Off-Topic / Dumping Thread

[+InsaneMultitasker]

Reminds me of a british show wife and I were watching. One of the guys had stepped outside and another comes out and says, 'hurry back inside, your beer is going to get cold'. I had to process that for a few seconds.

[Omega-TI]

Oh how I wish I had the room to put a desk like this!

 

 

[digdugnate]

those are cool desks, but a righteous pain in the heinie to setup computers for users on.

[Omega-TI]

[jrhodes]

I'm pretty sure its a impossibility to be off topic with anything you post in a thread titled "ot-pɐǝɹɥʇ-ƃuidɯnp- ;)"

[Omega-TI]

Had a few seconds and was bored...

 

 

[Omega-TI]

Wow... nice Piano and Violin rendition.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=GWwTw-NmXog

[Omega-TI]

I got nothing constructive done today, but I did get my new toy installed and even played with it a bit.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZnmdnzqYxU&feature=youtu.be

[+mizapf]

Sigh ... nice toy, still not legal in Germany. Just recently, this was relaxed a bit; in court, clips may serve as a piece of evidence, but those clips may only be used for that purpose and not be made accessible to the public. I suppose this has not improved with the EU's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation, known in Germany as DSGVO) which requires that any digital processing of personal data must be done with the consent of the affected people. This may have been targeted against Google et al., but they "forgot" to exempt photography from it, which is virtually all digital now... Not much hope that some day politicians learn enough about new technologies to make reasonable laws.

[Omega-TI]

How does that work with cellphones? People always seem to whip them out to record anything and everything these days.

[+mizapf]

Objects are usually not expressively protected (they don't have a privacy), although artwork may be protected - the illumination of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as far as I know, is protected, and you must not publish photographs of it at night, while it is OK during the day. However, this differs from country to country. I am not aware that there is a similar law in Germany, concerning objects outside of buildings. There is a law in Germany that allows you to take photographs of people without their explicit consent if they are a minor part of the scene ("Panoramafreiheit" - freedom of panorama [pictures]). However, with the introduction of the mentioned European regulation, it is not clear whether this right is still valid to its full extent.

 

Saying that, I don't see many people who take pictures of other people without asking. They are more busy with "me in front of the bridge", "me on the bridge", "me after crossing the bridge", "me pointing to myself" and so on.

 

The dashcam issue is similar to the problem of webcams at your front door, which must be mounted in a way so that they do not see anything outside of your private grounds. It is explicitly forbidden to monitor public walkways or streets.

[Omega-TI]

/rant mode ON

 

Granted my computer's native resolution is only 1080P, and my cellphones screen resolution is far less, but both those devices can play 4K MP4's, but my Sony TV refuses to play them. Yeah I know, it's not a 4K TV, but so what! Is this just another lame attempt by Sony try and force people into buying yet another TV? Is so, screw em.

 

/rant mode OFF

[+OLD CS1]

IIRC, 4k MP4s use H.265 for video encoding, while most lower-resolution videos generally use H.264. Your TV may not support H.265.

[Omega-TI]

IIRC, 4k MP4s use H.265 for video encoding, while most lower-resolution videos generally use H.264. Your TV may not support H.265.

 

Yeah, it sucks because converting to H.264 while downsizing to 1080 is time consuming.

[+OLD CS1]

 

Yeah, it sucks because converting to H.264 while downsizing to 1080 is time consuming.

 

Yes it is, and CPU-intensive. H.265 is almost a two-to-one improvement over H.264. Processing VP9 is just as bad, even at 1080p. At least you can watch 1080p on your phone, I have to downscale to 320x240 for mine

[Omega-TI]

Another time consuming chore is moving things from DVD to hard drive. Only 3 more seasons out of 10 to go... on this one anyway.

[+OLD CS1]

Shoulda said something... I already did all that, coulda helped

 

FWIW, I picked up DVDfab a couple years back. Great investment. Easy peasy, can use GPU for decoding and encoding (though I find software encoding gives better quality.)

 

Lastly, MKV is the best container for retaining chapter information. It can still have MP4 and AAC streams inside.

 

Lastly, again, I rip from DVD/BluRay to local hard drive, then copy over to the NAS. Plex server is pretty damn handy.

[Omega-TI]

Shoulda said something... I already did all that, coulda helped

 

FWIW, I picked up DVDfab a couple years back. Great investment. Easy peasy, can use GPU for decoding and encoding (though I find software encoding gives better quality.)

 

Lastly, MKV is the best container for retaining chapter information. It can still have MP4 and AAC streams inside.

 

Lastly, again, I rip from DVD/BluRay to local hard drive, then copy over to the NAS. Plex server is pretty damn handy.

 

I use a two-step process myself (for ripping CD's), which is probably not very efficient, but it's a hold over from the days when I had a slow-ass computer. I use MakeMKV for ripping CD's, but I use Handbrake to batch process them all into MP4's. I agree I prefer MKV format myself, especially it's ability with subtitles, but my Sony big screen basically says, "screw you" when it comes reading MKV format off a USB stick, so I save everything in MP4 format for conformity. If you can suggest a single step process for 1080P MP4's, I'm all ears... DVD Fab maybe?

 

I also use Debut Video Capture from NCH software. In fact I have quite a few of their software programs as I've found them to be quite good for a reasonable price and you only need to purchase the elements you need/want.

[+OLD CS1]

Yeah, DVDFab will rip directly to MP4. Bummer about the TV. I just picked up a 32" TCL Roku TV for the office a few months ago. With the Plex app it will play from my home NAS. According to the website it supports "MKV (H.264), MP4, MOV (H.264), TS (H.264) Music: AAC, MP3, WMA, WAV (PCM), AIFF, FLAC, AC3." So for me, no H.265, either.

[+Schmitzi]

I´m just out for a minute.

 

[Omega-TI]

Found an interesting "TI-related" video on YouTube today.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WYaJ-Yg5r0

[Omega-TI]

I have an off-topic question about the RPi, and since a lot of you guys here are pretty much experts, I thought this would be a good place to ask...

 

1) What is the largest off-the-shelf plug in ready hard drive that an RPi 3B+ can read and address?

2) Is there a particular hard drive (of that size) that can get all the power it needs from the USB port, assuming one is using the standard 2amp wall-wart?

 

My plan is to get a hard drive to work with KODI so I don't have to continually screw with USB memory sticks. Basically I want to plug it into my PC, transfer a butt-load of movies over, and them plug it into the Pi and call it a day, all with minimal effort.

[+arcadeshopper]

I have an off-topic question about the RPi, and since a lot of you guys here are pretty much experts, I thought this would be a good place to ask...

 

1) What is the largest off-the-shelf plug in ready hard drive that an RPi 3B+ can read and address?

2) Is there a particular hard drive (of that size) that can get all the power it needs from the USB port, assuming one is using the standard 2amp wall-wart?

 

My plan is to get a hard drive to work with KODI so I don't have to continually screw with USB memory sticks. Basically I want to plug it into my PC, transfer a butt-load of movies over, and them plug it into the Pi and call it a day, all with minimal effort.

 

Considering the pi uses the same power supply, I wouldn't drive a drive off of it myself.. It can use any drive that linux can address, so pretty much whatever you can buy. I'd personally get one (or more) of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHL4E they have their own power supply..

 

from: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=166302

The Pi3 uses an AP2553 to limit the current on the four downstream USB ports to a total of around 1200mA. The four USB ports' 5V lines are wired together, so total current is limited to that 1200mA figure before that switch cuts the supply. A diagram of that portion of the schematic is shown here: viewtopic.php?f=63&t=138280&hilit=+schematics#p917849

 

also https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport-ultra-current-draw/165894/2talks about using ONE with usb power, and the requirements.. if you plug in more you'll need a powered hub or drives with their own power supplys..

 

i found this all by googling.. you should google..

 

Greg

[jrhodes]

[+OLD CS1]

Google has a LOT of information but lacks answers. I would prefer to get information from people I know and trust than some random on a forum or a developer who may or may not have actually tried something.

 

Trust me, I get many calls from colleagues asking me questions for which they could easily search Google, but they trust me. I rather like that some people look to me over Google.

 

BTW, how big of a drive are you hoping to run, anyway? A good-sized SSD might work for you, depending. My entire DVD movie collection is 603GB and TV shows is 800GB.