Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday March 8, 2009
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Guests
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Hour 3
- Tom, Palo Alto, CA - Transferring video from DVD to MPEG4
- Nathan, San Jose, CA - Do computers wear out?
- Randytech, via Twitter - Is burn in still an issue for plasma?
- Rolo, San Bernadino, CA - Playing DVDs on PS3
- Gary, New York, NY - Mobile Smart phones and internet radio
- George, Encino, CA - MP3 recommendation
- Frank, Los Angeles, CA - email trouble
- David, La Puma, CA - Drive trouble
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Facebook sets its sites on Twitter
Even though Facebook has 60 times as many members as Twitter, Facebook is going to try and incorporate Twitter-like functions.
New Mac Pros arrive. More expensive, slower.
The MacPro has been updated - starting at $2700 w/out monitor. And they run slower with existing software. And the video cards are lousy! How does Cupertino get away with this?
Woman ripped off by Radio Shack
She bought a $99 netbook from Radio Shack and the fine print said she had a 5GB cap. Charges over that are over $1 a MB. She got a $5,000 bill! So she’s suing. And rightly so!
Guests
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
Today, Chris is talking about making the switch from film to digital. It’s not as drastic a change as you may think. There are still lenses, shutters, apertures. In fact, Chris believes there’s nearly no difference other than the recording medium in DSLRs. Point and shoots are a little different, granted. There is that shutter lag, but that has gotten much better the last year or two. And the quality of the images are far better with new presets, auto settings, faster focusing and more accurate light meters.
And instead of film, the image gets written to a memory card. Leo wants to know how much mega-pixels do you need? Chris says that depends, but sensors with 10–12MP have reached the resolution of film. Is there a difference in quality? Chris says that depth of field is what causes an image to look more “film like.” The larger the sensor, the better the depth of field, the more film like the image.
And don’t forget our assignment - DECAY. Take a picture that illustrates the word or concept of decay and upload it to Flickr. Tag it with the TECH GUY group and we’ll talk about them!
Hour 1
Q Justin, Palo Alto, CA - Recording in his house
Justin is a musician and records music in his home, but every time he records he gets a different sound. He’s not sure why. Leo says that the sound that’s happening is called “phasing,” where two microphones are recording at once and they cause a “whooshing” sound between them when they get out of phase. The tracks can also be out of sync, causing the whoosh as well. But Leo is going to have to defer to audio engineers on this one.
BTW - Justin’s site is http://www.myspace.com/acousticdoom. Nice stuff!
Q Joe, Petaluma, CA - Bit by a Virus
Joe got nailed by a trojan and tried a system restore. But now he’s lost sound and other basic computer functions. Leo says that viruses now hook into critical system files and when they were removed, bye bye to those system files. Hackers can also work into your system restore as well. You can use the recovery disc to fix/repair the system, but really, the only sure thing you can do at this point is to start over. Back up your data, then format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Then update it to the recent patches. Nice, eh?
Then, once you have it back the way you want it, use DriveSnapshot to image the install and if it happens again, you can reinstall the image in minutes rather than reinstall the OS from scratch.
Q Ken, San Francisco, CA - Recording from cable DVR box to DVD
Ken wants to back up shows he likes from Cable and record them onto DVD. Leo says that the MPAA is paranoid that everyone will setup blankets in their front yard and sell pirated DVDs! Leo says you can’t really get the data off your DTR digitally. You can, however, exploit the analog hole and record it that way. Connect your DVD recorder to your DVR using the composite cables. Press play on the show, record on the recorder and you can do it that way.
You can also connect the Neuros OSD to your box and copy shows directly. You can daisy chain your own hard drive that way as well.
Ken also wants to learn video editing. Leo says that in Ken’s area, BAVC teaches affordable video editing. Leo recommends Adobe Premiere Elements.
There’s also a law that states that cable companies must make DVRs with firewire available upon request as there are firewire TV sets. So there are some cases where firewire can be used to take programming off DVRs digitally.
Loquacious in the chatroom says to check out Lynda.com for video instruction. There’s also Adobe’s own CLASSROOM IN A BOOK series. Excellent for learning Premiere.
Hour 2
Q Paul, Camarillo, CA - Watching flash on his iPhone
Paul wants to watch flash video on his iPhone, but Apple won’t allow it. Even though Adobe has it ready for the iPhone and other smart phones. Leo is baffled as to why. Could be battery life, support issues with Adobe, even security concerns.
Paul also wants to make a snapshot of his hard drive for backup. Leo recommends Drive Snapshot. But you should also have hard backups and off site backups. You don’t want to lose everything like Francis Ford Coppola did.
Q Dave, Tampa, FL - Uploading to YouTube
Dave is having trouble uploading the video he recorded to YouTube. Leo says he may have an incorrect format. In general, H.264 is the best format to upload which will give you the best quality and there are a lot of free converters online including MPEG Streamclip.
Q Jeff, San Jose, CA - Home wired for sound
Jeff just moved into a new house where the house is wired all over with speakers. He’s got 5 in ceiling and 1 center speaker. 2 passive sub woofers, etc. What does he need to take advantage of it? Leo says he agrees with the HiFi store that a big Amp is necessary due to the watts per channel requirements. And Leo’s confident you can get a single box to handle it all. Leo also thinks that two sub woofers is overkill. Just look for a good 5.1 surround sound system that drives a single sub woofer and don’t worry about #2.
All in one remotes is his second question. Leo suggests an RF based remote like Harmony.
Q Adam, Watsonville, CA - Scanning data before restoring it
Adam calls in to suggest that when people do a restore, they should scan their data on backup to be sure they don’t get reinfected. Leo agrees. Restore your system and update it. Install your AVS. And then scan your data.
Q Kona, Marysville, WA - Programming
Kona is youngin’ who would like to get into computer programming. How does it do it? Back in the day, computers had a program called BASIC which came with the computer. But these days, there’s a wide variety of programs which can be used to create everything from applications to games.
For Kona’s age, there are great tools over at ALICE. It’ll teach you object oriented programs in a 3D environment. Another tool that Leo likes is called SQUEAK, made by Disney.
Lastly, the language Python is a great language to learn for writing a computer program. Read How to think like a Computer Scientist. It’ll teach you how to think like a programmer.
Q Donald, San Francisco, CA - HDTV doesn’t look like HDTV
Donald just bought and HDTV but didn’t realize that he needs to have the HDTV subscription from Comcast and a box. Which is true. But what about HDMI? Leo says that you can use Component, but HDMI cables are best because it keeps everything digital. Also, you need to set your HDMI menu setting to display the images in 1080i. Set your “input” to HDMI.
All stations in San Francisco broadcast in HiDef and you can get it over the antenna for free! The HiDef quality is better than what you get on cable and satellite. But what you need is an ATSC tuner - which you may already have in your TV. So check that out.
Hour 3
Q Tom, Palo Alto, CA - Transferring video from DVD to MPEG4
Tom transferred some video from VHS to DVD but now wants to make MPEG4 files of them. Leo likes HANDBRAKE. H.264 is quickly becoming the standard from Cellphone to HiDef.
Q Nathan, San Jose, CA - Do computers wear out?
Nathan wants to know if computers actually wear out. Leo says that computers don’t wear out, they just become obsolete as bigger applications require more power and speed. Our software demands usually mean we give up on our rigs long before they could actually wear out.
And when the computer costs more to upgrade than to buy a new one, that’s usually where Leo suggests it’s time to get a new machine.
Q Randytech, via Twitter - Is burn in still an issue for plasma?
Leo says that burn in is much better than it used to be with plasma, but it’s still something to be careful of should you be doing something like play games where you’re doing something that very rarely changes. So it’s important to limit the time your playing games on your plasma or burn in could still happen.
Q Rolo, San Bernadino, CA - Playing DVDs on PS3
Rolo would like to watch DVDs with his PS3 DVD player. Can he? Leo says absolutely. In fact, the PS3 Blu-ray was, up until recently, the most popular Blu-ray player because you can get a gaming platform to boot. And it’s a great DVD player, even for standard definition DVDs.
Q Gary, New York, NY - Mobile Smart phones and internet radio
Gary wants to know if smart phones that have wifi can be used to listen to internet radio. Leo says absolutely. Just remember you need the unlimited data plan or it could get REAL expensive.
Q George, Encino, CA - MP3 recommendation
George would like an MP3 player that also plays video. Leo says that his favorite is the iPod Touch. The Zune is a close second.
George also wants to know what to expect when he moves from Vista to Windows 7. Will there be any hiccups? Leo says it’s too soon to tell, but he’s been using Windows 7 on several machines and loves it.
Q Frank, Los Angeles, CA - email trouble
Frank is having trouble getting his SBC/yahoo email. Leo says you may have to be updating your device drivers. But if it’s not your computer, then the problem lies with your email provider.
There’s probably a malformed email that is causing the mail to crash when he reads it. Leo says that to clear out your email will solve the issue. Set up your mail to download the yahoo mail and store it locally. Then, clear out the email account and it should solve the problem.
Q David, La Puma, CA - Drive trouble
Leo says to get into safe mode and back up your data, because the drive is beginning to fail. You’ll also want to get the ultimate boot CD (UBCD) to try and access the drive directly.
Thanks gang! Have a great geek week!
