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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday July 18, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Scott Wilkinson is here to talk about Home Theater. Is HDTV dead? Yes. They are. But studios are now starting to reissue HD-DVD titles on Blu-ray. Setting up your audio with Blu-ray. Leo uses his PS3 as his Blu-ray player. Is it beyond just hooking it directly into your TV? Scott says that’s just using your TV speakers. There’s much more to it if you give it more effort. Are there issues? Scott says there can be. If you have a modern Blu-ray player with new Audio receiver, you can hook it up thorugh your HDMI cable and then, within your receiver, the receiver will determine what goes where. Low “freqs| should go to the sub-woofer even if the other speakers can handle it. This is because the best place to send them in your room is usually different acoustically as the higher frequencies. So make sure you specify your speakers as “small” so that all the frequencies below 80Hz get routed to your sub-woofer. Counter intuitive, but it makes sense when you hear it in your room.
Blu-ray players also have multichannel analog inputs. You can connect them into your receiver if they have the inputs. But it bypasses the receiver’s rerouting the low freqs to the subwoofer and they will go the smaller speakers. So, if you’re looking for a Blu-ray player, look for one that gives you the routing features to maintain that kind of control. Oppo is bringing out a Blu-ray player with these settings. It’ll also play Blu-ray audio discs. It’ll cost about $600, aint’ cheap, but it’ll be the best Blu-ray player out there for that.
Scott reviewed a $3,000 Meridian Boombox F80, and he says it’s really worth the money! The magic of Meridian is that they make fantastic high end stuff in small packages. The portable has radio/cd/dvd players built in. iPod dock is $400 extra even though you can plug your iPod in directly. It’s doing some serious digital signal processing. It’s a competitor to a Bose Acoustic Wave and Scott says it’s far superior. OLED screen, 80 watt power supply. It even has an alarm clock!
The one negative, don’t use it for your home theater because the DVD playback isn’t that great.
Hour 1
Q Richard, Poway, CA – BlackBerry calendar synching
Leo says that they want you to buy a smart phone to sync up and pay for their data service. Leo says cell phone companies act like Monopolies. They have exclusive deals with phones and won’t let you use other phones with their service. Our Chat room says that AT&T uses the BlackBerry Bold that will sync with Outlook. Call AT&T and tell them you don’t want the data plan. Also, ask another Verizon rep the same question as all reps sell on commission. So they may be limiting your options to get the kickback on selling that $30 a month for data. IN fact, in our chatroom, there are several who the Blackberry on Verizon without the data plan, so that tells Leo that this rep is taking you for a ride. Call Verizon and talk to the customer retention expert and tell them you want to get a free smart phone without a data plan or you’re leaving. Leo’s betting they’ll give it to you.
Q Zack, Milwaukee, WI – USB problems
His HP PC has USB issues. He plugs in his USB 2 device and it fails eventually and reconnects at USB 1.1 speeds. Driving him nuts. Leo says it sometimes happens due to low power. If it still does it with a larger power supply, then the theory may be that the USB controller is overheating and such, is slowing down. Try deleting the USB Hub controller and ports and let Windows reacquire them. It may also be a bad driver. But more likely, it’s a hardware problem and HP should really fix it. Zack says HP has been giving him the runaround. Zack agrees as his mother’s computer has the same problem. Leo says at this point, you need to replace the motherboard as it could be bad chipsets. Look to see if your chipset is a VIA chipset as they had that problem recently. This is HPs problem. Write a letter to the CEO of HP Mark Heard - and mention you talked about this problem on Leo’s radio show. You will eventually get some recompense on it. Sounds like a bad design for the model. Also, TWITTER it. Many companies monitor Twitter and last thing companies want is a PR problem. Chiefly HP which has had PR problems in the past.
Q Jeff, Hisperia, CA – video playing problems
Jeff downloaded a video from his church website and burned it onto DVD, but he can’t get it to play on his DVD player. Leo says that a DVD burned as a Data disc won’t be able to be played on his DVD player. It needs to be burned as a real DVD with VOB files, etc. That means DVD authoring. Leo recommends Roxio, Easy DVD Creator, Nero.
The good news is that under VISTA, you can burn a video disc DVD player using Vista. The program is called Vista DVD Maker. Press your windows key and type DVD Maker. Enter. Then you can burn a video DVD disc. Then you just have to be sure the video is in MPEG2 format.
Jeff also has a runtime error in Explorer that keeps popping up. It could be that while updating to Internet Explorer, that the update can’t write to the hard drive because you’re not running as an administrator. Right click and then select “run as administrator.”
He’s also sharing Wi-Fi with a neighbor but he’s having trouble accessing the signal. Leo says to try repositioning the router closer to a window to get a better line of sight.
Hour 2
Q Stan, Placentia, CA – Synching issues
Stan is having trouble hot synching his Handspring PDA. Leo says Stan is rapidly reaching the point where that PDA will just stop working. To replace it, the BlackBerry Bold is a great option as is the Palm Pre. But the PDA is dead thanks to smart phones.
Q Corinna, La Habra, CA – Popups on active x controls
Corinna is concerned with popups that ask if she wants something to run with ActiveX. Leo says that’s normal in Windows. Leo says it’s a security issue and is a foolish thing, but it’s standard Microsoft and Microsoft has locked it down. First, upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. You’ll be way more secure.
Things you can do to protect yourself is always run Windows update and get the latest crticial update patches.
Q Judy, Gunbarrell City, Texas – Karaoke
Judy downloaded some new karaoke files and her PC won’t play the MP4s. Leo says this is a codec issue. There isn’t much of a standard for codecs like in MP3. There’s not standard format for video. What you need, is to find the proper codec that can decompress the play the video. Try Quicktime. Free from Apple. It’ll playback in the Quicktime player. Another free option is VLC Media Player. Videolan.org. You can also download a basic codec pack from KLite from CodeGuy. It’s kinda sketchy, but at least WMP will play it back.
Q Jonah, Travers City, MI – Launching his own website
Jonah is launching a website for his youth group. But they need a free hosting option. They don’t want CMS (content management system). Generally speaking, the free hosting sites run CMS to get ads in them. Unfortunately, without CMS you’ll have to do your own hosting. For free, go with Wordpress.com. Try “nearly freespeech.net.” It’s about $20 a year. But not too bad.
Q Joe, Long Beach, CA – PC died, smoking. PC Recommendation
Joe’s PC died. He replaced the power supply. That didn’t do it. Leo said that if the power supply smoked, it could’ve easily spiked and bricked the motherboard. Can Leo give him guidance on what to look for in a new PC? He uses Pro Tools and Sony Vegas. And ProTools won’t work with a 64 bit machine.
Leo says first off, the hardware will be 64 bit. But unfortunately, the software won’t. And you could really use that extra boost in RAM for those applications. Leo says you can max out the RAM to around 3.5 GB and it should work fine. You can download the 32 bit version of Windows 7 and that’ll get you through March 2010. Maybe by then, ProTools will produce a 64 bit driver.
Then you can upgrade to Win 7 or move back down to XP.
Chipset wise, there’s only two really to look at – Intel’s Core 2 Duo and I7 and you really don’t need the I7. So get the Core 2 Duo unless you’re severely budget minded. But don’t go too cheap as they will use cheaper components. Stick with a brand like Dell.
Hour 3
Q Esby, Denver, CO – video podcasting
Esby does an audio podcast, but he also wants to do p video. He’s on a budget. Leo says that he doesn’t need to use 1080p high def video because most can’t see it. Leo recommends the Canon HV30 camcorder as his main camera in the studio. It shoots to tape, and Leo still likes that. Great archival benefit vs. a memory card or hard drive. It has mic inputs. Get a Beach Tech audio attachment interface. Use mics like the Shure SM58. With these three things, you can get true or even better broadcast quality.
Esby does his own podcast at Larsentm.com
Q Dennis, Northridge, CA – MAC
Dennis bought a MAC G5 without hard drive and installed a new hard drive but can’t install Leopard. Leo says you need to put the CD in the CD drive and hold down the C key when booting up. That will boot to the CD and run the OS. Then you can install Leopard to the hard drive.
Q Chris, Palo Alto, CA – Tried Win 7 RC1 on MacBook
Chris tried to install Win 7 on the Macbook, but he can’t get Vista sound drivers from Apple because he doesn’t have Leopard. Leo says Apple wants you to buy Leopard, so they won’t make it easy to get the drivers. Leo says there’s a sound driver at centralgadget.com. Note, however, that Leo hasn’t tried it, but it’s worth a go.
Another idea is to talk to a friend who has Leopard just for the drivers. (shhhh). That and buy Leopard.
Q Ed, Torrance, CA – Trouble starting Firefox
Ed thinks he may have a worm. He can’t start Firefox. He reinstalled it and it was okay for a brief time. And now it won’t run again. Leo thinks maybe Firefox is stored on a hard drive where the sector may be “flakey.” This could be a hint that your hard drive is starting to go. Try running Spin Rite by GRC.
Q Teddy, Ontario, CAN – Building his own computer
Teddy was wondering what processor he should build his rig around. Leo says it depends on what he’s going to be using it for and his budget. Gaming? Sure. Leo says that deciding on the processor lays the groundwork for motherboard, memory etc.
Two options – AMD and Intel. If you’re on a budget, then AMD is not a bad way to go. Performance is more important? Then Intel is the way to go. In a few months, Intel will be releasing the I5, which gives you a balance of value and performance. If you want the ultimate gaming style speed, then the I7. Go with the Core 2 Quad Core, like the 9800 if you’re going now. Then, you can save money and focus on what video card you’re going to use.
Q Christian, Hyattville, MD – WLAN Card trouble
Christian is having trouble with his WLAN connections. It just stopped. HP says to get an external adapter. Leo suggests checking for a conflict. Wireless cards have their own software and Windows has their own but defers to the wireless softwareUninstall the WLan software and try the Windows software. Also, see if there’s a driver update available from the WLAN manufacturer. That could help.
