"Charlie Tame" wrote in message
...
Sort of on that subject, and I have not yet investigated Zune... I was contemplating trying
out some media stuff...

A friend has some videos we'd like to transfer to DVD. Last time the company had some done
for work it cost a fortune and this time there are a few more of those (no copyright problem
whatsoever) and a few we'd just like to back up.

What a * nightmare

There are a couple of GUI Linux things, including a Nero that claim to do this. The non Nero
things plain don't work at all, the Linux Nero thing claims to do DVDs and recognizes one
when you put it in but then treats it like a CD and claims it is out of space

Sooo,,, I know I thought, shove XP in a drive and use Movie Maker.

Well it can read from the video card alright, pictures, but have to wire sound via the audio,
but then after about a minute it slows down, misses frames a dozen at a time and is generally
worthless, so try the ATI software that came with the card. That does work but saves a normal
DVD full as two separate files and I can't find an option to make lager than 4.7 GB so I
think okay, load these files into MM and join them, edit them and we make DVD from that.
Nope, reads them in alright but this time sound and no video, so threw that idea in the
trash.

So anyway I have these things in two files and get out the Nero 6 and Nero 7 that came
bundled with the motherboards... and away we go, except after an hour or more of "Converting"
it crashes with an "Illegal memory access" violation of some such nonsense.

Well I do have XP Media Center disk 2 but can I find disk 1? Nope, so I figure back to Linux
and try Linux MCE, BUT you really need to dedicate a machine for server duty or else use a
fast one, so I decide to go with the fast one, bit of a waste but hey I can always put it
back to normal use later, so off to CompUSA to get a Hauppage card and try that, of course I
pick one not compatible with Linux lists but hope for the best because it was the only
choice, at least it certified for Vista :- Yay.

So with almost $200 in cards and cables I put card in new PC and boot it with present Ubuntu
disk (Removable drive). Pfft, nothing, beep beep beep.

Okay, insert Ubuntu CD, reinstall. Do you want to use NVidia drivers, yes, Pfft, beep beep
beep.

So consult LinuxMCE docs, it says get Xubuntu 7.04, so I download it, install that, burn the
MCE disks and start install...

Install Xubuntu, do you want the Nvidia drivers, yes Pfft, beep beep beep. Install again, do
you want the Nvidia driver, Christ no, ok... Welcome to Xubuntu with no GFX acceleration.
Insert MCE disk 1, load the installer, run the installer, Pffft, beep black screen.

Well I didn't much fancy trying Myth since the problem seemed to be that card + Ubuntu, and
XP MM wasn't any good either so I figured try Vista32, expect nothing and hope for the best.

Hell of a long install time but amazingly installed with no problems, drivers all went
without a problem and it asked for about 40 updates (40 already, has it been that long) and
then suggested the NVidia driver... so I let the NVidia site find the driver, amazingly quick
download and ran perfectly right away.

Of course I don't have a TV antenna cable hooked up so I couldn't set it up but so far so
good and at least with this machine (All new parts again) Vista has been a total success
story... of course you'd know that being the last thing I tried.

So I am now copying files and only 9 hours 58 minutes to go

I am optimistic that this install of Vista is good though, it is MUCH faster than previous
ones and the CPU is not much faster, 4.8 instead of 4.2, and the MB is next release, so we
shall see.

BUT, if anyone at work so much as mentions VCR or DVD I shall likely be arrested for causing
some sort of physical harm

That's some ordeal you went through..... the things we do for friends. :-)

Although, there are times when a family member or friend has gotten
me involved with some computer or technology issue, it becomes
a mission and I actually enjoy it more than I let on. Especially, once the
issue has been fixed and they are happy. I try not to let them know I
might enjoy the challenge too much.... or the phone doesn't stop ringing. ;-)
Even more so since Vista came out, and computers are actually not what
I do for a living. But, that's okay. It all comes around. I have a neighbor
who has helped me numerous times when working on my 1987 Bronco,
and I've helped him. That Bronco was the very first automobile I bought
on my own, and I still have it. Don't drive it much, but it's special to me.


-Michael

MICHAEL wrote:
"Charlie Tame" wrote in message
...
Sort of on that subject, and I have not yet investigated Zune... I was
contemplating trying out some media stuff...

A friend has some videos we'd like to transfer to DVD. Last time the
company had some done for work it cost a fortune and this time there
are a few more of those (no copyright problem whatsoever) and a few
we'd just like to back up.

What a * nightmare

There are a couple of GUI Linux things, including a Nero that claim to
do this. The non Nero things plain don't work at all, the Linux Nero
thing claims to do DVDs and recognizes one when you put it in but then
treats it like a CD and claims it is out of space

Sooo,,, I know I thought, shove XP in a drive and use Movie Maker.

Well it can read from the video card alright, pictures, but have to
wire sound via the audio, but then after about a minute it slows down,
misses frames a dozen at a time and is generally worthless, so try the
ATI software that came with the card. That does work but saves a
normal DVD full as two separate files and I can't find an option to
make lager than 4.7 GB so I think okay, load these files into MM and
join them, edit them and we make DVD from that. Nope, reads them in
alright but this time sound and no video, so threw that idea in the
trash.

So anyway I have these things in two files and get out the Nero 6 and
Nero 7 that came bundled with the motherboards... and away we go,
except after an hour or more of "Converting" it crashes with an
"Illegal memory access" violation of some such nonsense.

Well I do have XP Media Center disk 2 but can I find disk 1? Nope, so
I figure back to Linux and try Linux MCE, BUT you really need to
dedicate a machine for server duty or else use a fast one, so I decide
to go with the fast one, bit of a waste but hey I can always put it
back to normal use later, so off to CompUSA to get a Hauppage card and
try that, of course I pick one not compatible with Linux lists but
hope for the best because it was the only choice, at least it
certified for Vista :- Yay.

So with almost $200 in cards and cables I put card in new PC and boot
it with present Ubuntu disk (Removable drive). Pfft, nothing, beep
beep beep.

Okay, insert Ubuntu CD, reinstall. Do you want to use NVidia drivers,
yes, Pfft, beep beep beep.

So consult LinuxMCE docs, it says get Xubuntu 7.04, so I download it,
install that, burn the MCE disks and start install...

Install Xubuntu, do you want the Nvidia drivers, yes Pfft, beep beep
beep. Install again, do you want the Nvidia driver, Christ no, ok...
Welcome to Xubuntu with no GFX acceleration. Insert MCE disk 1, load
the installer, run the installer, Pffft, beep black screen.

Well I didn't much fancy trying Myth since the problem seemed to be
that card + Ubuntu, and XP MM wasn't any good either so I figured try
Vista32, expect nothing and hope for the best.

Hell of a long install time but amazingly installed with no problems,
drivers all went without a problem and it asked for about 40 updates
(40 already, has it been that long) and then suggested the NVidia
driver... so I let the NVidia site find the driver, amazingly quick
download and ran perfectly right away.

Of course I don't have a TV antenna cable hooked up so I couldn't set
it up but so far so good and at least with this machine (All new parts
again) Vista has been a total success story... of course you'd know
that being the last thing I tried.

So I am now copying files and only 9 hours 58 minutes to go

I am optimistic that this install of Vista is good though, it is MUCH
faster than previous ones and the CPU is not much faster, 4.8 instead
of 4.2, and the MB is next release, so we shall see.

BUT, if anyone at work so much as mentions VCR or DVD I shall likely
be arrested for causing some sort of physical harm

That's some ordeal you went through..... the things we do for friends. :-)

Although, there are times when a family member or friend has gotten
me involved with some computer or technology issue, it becomes
a mission and I actually enjoy it more than I let on. Especially, once the
issue has been fixed and they are happy. I try not to let them know I
might enjoy the challenge too much.... or the phone doesn't stop
ringing. ;-)
Even more so since Vista came out, and computers are actually not what
I do for a living. But, that's okay. It all comes around. I have a
neighbor
who has helped me numerous times when working on my 1987 Bronco,
and I've helped him. That Bronco was the very first automobile I bought
on my own, and I still have it. Don't drive it much, but it's special
to me.


-Michael


Well if you are still following I set up cable TV connection and
everything worked just fine except no sound on live TV, but everything
else with Vista Media Center worked fine and Vista Movie Maker fixed the
files that XP Movie Maker refused to do, and of course it was pretty
quick being a fast machine.

So I looked on the Hauppage website and there's an updated driver so
tried that and again it worked perfectly, so now TV has sound, the
remote works as advertised and at this moment all is pretty good.

I've never had that trouble with XP Movie Maker before and the DVD
burning problem seems odd so I am going to play around a bit more with
things, however so far it looks like Vista has managed to get further
than anything else

But what's even more ironic was after all the damned hassle to try and
get these tapes from work (Lecture / training type stuff) copied, which
are fairly short, I chose to test this on a full length movie that just
happened to be the first long video I grabbed, which means now I broke
the law since it is a copyright work I didn't look to see what it was
and what's even worse it it's one I hate

I looked here for an answer for this problem
Wow! you guy's lost me in that one and I'll bet the original post also!!
Are there a step by step solution to this problem? ( Please just one )


"Charlie Tame" wrote:

zachd [MSFT] wrote:
If he really needs to do something that along, which sounds like the totally
wrong solution to the problem, I did spend a lot of my time coming up with a
solution that allows for something like that. I'm finalizing another
project first though (I'll probably post beta details later tonight).

Generally that's pretty much a flailing approach to trouble-shooting,
though. If you write the playback graph, the suspect component right now
falls outside of the player component boundary.

I've been fighting this "reinstall as a solution" idea for years now, but I
don't suspect people are ever predisposed to really listen. Brute force
('did you kick it yet?', 'have you tried turning it off and on?', 'did you
uninstall/reinstall?') will always be a popular solution no matter the
problem. =)

So if you like problems being identified (so that Vista becomes more stable
over time), it's good to avoid brute force solutions. If there really is
failing component, what is failing and why? That's the really great data to
gather, and the brute force reinstall method sacrifices all that interesting
data in the name of a quick fix. We all love quick fixes, though, so I
understand. =)



The other problem with quick fixes is that once found and publicized
people will keep using them, so if the problem is really due to some
config or hardware problem that only occurs when two apparently
unconnected events happen together then a solution never gets found,
instead you have 1000 users who all "Reset something" once a week

Seen enough things like electrical "Transients" in my time to know that
this can also happen "Out of the blue" and so on those occasions the
quick fix is appropriate.

Trouble is you don't know which it is the "First" time

http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html#codecs
covers this.

1: play content in wmp
2: be sad as no video shows up
3: right-click on content in wmp's playlist, select error details
4: click Web Help
5: view codec name of needed codec there
6: get it via "get the codec" link there

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
"Curt" wrote in message
...
I looked here for an answer for this problem
Wow! you guy's lost me in that one and I'll bet the original post also!!
Are there a step by step solution to this problem? ( Please just one )


"Charlie Tame" wrote:

zachd [MSFT] wrote:
If he really needs to do something that along, which sounds like the
totally
wrong solution to the problem, I did spend a lot of my time coming up
with a
solution that allows for something like that. I'm finalizing another
project first though (I'll probably post beta details later tonight).

Generally that's pretty much a flailing approach to trouble-shooting,
though. If you write the playback graph, the suspect component right
now
falls outside of the player component boundary.

I've been fighting this "reinstall as a solution" idea for years now,
but I
don't suspect people are ever predisposed to really listen. Brute
force
('did you kick it yet?', 'have you tried turning it off and on?', 'did
you
uninstall/reinstall?') will always be a popular solution no matter the
problem. =)

So if you like problems being identified (so that Vista becomes more
stable
over time), it's good to avoid brute force solutions. If there really
is
failing component, what is failing and why? That's the really great
data to
gather, and the brute force reinstall method sacrifices all that
interesting
data in the name of a quick fix. We all love quick fixes, though, so I
understand. =)



The other problem with quick fixes is that once found and publicized
people will keep using them, so if the problem is really due to some
config or hardware problem that only occurs when two apparently
unconnected events happen together then a solution never gets found,
instead you have 1000 users who all "Reset something" once a week

Seen enough things like electrical "Transients" in my time to know that
this can also happen "Out of the blue" and so on those occasions the
quick fix is appropriate.

Trouble is you don't know which it is the "First" time

"Nicholas Hall" wrote:

I do not know what has happened but when I try to play an AVI file in
windows media player I get sound but no picture. The first time I noticed
this is when I went to a BBC (UK website) and tried to watch an online
program. The program started and I heard sound,... but there was no picture.

When I tried to open a local file the same thing happened. If I open the
file in the new (BETA) real player it (the file) plays alright.

I have got the latest divx player installed (6.7).

I wondered if anyone could help me out with this problem

NIK