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Vol. 7, No. 2
1-11-07
1 DVR followup
2 Real time?
3 iPhone, OLPC, WoW, HD-DVD vs. B-R
4 Custom icons
5 Faster fresh loads
The adventure continues and shows some serious shortfalls in Microsoft’s XP MCE.
After last week’s great initial experience with picture quality and ease of use for the basic functions, I figured progressing to things like editing videos and burning DVDs and VCDs would be a snap. Alas, such was not the case.
I attempted to burn the Orange Bowl game to DVD straight
from
My first step was fruitless, which was searching for the
actual file in locations I expected and performing a full scan for video files
that I was familiar with. There was
nothing in the My Videos folder under My Documents, there wasn’t even a folder
for the
A quick Google search revealed that MCE saved files in the proprietary .ms-dvr format. A scan for those file types turned up the Orange Bowl video in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\Recorded TV. What an obvious place to put them, I should have looked there first!
Team member Micah Lackey offered up TweakMCE to fix that particular problem. Much like TweakUI for other versions of Windows, TweakMCE allows for easy settings changes for the OS without manually editing the Registry. I used the program to change the default folder for recorded video to C:\Video.
You can download that program from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/mcepowertoys.mspx.
Now for the second problem. TweakMCE offered no way to change the default
file type for saving video recordings and the
For a test file I recorded a half-hour program, then went searching for a conversion program. I was hoping to find something that would convert directly to .avi or .mpg but every program that made that claim failed miserably. I finally found one called DVR2WMV that will convert to the Windows Media Video format from http://www.etplanet.com/download/details.php?file=200.
This appears to be a good little program. It interfaces directly with MCE, will convert to .wmv automatically during the recording process and most importantly, it’s free.
It compressed my half-hour recording in .ms-dvr format (1.6GB) to a tidy little 363MB .wmv file with no noticeable loss of quality.
That’s two problems down, now for the third issue.
Even after shrinking the files to a manageable size, MCE will just burn them to a data DVD, not make an actual DVD disk that will play in any player. I can burn video file straight to CD or DVD with XP, Nero, Roxio, NTI or any number other software packages, MCE should offer a little something different straight out of the box.
Looks like yet more third-party software to make the OS do what it should do all on its own. I don’t know why I got my hopes up.
That’s enough for this week. I hate to think of three issues dealing with this thing so we’ll try something different next week. I’ll deal with the DVD conversion software and editing later.
Wonder if the iPhone will do this?
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
One word---iPhone:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Initiative unveiled its final
industrial prototype of the XO - a laptop computer with a toylike
look. But to say it's a toy is misleading:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0111/p17s01-stct.html
Blizzard Entertainment announced on Thursday that World of Warcraft is
now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world:
http://gaming.monstersandcritics.com/pc/news/article_1242325.php/World_of_Warcraft_passes_the_8_million_player_mark
In a city built on wagering, the smart money is staying on the
sidelines when it comes to the battle between two high-definition DVD
formats:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011101033.html
Please copy us on the good stuff, especially if it's written on the back
of a Benjamin ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcguru@gmail.com
www.mattstodayinhistory.com
Download of the Week
Last week, you got
to try the Vista-like Desktop Sidebar.
If you liked that little toy maybe you'll want to make your folders look
like they will in the new
Customize your
folder icons and icon backgrounds with
http://www.horizonum.com/en/products/graph/vista_toolbar.html
Art Maley
Email Question of the Week
Q: I just reloaded my
pc,windows XP, wiped clean and reinstalled from
image on pc...problem, getting all the updates took forever, I am on
dial-up. Question, is there a way to back up the updates before
reformatting pc..Thanks, Really enjoy your newsletter.
A: There are a couple
of ways to do this.
You can make a "slipstreamed" installation CD that
includes your
original Windows OS and all Service Packs, patches and hotfixes and
various applications. Instructions for this can be found at
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/
by clicking on the
Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced links on the upper left corner of
the page.
The other way is to get a good solid install, do all the
updates,
install all applications etc. until you have your PC just as you like,
then creating an image using something like Norton Ghost (which is the
only Norton product I'll allow anywhere near my PCs). It will make an
image of the current Windows load as is, including all updates and
settings. Booting from the CD or diskettes will create images in
chunks small enough to fit on CDs, but you'll need a second hard drive
for that option. It's available from
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10.
Either way you'll speed up your future fresh loads and save
a ton
of time installing third party applications...
Hope that helps and keep us posted...
Kevin Mefford
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