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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday 16 February 2008
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Guests
Scott Wilkinson - VHS / Beta Max - BluRay HD-DVD
- Beta Max was still used in the TV industry up until a few years ago
- The HD-DVD camp shouldn’t have cancelled their conference and one to one interviews after Warner stood down
- Best Buy are going to promote BluRay
- If you’ve got a 38″ or 42″ TV, you’re really not going to notice a difference between an up converted DVD or a HD-DVD
- If you’ve got a 50″+ you will notice however
- Scott is really happy that the format war is over
- HD-DVD is more stable than BluRay
- Sometimes the BluRay players crash with certain disks
- If you have a large TV, then try both the HD-DVD Player and TV’s Built in Upscale and see which is best
Steve Gibson - Mobile Privacy
- Wireless Telephone Headsets are unsecured
- Bluetooth Headsets are usually Encrypted
- They were able to crack the security of the company by printing off business cards of off site employees
- Even after the conversation, people can still listen to the room
- As long as there is a wire, your secure
Tech News
Walmart is no longer going to stock HD-DVD in their stores from June on wards. It all started in January when Warner Brothers, one of the last three studio’s producing HD-DVD, said that they weren’t going to produce HD-DVD’s anymore.
Toshiba is going to stop making HD-DVD Players. They are the biggest maker of HD-DVD. HD-DVD was cheaper to make, and had some interactivity advantages. BluRay however could hold more data, and was backed by HP, Sony, and Apple.
Toshiba and Microsoft backed BluRay. Paramount and Universal will likely say this week that they will be going BluRay. The movies look exactly the same in both.
You can now go to the store and buy with confidence a BluRay Player and Disk until you really see the price. Most people are recommending the $400 PlayStation 3. With that you get a great upgradeable BluRay Player, and you also get a gaming machine.
Those old HD-DVD Players play DVD’s really well and upscale them to 720p.
Hour 1
Q Paul from California - Adobe Creative Suite
It is too good to be true if it’s $800. They are not selling the same stuff as Amazon is. Adobe doesn’t do OEM versions, so Leo’s no sure what they are selling.
You might want to take a look at ResellerRatings.com and see if they are legit. You should take a look at the shipping costs on some sites.
Leo would not recommend you go to these guys. Call Adobe and find out who they are.
Q Ray from Washington - PC Video to TV
The Apple TV has it’s own visualiser built in. You’d have to stream it to the TV. You can just have a cable running to the TV from the Computer.
You could get a wireless RF transmitter from the Computer to the TV, one of the best manufacturers is Wavecom.
Hour 2
Q Ellie from California - Should I get DSL?
Leo’s not one of those people who thinks everyone in the world should have a computer. However you might like a computer to post pictures on the Internet, use email…etc.
Because DSL is so cheap these days, it is worth getting it. A desktop is a good way to start as they are less expensive and the bigger screen is really nice.
It’s good that you want to get a Mac as there’s no worries about Viruses or Spyware. Leo would suggest a Mac and DSLExtreme, which is only $12.95 a month for DSL.
You’ll also want to buy a Broadband Router. The great thing about routers is the fact that they do the DSL Connection for you, and it also acts as a firewall.
You can go to classes for the Mac and you’ll meet people, make friends. User groups are also very helpful. You’ll go to them usually about once a month and there will be very friendly people there to help you learn.
You should go to Apple.com/Usergroups that helps you find user groups near you. Call Leo if you have any problems!
Q Derrik from California - Do I have a Virus?
If they are on the same network, the Desktop and Laptop can spread to each other. The first thing a virus does is go to the Internet and say “Come on in, we have a live one!”.
In the old days Viruses would burrow into your system, but these days, they burrow into your computer and sell your resources to spammers and hackers and make money.
You should turn on automatic updates, and you should watch what you’re doing on the computer.
Q Brad in Florida - External Firewire Drive?
A firewire drive is just as fast as 7200rpm. The Mini’s still use Laptop drives, so you should look at a 7200rpm Laptop drive for that Mini.
Q Mary from California - Getting Video off DVD to Mac
Handbrake is a great solution, and it’s free.
Q Silvio from California - HD Streaming
The problem with HD is the fact it’s a much bigger file. A standard definition movie is 700mb, the HD is almost 2gb.
It needs to buffer first. Just plan on renting them, downloading them and watching them the next day. They shouldn’t have too much trouble with a Standard Definition movie. With a 2 hour movie, you should be able to get the movie in under 2 hours.
If you can’t download as fast as it’s playing back, then you can’t stream it, otherwise you’ll always be waiting.
Hour 3
Q Gale from California - Should I get BluRay?
There’s no point in getting a High Definition player until you have a High Definition TV. Once you do, it’ll look gorgeous.
Q Lee in San Diego - Slow iTunes Transfer
It’s the fact that your using Wireless and so there may not be enough bandwidth available on the network. N should be plenty fast enough to do this. You might want to look at what’s stopping you from doing that.
Turn off Interference Robustness. Try plugging the external drive into your computer directly and it should be fine. You could also try connecting your laptop to the Apple Extreme via Ethernet and seeing if it works.
Many people these days have photo’s and video’s spread out across several computers, and it’s just common sense you want to have all your files stored in a central location, but you need enough speed to play back the video and audio.
Q Mike from California - Radio over my Handset
Sprint has a great EVDO network and it’s perfect for streaming audio. Most stations use Windows Media Streaming, which is fine but they change the URL frequently.
They try to force you to go to the web page to stream it.
Q Dave from California - BIOS Time Reverts
There’s part of the memory in the system called CMOS, and a clock continues to tick even when it’s off. You can change the date and time from the control panel or BIOS setup.
On older computers this happens when the battery is dead. The default date is 1980, and the computer then counts the number of seconds since then.
The fact it’s going back to 2004 means it’s software causing it. You just need to replace it, it’s a $1.50 and it’s an easy thing to do.
Q Mark from California - Dry Loop DSL
DSL is a high speed Internet given to you over the phone line. You can really only get this if the telephone company agrees for you to use it. If you don’t have a phone line, you can’t have DSL.
Dry Loop DSL is just the DSL with no Voice Service. Verizon and AT&T don’t like you to switch. They use every bit of the time that the FCC allow them to try and not let you switch.
You need the guy who understands. You want to talk to DSL Extreme and they will handle it for you. The phone companies do everything within the limit of the law to stop you from switching.
Just tell them you want two lines, you don’t tell them you are going to discontinue the other one. All it takes is a guy walking in the office to flick a switch, it doesn’t take too much work, but they want you to stay.
Q George in Fair Oaks, CA - Firefox?
Firefox and Netscape is essentially the same code. Firefox is better than Netscape. If you want something that looks and feels just like Netscape, head to Mozilla’s Seamonkey website which is just like Netscape.
Mozilla.org is the website of Mozilla, and has great products on it.
Q Chris in Longbeach, CA - Do I need to Upgrade my Computer
It sounds like you need to reinstall the operating system. If you call Toshiba you might be able to get new disks off them for your machine.
If you put the original software on there, and it works, then it means it’s not a hardware issue. It doesn’t sound like a calibration issue. Leo’s not even sure he can understand exactly what’s wrong.
It’s probable that it’s a software issue. A bad driver maybe. You might want to check the video driver your using and get a new one.
There’s nothing wrong with a 7 year old computer, it’s just the fact that companies won’t support you.
