the freq. range of bluetooth is the freq. range it can transmit/receive, so it affects audio. the encoding and decoding seems to be more problematic these days as it introduces noise, artifacting, and distortion. different bluetooth codecs have different freq. range characteristics.

more like "Ermine vs. Video Codec"

Personally, if a movie is that good enough to watch (again), I'd rather see it in a better resolution than the flash codec.

Junk 'em.

Others have already posted links to video recording software. I've used Xfire to record small snips of games, but I don't know if it supports Minecraft. All of the recording programs (AFIK) record raw (i.e. uncompressed) video, so they will be very large files.

If he wants to put in fancy effects and titles, the video editing is probably going to be the most expensive if you go pay software. I don't know of any free programs that can do editing like that. If you just want to put the clips together and compress them, there are some good free programs that can do that. The free programs I've used are VirtualDub and HandBrake. Grab the ffdshow codec. I believe I read somewhere that if you encode your videos using H.264, it makes things easier when uploading to YouTube since it won't have to convert it, and the ffdshow codec can do H.264. I'd start out with free stuff before spending money to make sure it's something he's going to stick with. If he sticks with it, you're going to need to buy some more hard drives to keep backups on too.

I subscribe to and watch a few Minecraft LP channels. I like to watch how other people play and what they do because it gives me ideas of things to do in my own game. One also makes up a story and role plays, which is kind of cheesy but interesting.

So... even further away from the original tactical game then?

You quicktime events, get the hell off my lawn. When I was your age, quicktime was just a crappy codec we all made fun of.

spam television was why I cut cable in the mid 90's and turned to piracy of television.

in the early and mid 90's I worked for DirecTV and we had entire scripts to explain to complainers about commercials and also spam ranked by channel, at the time espn ranked #1 in spam. with like 10 mins of content to 20 mins of spam ratio.

We'd have these groups come in from the networks to explain to us and give us talks on marketing and such with commercials, and I finally woke up.

After I left the job to move onto working in network operations admin for ISP, I turned off pay for tv, and have been a television pirate ever since.

no commercials, no annoyances, ever. And it doesn't affect ratings, as I was on the inside and worked closely with nielson families at one point in my career. Which the ratings system is a joke anyhow. Which is why half the scifi stuff gets cancelled when it has huge support, most nielson families the ratings box is ran by the older father or mother who don't really care for the scifi stuff in the first place and would rather watch Andy Griffith reruns.


the networks of course hate me from 1996 to today non stop pirating, and thanks to companies like Western Digital who make set top box for pirates by pirates is their unofficial motto in the forums.

The WD TV live box supports all codecs normally used by pirates, it's like the vlc player of set top boxes, costs 100 bucks and will stream any downloaded video files off a shared folder on your pc or you can plug in a usb thumbdrive or hard drive. Or with added app you can install a torrent program that lets you stream while torrenting all in 1080p HD.

VLC is great for WinXP systems since you won't have to install a seperate DVD decoder, but as mentioned above most formats play back at lower quality than if using the original codecs. Another advatange of VLC is the ability to ignore QT and RMP, though the same can be said for Media Player Classic.

Nothing beats WinAmp for general audio playback though, including a lot of my old tracker mods from the 80s and 90s It really whips the llama's ass!

I use media player classic http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/
and the shark007 codecs http://shark007.net/

plays everything in the nice mpc design.

While VLC can indeed play many things built in, it plays them at a lower quality than if you played them with system codecs instead.

>> ^Yogi:

It's amazing how perceptive, funny, and intelligent Brian Williams can be...and yet still I couldn't watch his program without stabbing forks in my eyes. How can you be this way and not see that your own network...your own show is soo full of shit?


I think he's like this because of the people that surround him; how could you not be. I would also try to make many a joke that they don't understand unless they look up a turn of phrase--on their iPad (a glorified non-cellphone/unless you really need/want to spend that much money on one-"buggy and slow"-device).

Yes, I've used my Dad's. It certainly has some nifty features (which have all been invented or used already), but since it's Apple and it has the name i"x", it must be a game changing, revolutionary, cutting edge, never crashes, solves: world hunger, bi-polar, cancer, Fox News, heralds baby Jesus's return to Earth in North Western Missouri; and it has a shelf/I'm mean battery life of 30.62 days--or so I've heard.

It was semi-slow (that wasn't very surprising); slow in two departments: switching and starting between and new apps or processes. Second, the Wi-Fi connection was flaky (either not downloading or when downloading, even including the occasional burst speeds, it averaged 22 KBps (as I say below it should at least be going 100-200 KBps [this is still incredibly slow], as his connection has a download rate of 1.2-1.5 MBps). I'll play with that a bit more (as I think it may have been the wireless router as he has a 14-Megabit connection).

The games were fun and a few of the apps were great. But, I'd rather have a lightweight fully functional notebook PC with a 16:9 screen, atleast 720p, and a fully customizable network adapter. ...And to be blunt, I'd much rather have Windows 7 or even Vista (fully patched), as both have great functionality and support plus their 64-Bit support is great. Plus I can put in a full Blu-Ray drive that comes with PowerDVD.

Better applications, better games and support. Yes, this is an anti-apple rant as I think all of their once "highly revered" features: functionality, non-crashing, no hacking (hah!), graphical editing applications (which is a "contract" feature), sound editing applications (same as the last), and it's "ease-of-use" (which is now a completely moot point). Apple is still successful, because they find niche products that do well; like the Nintendo DS. The iPod (although the screens break a bit to early, my only complaint) and the iPhone are great products and fill a gap in a niche market. The iPad does the same thing, but from what I've tried it needed another year (plus some spec changes like a 16:9 screen going up to 720p (which is HD not this stupid licensing agreement so they can use the logo on a nice, but NOT HD screen (I think it's XGA or 1024x768), a connection port that could handle a multitude of devices: usb, 1394, ethernet, gamepads, speakers, etc I know it does some of this already, especially in the bluetooth department.

But, I feel that it should have come with the large flash/ssd drive, cell phone features (which they do have, it just costs an arm and a leg), more functionality for the "touch pen" (some mouse-like buttons etc...), FLASH & FULL browser SUPPORT (not having flash, plus other regular features "kills it" in a lot of ways)--Apple has to have their money/way though; I don't think they've got any clue when they shoot themselves in the foot), and a slightly faster (or duo-core) processor to help the experience feel more smooth; they have a: "1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed chip" were as a Intel Atom that has an nVidia extension may have been a better choice (I'm not to sure about battery usage for these guys, but from the devices it was used in it wasn't too bad).

So in the end (damn this was WAY longer than expected) I think they should have refined it for another year. Got some REAL user feedback; give it to people that don't work for the ass-kissing mainstream Apple press-core (yes, I'm talking about the likes of Engadget). Then, actually work on their gripes! People already seem willing to pay an arm and a leg for their stuff, so if the price goes up one-hundred, don't worry all your loyal'ii will still buy it. Anyway...this didn't happen, so I was left feeling underwhelmed by it and would instead by a nice laptop.

BTW, Brian Williams is the shit!

/This post may seem anti=Apple and in a lot of ways it is, but I would like them to make a good tablet (or awesome tablet--if they'd pull their collective heads out of their asses). It seems to me that any company, right now, that takes some time and makes a fast, reliable, easy-to-use, with 720p (and lots of video/codecs support)...will destroy Apple's iPad longterm (right now I just see Android tablets, but the ones I've seen are underwhelming).

//If someone has seen a good tablet coming out that has some of the features that I'm talking about, please throw in a reply.

An HD channel would essentially become a place where people tagged videos with high codec bit rates (less compression) which wouldn't actually constitute high definition. If the video was 720 or 1080 then it would be HD, but that's not how it would be used I don't think.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

What's an example of people who would be better off with non-apple products - but still buy Apple?

>> ^campionidelmondo:
I take it the OS will be restricted like the iPhone OS and won't be a slim version of OSX? So no flash, no firefox, no xvid/divx codec support, and so on. It's not widescreen? What is the AR, same as the iPhone?. No USB port??
I like Apple products. I don't use them much, but I recognize that they're providing valid alternatives for certain people. The funny thing is that alot of people subscribe to Apple products even though they'd be better off with non-Apple products. Ok so maybe this tablet "just works", but maybe that's just because it's missing half the stuff a tablet should have.

I take it the OS will be restricted like the iPhone OS and won't be a slim version of OSX? So no flash, no firefox, no xvid/divx codec support, and so on. It's not widescreen? What is the AR, same as the iPhone?. No USB port??

I like Apple products. I don't use them much, but I recognize that they're providing valid alternatives for certain people. The funny thing is that alot of people subscribe to Apple products even though they'd be better off with non-Apple products. Ok so maybe this tablet "just works", but maybe that's just because it's missing half the stuff a tablet should have.

Same here. I tried downloading it (Orbit downloader) and watch it from my hard drive, but then my video player (VLC) complains about codecs, and I have no audio. Blah...

>> ^Xax:
Hmm, the video loads, but I can't click on the play button. Anyone else?

Well, off the top of my head, how about Computer City, Packard Bell, Circuit City, SCO, SGI, DIVX (not the codec), Commodore, Amiga, XM Radio (with Sirius XM following closely behind), Atari, 3DO... most of these are companies who were once dominant until their consumers took their dollars to greener fields.

Oh, wait... You didn't want me to answer that, did you? You just wanted me to concede the point? My bad.

As for building schools and bridges; that's a different topic and one which I think is totally suited to government. I'm not anti-government across the board, I just think it ought to be kept in check and that it's not the miracle cure to all problems.

The federal government is too big for my tastes at the moment. I have an infinitesimally small influence on the federal government because my one vote is a molecule in a drop in the bucket. I have no real choice or say in any matter. All I can do is pick the preselected candidate whose lies I find most comforting. They're going to do whatever they want once the election is over.

If the local governments were the focus of power, at least the people would have more influence. There my one vote is a far bigger portion of the pie and it's not even unrealistic for me to run for office myself if I really don't feel represented. If power were more distributed it would be more difficult for lobbyists to buy power.

I like the idea of moving an hour away and having a drastically different government if I'm unhappy with how things are run where I live. Moving from state to state can give you a little bit of that nowadays, but I think it ought to be taken further.

I agree that neither smaller == better and larger == better are universal truths and that there's a happy medium to be found, but it sounds like my happy medium is smaller than yours. I guess that's why you're so popular with the ladies.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Can you give me a meaningful example of consumers bringing down a corporation by "wallet voting"? Of course not, because it is a ridiculous notion. Consumerism doesn't challenge corporate power, it increases it. At best, consumerism has the power to stop Coca-Cola from marketing a new cola that tastes like ass. Consumerism doesn't build schools or bridges. Consumerism is reactive, not proactive.

In a democracy, the power rests in the hands of the people, by way of 1 person: 1 vote. It was a populist response to older forms of government based around wealth, power and nobility. It is a testament to the success of democracy that so many now can take it for granted. Government power is people power (read=your power). Limiting the power of government limits the power of the people, and if you are interested in stopping corrupt corporations, public government is the only thing big enough and powerful enough to get that done.

It is very true that our democracy has been subverted in many ways, but through democracy, we can change this. I agree with you that apathy is one of the big enemies here, but I see much reason for hope. With increased access to information, the public has become much more aware of corporate abuse, and has become much more politically involved. Despite what Obama may or may not do in his 4-8 years in office, I think it is significant that he was able to break through the corporate propaganda and win on a very pro-people platform.

Last point, one of the great red herrings in this debate is that of 'size'. Notions about 'big' or 'small' government are completely arbitrary and meant to distract you from the more important qualities that you wisely mentioned: efficiency and effectiveness.

Government should not be shoehorned into some arbitrary concept of big or small. Government should be just the right size in needs to be, to be both efficient and effective. Getting rid of valuable social services in order to make the government smaller only makes the it less efficient and less effective.