very glitchy and unpleasant to use on these files—eg, distorted sound, no picture while scrolling, etc. I just got “Free Video Editor” that is supposed to work…. we’ll see.

            Its never good to brag about how well one’s computer is working. I’ve never seen one last more than 3 days after such incidents! (smile!)

          • Tim says:

            I’ve been initially cursed with three different Seagate usb drives — They all have their own ‘personality’ {features} it seems. My first one was Freeagent Go. — after moving boo koos of data over to it I later found that all the very large files were broken.

            The second was a Freeagent Goflex — that one got trashed day one by writing folders to it that had too much nesting and long filenames which ruined its partition table — I *think* part of them is a FAT partition, or something.

            This third big one is 2 tb Goflex Desk which is, um, a little bit special. One must be careful not to write a whole huge directory to it at a time or it will melt down. If it has no activity for 5 minutes then it can’t be ejected right or accessed {It does the dangerous thing of asking if you wish to format it!!! — Yes, If i’m transcoding something and it pauses or completes then the next access of it will ask to format the drive — so script files inputting ‘y’, ‘y’, ‘y’ all day are right out. I’ll probably get drunk and hit return anyways one day}. And those ‘special features’ you mention?? Apparently, the fix for this one is to flash it with firmware that disables the activity light. Really. That is all they said.

            “”I use Avidemux

            try this one:
            http://www.virtualdub.org/

          • Tim says:

            “”…Very Well on one kind of SeaGate External Drive but is Very Glitchy on another SeaGate Ext Drive

            What happened to them?? Were they outsourced to the United States, or something??

        • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

          They are both recent models one still for sale at NewEgg Seagate Drives: 2TB and 3TB–for some reason $10 cheaper than bare drives of the same capacity. As far as I can tell, they both work fine with my computer. Sometimes they are not recognized when first plugged in and I have to go to Computer Management and give them a Drive Letter. Like you, I get paranoid I will screw up and click on reformat them and lose all those shows!!!

          I just know the AverMedia constantly needs a hard reset when using one of them, and works as desired with the other one. “Something” makes them different. Amusingly, the one that is glitchy is 2TB while the one that works is 3TB==while the AverMedia Box says it works only up to 2TB Drives. My experience is that it works with a 4GB Memory Stick (No conflicting external power source I thought) and with the “too large” Seagate.

          I have virtualdub and will try it on next occasion.

          What site did you grab Shameless from? I’ve been nailed twice by Comcast and so no longer dl. Safer to use the analogue hole, but it does take more time?

          Pros and Cons to all we do. I need to go back and find a screen capture utility for Infinity Live Streaming. “I believe the Sony Betamax lawsuit gives legal authority for this as I do pay for the programing.”

          • Tim says:

            “”What site did you grab Shameless from?

            Somebody hooked me up with it off the internet, somewhere… the ‘sites’ seemed to be legion.

            “”even with the sporadic horrible

            It wasn’t very fun to proof that job anymore after Macey’s character ignored the dedicated beeper for the lady’s heart transplant.

          • Tim says:

            “”Amusingly, the one that is glitchy is 2TB while the one that works is 3TB==while the AverMedia Box says it works only up to 2TB Drives.

            It’s the 32 bit limit — it can only ‘address’ 2 gig. The rest of the drive is still there, though — try multiple partitions on it.

            “”This means that a 32-bit OS cannot use more than 2 GB total, which means 6 GB for all applications including virtual memory. Of course, this has nothing to do with RAM, because the other 2 GB would be stored in the paging file, limited to your hard-drive’s speed.

            http://superuser.com/questions/253633/2gb-limit-on-32bit-operating-systems

          • bobbo, Onomatopoeia often occurs occluding obstreperous opinions: ow, Ow, OW, OW!!!!! says:

            OK–that makes sense “but” its the 3TB drive that works flawlessly. Now–I do have 2 TB filled with other stuff so only 1 TB is available for actual “new” recordings….but I’d think the whole 3TB drive still needs to be “read” or whatever is going on.

            I’ve watched All of Season 1 and 2 of shameless and don’t recall the heart monitoring issue….. I am always multi-tasking which means a few years from now when I watch it again, I will pick up on all kinds of lost details.

            Hmmmm….so many show grab my interest at the start… and then fade fairly quickly. Just watched Oblivion. Very much better than its reviews. I guess being a Scientologist has its burdens??? Ha, ha.

            Coincidentally, my favorite website gave away a video converter/editor (not confirmed/tested yet) yesterday. So, I have 2 programs to check when I pull my first recordings from the AverMedia Box at the “good” setting.

            http://giveawayoftheday.com

            ((If its not free, its not on my system!!))

          • Tim says:

            “”its the 3TB drive that works flawlessly

            And if that 2TB is a Seagate Goflex Desk such as mine then that one is a flakey PITA.

            “”Now–I do have 2 TB filled with other stuff so only 1 TB is available for actual “new” recordings….but I’d think the whole 3TB drive still needs to be “read” or whatever is going on.

            The box seems to indicate that it’s some 32 bit something with it’s embeddeds. — If you format one of those 3 TB with win7 so that it has that extra gig in a second partition then the box *should* recognize it as 2 usb drives to choose from.

            Also, that box is going to truncate the usable storage after so many sectors so that if you go back and write files with win7 (which can address it all) then the box will find it full while win7 still sees the last free gig. This is the situation where a 2nd partition on it just makes more sense.

            Winx — I tested that one last month for a friend. It was very fast (sometimes bumping up to 90 fps) and the quality seemed o.k. but it is not one for anybody who likes to flip switches; That thing has almost no user input for what it wants to do — This is not always a bad thing for many. Also, it’s a bit bloated with stuff nobody wants in a video converter.

            Free’s better than paying.


0

Bad Behavior has blocked 7154 access attempts in the last 7 days.