Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday August 17, 2008
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Guests
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- David, Los Angeles, CA - SP3 messed up his computer
- Alex, Ontario, CA - Video Editing Software does’t work
- Joy, Tampa Bay, FL - Portable TVs and new Digital television
- Mary, Huntington Beach, CA - Video conferencing options
- Tom, Escondido, CA - DSL Extreme isn’t working
- Adam, Palo Alto, CA - Hard drives won’t work on his motherboard
- Hour 3
- Balthasar, a chat regular is starting a new podcast.
- Riley, Marin, CA - Laptop recommendation
- Jeff, Cleveland, OH - iTunes alternative for iPod?
- Pat, San Juan Cap, CA - Thoughts on the Clipper chip?
- Debbie, Los Angeles, CA - Scanning books and editing them
- David, San Diego, CA - When will we get fiber optic connections?
- Jenny, Garden Grove, CA - Playing .MOV in WMP.
- Nick, Virginia - Connecting camera to his MAC
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Leo was in Vegas for the New Media Expo
Formerly the Podcast Expo in Ontario, CA, now it’s a major conference called the New Media Expo and is in Las Vegas now. This conference focuses on Internet Broadcasting, which Leo believes to be the future of broadcasting and even film distribution. Everyone is doing podcasts these days from the regular guy to the main stream pros. And it all started after TIVO was invented and gave everyone the option of watching and listening on your time.
NBC worried that people will watch more of their Internet Olympic coverage.
Fearful of more people watching Olympic events online, NBC greatly restricted the access of their Olympic coverage. But what they’ve found is that putting all the coverage on the Internet, more people were driven to turn their TVs on to watch.
TSA Approved Laptop Bags
TSA requested laptop bag makers create approved “checkpoint friendly” bags which will streamline the process of going through Airline security.
NYC is trying to band text messaging while driving.
Of course people text while driving. They use their cells, don’t they? But it’s unsafe and a bill banning texting while driving is being written. Leo thinks this is very good idea. People should be driving, not texting.
Leo will be at NVision 08
Leo will be broadcasting from N’Vision 08 where he’ll be at NVision 08 Gaming convention. Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Tricia Helfer (yeow), Astronaut Eileen Collins, the Mythbusters … Swing by mod Alley and say “hi.”
Guests
Will Harris is in town and joins Leo to talk about Internet broadcasting.
Will is a fellow TWIT who lives in the UK and has started Channel Flip, and internet television station. They do gadgets and tech, movies, relationships, tons of topics. It costs alot less to start an internet tv presence than even making a magazine issue. All you need is the bandwidth, which is dropping rapidly in prices. The initial setup is rather high, about $40,000 for cameras, lights, computers, etc. But that’s dirt cheap compared to broadcast TV. And you can use cameras that the average user has at home.
People download the shows from iTunes, or watch it online. And TV boxes like the AppleTV and TIVO can even be available as a video on demand option. But forget that. The Internet is the future of TV broadcasting. Is bandwidth the main cost? Not at all. It’s getting cheaper so that a few hundred GB of bandwidth a month is very affordable for a program with a few hundred viewers.
Hour 1
Q Barbara, Oakland, CA - HDTV Conversion Box recommendation
Barbara needs a box to convert the HDTV signals to her analog TV. She uses rabbit ears and doesn’t want to lose her TV next February. Consumer Reports recently did a roundup review of all the ones out and the gist is the cheaper ones are overheating, but better ones are coming out. So there isn’t a hurry right now to get your converter box. Be patient and wait until we get closer to the deadline. And get the US Government Voucher before you do. But don’t forget that there’s an expiration date on the voucher, so get them just before you go buy them.
One other thing. If you have cable or Satellite, you won’t need the converter box. Your service will be converted before it reaches you. Converter Boxes are only necessary if you’re watching broadcast television with an antenna or rabbit ears. And some smaller stations are getting waivers from the FCC and will not be going digital. But they’re very small stations.
Q Stephanie, Upland, CA - Crashing browser problems
Internet Explorer stopped working. They bought a new PC, but it’s still happening. They installed Firefox and still no joy. Leo says the flash video is crashing the browser. Uninstall flash and run the downloadable flash. Don’t install in the browser. Install it separately outside of the browser environment.
Q Darren, Hemmitt, CA - An answer for Stephanie …
Darren discovered that cache settings that are mis set can cause problems with high volume content on browsers. Internet Options - Cookies - Delete forms, pages, etc. Clear it all. Clearing the browser cache can really help.
Hour 2
Q David, Los Angeles, CA - SP3 messed up his computer
He updated his OS and now he’s having trouble. Leo says the best thing you can do is to rebuild/reinstall Windows with SP3 natively. Uninstall the SP3, back your your data and the reformat and install the OS. Then install SP3 fresh. This should solve the issue.
Q Alex, Ontario, CA - Video Editing Software does’t work
He downloaded Adobe Premiere Elements’ demo and it doesn’t recognize his camcorder. Leo asked if Alex was using USB or firewire. If USB, Adobe won’t read it that way. Sony uses iLink/DV or firewire and Premiere won’t read anything but firewire. And USB, even 2.0, just can’t handle the bandwidth as firewire does. If Alex doesn’t have a firewire connection, firewire cards are cheap.
Q Joy, Tampa Bay, FL - Portable TVs and new Digital television
She’s concerned she’ll lose. Leo says they won’t work with analog converters. None of the converters will work with DC power. You’ll need some sort of AC adapter/converter to handle the load. What will we do in the event of disasters and no electricty? This is a real problem as portable TVs will become useless come Feb. 2009. Leo has found battery powered digital TVs at LCDDigital.TV, but at $249, they aren’t cheap.
And sometime down the line, the same thing will happen in radio as the FCC will look to move radio broadcast signals into the HD spectrum in order to free up more communications bands to auction for revenue. But it’s not happening yet.
Q Mary, Huntington Beach, CA - Video conferencing options
Her husband will be going down to Antarctica for about two months. She wants to know what options she has to talking to him. SKYPE is a good option. Use a Plantronics USB headset or the Logitech ClearChat. And if you have a laptop with camera, you can do video chatting. But alot depends on the kind of internet connection he’ll have down there.
She also needs a webcam suggestion. If you have a firewire connection on your PC, you can use your own digital camcorder to handle it. Otherwise, the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 is your best bet.
Q Tom, Escondido, CA - DSL Extreme isn’t working
His father got his phone line changed to Cox Cable and it deep sixed the DSLExtreme connection. What’s happening is that Cox wants you to use their Internet service and since they use cable - they use VOIP to handle the phone. You can go with their Internet service, of course. It’ll cost more than DSL Extreme though. Leo says that you should get DSLExtreme involved. Ask for help getting bare DSL from AT&T.
Q Adam, Palo Alto, CA - Hard drives won’t work on his motherboard
He realized that he has a SATA hard drive and his older motherboard won’t handle it (IDE connectors). You can get a SATA PCI card, but your BIOS may not be able to allow booting from an external card.
Hour 3
Q Balthasar, a chat regular is starting a new podcast.
He’s doing it with Sasha called LeanGeeks. The story of two fat nerds trying to combat their sagging waistline.
Q Riley, Marin, CA - Laptop recommendation
Intel or AMD? Leo says that Intel is the way to go right now. Leo loves AMD, but the fact is that Intel has the edge, particularly in laptops.
Q Jeff, Cleveland, OH - iTunes alternative for iPod?
There isn’t one. Apple has buttoned down the iPod pretty good so that you’re stuck using iTunes.
Q Pat, San Juan Cap, CA - Thoughts on the Clipper chip?
Remember the Clipper chip that would allow parents control what their kids could see? It would’ve also given the government a back door to listening in. Could there be a Clipper Chip in the new digital boxes? Leo thinks it’s unlikely. The feds aren’t making the boxes and the expense of the chips would make the boxes too costly - even with a voucher. And with today’s tech-obsessed hacker community, it’s unlikely they could get that by the population without anyone knowing. Nothing really to worry about.
Q Debbie, Los Angeles, CA - Scanning books and editing them
Debbie wants to scan text and then edit it. Leo says she needs an optical character recognition program (OCR). IRIS makes excellent OCR software called READ IRIS PRO. It’s about $129. Does a great job and there’s a free demo. There’s also a MAC version. Nuance makes OmniPage Pro for the MAC.
Q David, San Diego, CA - When will we get fiber optic connections?
Well, it’s already down there. The issue is the number of phone switches the phone company use. That’s what limits bandwidth. But with fiber optic cable, bandwidth is practically unlimited.
Q Jenny, Garden Grove, CA - Playing .MOV in WMP.
Can she play quicktime files on Windows? Sure. Without Quicktime? Not really. However, Leo recommends downloading VLC Media Player from videolan. It’ll play anything. But you can convert it to something Windows Media Player can read as well. There are hundreds of converters out there. Leo likes RAD Video Tools.
Q Nick, Virginia - Connecting camera to his MAC
He wants to know if he can use his camcorder to do video chat. Yes. You can use any camcorder with a firewire connection. Especially in Skype. But you want to be sure you set it for standard mode, not hiDef mode.
