The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

I forgot to mention that MS also isn't ruling out an Edge port for macOS.

Perhaps Apple can dump Safari and make Edge default, just like it did with IE back in the late 90s/early 2000s?

I will say that a Chromium-based Edge will likely increase performance. EdgeHTML gets bogged down easily by pages that have continuous scrolling such as Facebook or YouTube, becoming more and more unresponsive as you scroll. This does not happen with Chrome, Opera, or Firefox.

Doubt Apple would give up on Safari despite it having a scant market share, though.

And I guess this is a bit more bearable than listening to "Tomorrow" ad nauseam:

[cpd2009]

I don't understand this.

I can't get 100% smooth video captures with the Vidbox. I can try either Movavi or the Honestech app, but at certain points, there is obvious frame dropping, resulting in jerky video movement.

I have turned off or disabled any background programs as well as closing out of most programs as well. I even monitored the CPU usage. Movavi never goes above 50% while the Honestech app uses around 15% - 20%. RAM also stays below 40% usage as well. Pearl exceeds the system requirements that are listed on the Honestech website. They recommend a Core 2 Duo or higher, and only 1GB RAM.

I also have the Vidbox connected to one of Pearl's USB 3.0 ports, ensuring full speed transfer between device and PC.

What could be potentially causing this annoying frame dropping outside of blaming Windows 10? I'm tempted to downgrade to Windows 8.1 just to see if I can get 100% flawless video capture or even going back to Linux. 

Altogether, this is adding to my on-and-off frustration with my PC setup as of late. I can't seem to find any sort of setup that works the way I'd like it to, and add in Windows 10's occasional bugs on top of that. It makes me long for a Mac. Yes, I'm aware Apple abuses the planned obsolescence tactic along with forced upgrades, but you have to admit, macOS as of late appears to be far more stable than Windows 10. I'm honestly starting to think a Mac may be the best move going forward, sadly. I just want a computer that works with a modern OS and I shouldn't be forced to downgrade to an older Windows OS to get a device to work 100% with a PC that has the ability to handle analog composite VHS capture. An i3-6100 should be able to handle video capture perfectly.

My only other alternative is Linux, but from what I have been reading, OBS is one of the few modern video capture applications available for that platform. There could be others, but the only way I can tell is if I install Linux to a hard disk and explore the software repos. And dual-booting Ubuntu is also a bit tricky thanks to UEFI and Secure Boot. Ubuntu requires you to disable Secure Boot to install proprietary graphics drivers, and I always have issues with the Nvidia Linux drivers having screen tearing issues and the control panel not retaining user settings upon reboot.

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Quick little addendum. I tested capture with OBS, and I encounter the same frame dropping issue. I encoded in 640x480 MKV, deinterlacing during capture with Blend filter. CPU was only around 2% using the NVENC encoder.

[huckleberrypie]

I feel you on being between a rock and a hard place, mate. I do like macOS's UI and user experience, but Apple's avarice is appalling to say the least. And not everyone is comfortable with the intricacies of Linux either. As I've mentioned on Facebook chat I've also done a screen recording with OBS and yes I've noticed some dropped frames. I might as well experiment with this to see if I could at least mitigate it on my end especially as I may have to record stuff off Netflix or some other platform for whatever purpose it might serve.

[cpd2009]

Played around with OBS some more. Frame drops still occur after a few minutes of recording. I tried OpenGL rendering instead of Direct3D 11 and hardware encoding is selected.

Movavi actually produces the least amount of frame drops believe it or not and it's not as annoying as the other two programs. For now, I'll keep using Movavi. It helps that most of the stuff I am transferring is old TV shows and cartoons off VHS tapes recorded in EP/SLP mode. The framerate drops aren't very noticeable in cartoons, but can be noticeable in live action stuff.

I wonder if adding another stick of RAM will help with the video framerates? Pearl is currently running in single-channel RAM. Going a full 16GB dual-channel could possibly help alleviate the framerate drops. Here is an article from GamersNexus about dual vs single channel RAM. It's a very lengthy read, but some tasks do get a minor boost in systems with dual-channel RAM. https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-...le-channel

[huckleberrypie]

Played around with OBS some more. Frame drops still occur after a few minutes of recording. I tried OpenGL rendering instead of Direct3D 11 and hardware encoding is selected.

Movavi actually produces the least amount of frame drops believe it or not and it's not as annoying as the other two programs. For now, I'll keep using Movavi. It helps that most of the stuff I am transferring is old TV shows and cartoons off VHS tapes recorded in EP/SLP mode. The framerate drops aren't very noticeable in cartoons, but can be noticeable in live action stuff.

I wonder if adding another stick of RAM will help with the video framerates? Pearl is currently running in single-channel RAM. Going a full 16GB dual-channel could possibly help alleviate the framerate drops. Here is an article from GamersNexus about dual vs single channel RAM. It's a very lengthy read, but some tasks do get a minor boost in systems with dual-channel RAM. https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-...le-channel

That could help, and it does indeed help with integrated GPU setups as what I've witnessed. For starters I've managed to get triple-digit frame rates on DiRT Rally when I upgraded my laptop's RAM to dual channel. I still do get some stutters especially on battery power, and it's definitely utter crap compared to a discrete GPU, but it should cut the mustard for light gaming. If your system supports it, the higher the memory clock speeds, the better.

[cpd2009]

Preparing to set up a dual boot with Ubuntu 18.10. I'm going to use Pearl's 80gb secondary disk for this. Only thing I need to do beforehand is turn off secure boot, and I should be able to boot into either OS.

I want to see how video capture works under Linux along with general tinkering.

[cpd2009]

Preliminary results of Ubuntu 18.10 testing... not good.

The OS itself runs fine. The Vidbox is detected as a USB device under the "lsusb" command as a Conexant Systems device, but the Video4Linux subsystem isn't detecting it at all. OBS and XawTV only connect to my Logitech webcam. Either V4L doesn't support this specific Vidbox device (VCD01), or you have to do a lot of manual editing of config files.

I may do a bit of distro hopping instead. Ubuntu is out. I may give my old standby PCLinuxOS a try.

As for installing it, I just disabled Secure Boot and placed Ubuntu on my 80gb disk as planned. I also put the bootloader on that drive as well.

[huckleberrypie]

Preliminary results of Ubuntu 18.10 testing... not good.

The OS itself runs fine. The Vidbox is detected as a USB device under the "lsusb" command as a Conexant Systems device, but the Video4Linux subsystem isn't detecting it at all. OBS and XawTV only connect to my Logitech webcam. Either V4L doesn't support this specific Vidbox device (VCD01), or you have to do a lot of manual editing of config files.

I may do a bit of distro hopping instead. Ubuntu is out. I may give my old standby PCLinuxOS a try.

As for installing it, I just disabled Secure Boot and placed Ubuntu on my 80gb disk as planned. I also put the bootloader on that drive as well.

Sounds fine so far, though yeah such show-stoppers are to be expected.

In other news, I've given Source Filmmaker a try and it's fun once you get the hang of it. Right now I am practising pose, trying out random character models and in general getting acquainted with the UI. Which makes me wonder if arbitrary posing is possible in let's say GTA V or some other game with mod support in case you aren't content with the animations built into the games in question.

[cpd2009]

I found one of my old online friends on eBay. I may have told you about him before, but here's a refresher...

In the mid-2000s, I was part of a few Yahoo Groups that focused on kids TV shows on PBS such as Arthur and Clifford the Big Red Dog. One of those friends was David, and another I'll just refer to by his screen name Agent0042. I do know his real name but I won't post it here. Me and the Agent0042 guy would talk on Yahoo Messenger a lot, and formed an online friendship that lasted until the end of 2009. We had our ups and downs but we managed to work past our differences and just enjoy talking about our interests and whatever else we could think of. We even sent each other a few things as well... in the mail. Agent0042 also had (and still has) an eBay account where he occasionally sells merch based on said kids TV shows.

But if our friendship was going so well, why did it end? I have no idea.

He signed off Messenger one night in late summer 2009 just as he normally did. He would never sign on to Messenger again. In fact, his entire online presence seemed to disappear. His email account became unresponsive, and even Agent's other close friends like David, and even more from a FF fan forum were puzzled. We did find out nearly a year later that Agent was still alive and okay, but the reason why he left the internet still lingers. He apparently got in contact with David a few years ago via Facebook, possibly through an account using a fictional name.

I'm tempted to send him an email via eBay just letting him know I still exist, still share the same interests he does, and perhaps ask if he is ready to tell me why he left his online life behind so suddenly. I'd imagine it may be real life issues that caused him to do this, but even so, I'd want to know if he's beyond that and maybe, perhaps, invite him here.

But what if he doesn't respond, or tries to continue avoiding the internet? His eBay account does show recent activity, so he's still actively using the account.

What would your best course of action be? Contact him and hope for the best, or just let him be?

[huckleberrypie]

I do vaguely remember that guy, and as for whether you should make amends or try to contact him, I think it shouldn't hurt to have a chat with an old friend and all...

On an unrelated note, we're on page 555, and that suddenly reminded me of this: