The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

In other news, I finished gathering what I could from the Wii Shop. Tomorrow, the ability to add Wii Points will be disable, with final store closure coming in January 2019.

It's the end of another odd Nintendo era. Amazing how long the Wii Shop stayed open, surviving two Nintendo console generations. The Wii Shop had major flaws (40mb limit, not being paid royalties until 6000 copies were sold, etc), but putting those aside, it was one of the more popular aspects of the Wii besides the motion controls. It also was among the first attempts at legal console emulation. I actually had high hopes for the Virtual Console in regards to releasing rare console gems, but the VC never grew to what I expected. There was a lot of third party support, but the elusive titles like Little Samson, Gun-Nac, and the Capcom Disney games never appeared. Even really obvious classics like The Lion King were no-shows. Licensing can be frustrating, I guess.

In terms of WiiWare, it was shovelware city. There were a good number of actual games like the Nintendo ArtStyle series, the Konami ReBirth series, and indie games like Retro City Rampage. I managed to collect the entire ArtStyle and ReBirth series, along with a number of other WiiWare exclusives. Most of my VC collection is TurboGrafx-16 games, and nearly all of them shoot 'em ups of some kind. There were some other TG16 titles that I wanted like the Bonk games and Super Star Soldier, but I used up my WiiWare budget. The TG16 games I want are on the Wii U eShop though, so that's a bit of consolation.

Perhaps sometime, I will take screenshots of my collection and make a separate thread about my collection. I know it won't be around forever, but I do plan on keeping my collection as long as possible. If there is a way to keep your purchased games and freely play them in a hacked Wii system, I would go for that actually. It would be the only way to play the games you bought.

[huckleberrypie]

In other news, I finished gathering what I could from the Wii Shop. Tomorrow, the ability to add Wii Points will be disable, with final store closure coming in January 2019.

It's the end of another odd Nintendo era. Amazing how long the Wii Shop stayed open, surviving two Nintendo console generations. The Wii Shop had major flaws (40mb limit, not being paid royalties until 6000 copies were sold, etc), but putting those aside, it was one of the more popular aspects of the Wii besides the motion controls. It also was among the first attempts at legal console emulation. I actually had high hopes for the Virtual Console in regards to releasing rare console gems, but the VC never grew to what I expected. There was a lot of third party support, but the elusive titles like Little Samson, Gun-Nac, and the Capcom Disney games never appeared. Even really obvious classics like The Lion King were no-shows. Licensing can be frustrating, I guess.

In terms of WiiWare, it was shovelware city. There were a good number of actual games like the Nintendo ArtStyle series, the Konami ReBirth series, and indie games like Retro City Rampage. I managed to collect the entire ArtStyle and ReBirth series, along with a number of other WiiWare exclusives. Most of my VC collection is TurboGrafx-16 games, and nearly all of them shoot 'em ups of some kind. There were some other TG16 titles that I wanted like the Bonk games and Super Star Soldier, but I used up my WiiWare budget. The TG16 games I want are on the Wii U eShop though, so that's a bit of consolation.

Perhaps sometime, I will take screenshots of my collection and make a separate thread about my collection. I know it won't be around forever, but I do plan on keeping my collection as long as possible. If there is a way to keep your purchased games and freely play them in a hacked Wii system, I would go for that actually. It would be the only way to play the games you bought.

Or play them WADs through Dolphin since they do take WiiWare games anyway.

[cpd2009]

Pearl is now on Windows 8.1, and no issues.

I figured Windows 8.1 was the better choice when I built her, but at that time, Windows 10 wasn't too bad. To me, the older Windows is a great improvement over 10, at the cost of not being on the cutting edge. At least the OS won't hassle my choice of web browser or try to force Modern/PW apps on me (like how new Windows 10 PCs will have an "S Mode" that you have to disable to install Win32 programs. At least the backlash has made that ability free.)

Windows 8.1 is a very interesting concept. It's flawed in execution, but it still has the stability of Windows 7 along with many of it's features. I have also been able to install all Windows Updates so far. Pearl doesn't seem to be on Windows 8.1 Skylake blacklist.

In all fairness, I would have went straight to Windows 7 but with only two and a half years of support left, it's a no go.

[huckleberrypie]

Pearl is now on Windows 8.1, and no issues.

I figured Windows 8.1 was the better choice when I built her, but at that time, Windows 10 wasn't too bad. To me, the older Windows is a great improvement over 10, at the cost of not being on the cutting edge. At least the OS won't hassle my choice of web browser or try to force Modern/PW apps on me (like how new Windows 10 PCs will have an "S Mode" that you have to disable to install Win32 programs. At least the backlash has made that ability free.)

Windows 8.1 is a very interesting concept. It's flawed in execution, but it still has the stability of Windows 7 along with many of it's features. I have also been able to install all Windows Updates so far. Pearl doesn't seem to be on Windows 8.1 Skylake blacklist.

In all fairness, I would have went straight to Windows 7 but with only two and a half years of support left, it's a no go.

You mean the one with the Core i3-6100? Sounds good. Windows 10 was an improvement in some ways, but I agree that it is polarising in that Microsoft was aggressive at pushing a walled garden relatively fewer people seemed to like (and even less so after Microsoft deprecated Windows Mobile). The fact that there was a Win32 release of Rise of the Tomb Raider and Quantum Break, both of which previously saw release as Modern apps, reinforced that unpopularity. IMHO, application packaging under the new API looked rather convoluted and needlessly over-engineered. Okay, maybe restricting them to a sandbox is a saving grace, but the Modern API's design makes the already complicated Win32 API look like a BASIC program.

And yes, people here are still holding on to Windows 7 for whatever reason, just as how they did back when XP dragged on for more than a decade.

[cpd2009]

And I'd imagine people will continue to use Windows 7 long after it gets security updates cut off after the EOL date. People have found ways of getting around MS' block of Windows 7 security updates on "unsupported" CPUs, and there are fewer still that continue to run XP.

In related news, I have been experimenting with my Dazzle DVC100 video capture dongle that I found at a rummage sale last fall. It did come with software, but the disc that had the Pinnacle Studio program and license key was missing, so I have to use a third party solution. I did try the video capture in Magix Movie Maker, but it doesn't seem to take the Dazzle's audio inputs even though you can select the Dazzle WDM audio capture from the input list. The only decent software that I have found in which both video and audio work is VirtualDub. It records video and audio well for what I need it for... ripping vintage old TV commercials off yard sale VHS tapes. I do aspire to convert VHS tapes in full, which is where the next issue comes into play.

VirtualDub records in uncompressed AVI format by default. A simple three to four minute commercial block can take up several gigabytes of disk space. I then have to render the video a second time to apply a deinterlace filter, as the Magix deinterlace filter seems to have no effect on the AVI files. This, of course, takes more time than it would if I was able to capture directly in Magix, which properly deinterlaces the video input upon recording. Why it only deinterlaces via input and not a filter, I don't know.

There are ways to set up various codecs with VirtualDub, like Xvid and Lame MP3. But I have to read a tutorial on that. VirtualDub is a very advanced video editing tool, with loads of settings that I have yet to understand. A better method is to get an upgraded video capture tool that includes Windows 8/10 compatible software and drivers. I have seen newer Dazzle capture devices sold elsewhere.

[huckleberrypie]

You ever tried XMedia Recode or any of those NVENC-accelerated video conversion tools? That should put your GTX 750Ti to good use.

[cpd2009]

Never heard of XMedia Recode, but I will give it a try. I already have Handbrake, which can convert videos and rip DVDs, but I don't think it has any hardware accelerated encoding capability.

If XMedia Recode works better than Handbrake, then it can help reduce the size of my VHS rips, though they still need to be in high quality before I edit them down further in Magix Movie Maker and render them in MP4.

I recently uploaded a new batch of TV commercials, and I'd have to say that using a pure uncompressed source results in far less compression artifacts in the final MP4 file. So, the compression will have to reduce as little quality as possible while still remaining light on file size. I think I can figure that out.

[huckleberrypie]

Never heard of XMedia Recode, but I will give it a try. I already have Handbrake, which can convert videos and rip DVDs, but I don't think it has any hardware accelerated encoding capability.

If XMedia Recode works better than Handbrake, then it can help reduce the size of my VHS rips, though they still need to be in high quality before I edit them down further in Magix Movie Maker and render them in MP4.

I recently uploaded a new batch of TV commercials, and I'd have to say that using a pure uncompressed source results in far less compression artifacts in the final MP4 file. So, the compression will have to reduce as little quality as possible while still remaining light on file size. I think I can figure that out.

It shouldn't hurt to try that one. The UI is a little fiddly, and it takes some getting used to, but it does pay dividends. I switched to it mostly as the cracked DVDFab I previously used is giving me false AV positives and even the original program itself looks rather sketchy.

[cpd2009]

XMedia Recode works wonders! It's far better than Handbrake thanks to the hardware acceleration alone.

I just have to tinker with the compression rate some more.

[huckleberrypie]

XMedia Recode works wonders! It's far better than Handbrake thanks to the hardware acceleration alone.

I just have to tinker with the compression rate some more.

Glad you liked it! I've had trouble getting it to encode 60fps footage properly, but we'll see.